The Osprey Osprey 2, also known as the Pereira Osprey 2 after its designer, is an amphibious sport aircraft designed for homebuilding.[1] Plans have been sold since the mid-1970s. George Pereira designed the Osprey 2 to address the two most frequent criticisms of his Osprey I aircraft: its lack of a passenger seat and its inability to operate from dry land.[2] An exercise that began as a series of modifications to the original design in January 1972 eventually turned into a complete redesign of the aircraft,[2] with the resulting Osprey 2 flying in April 1973.
Like the original Osprey, the Osprey 2 is a mid-wing cantilever monoplane with a flying boat hull and a single engine mounted pusher-fashion in a nacelle mounted above the fuselage on struts.[3] A passenger seat is provided side-by-side with the pilot and the cabin is fully enclosed. Retractable tricycle undercarriage is provided for land operations, the main units of which fold into the undersides of the wings.[2] [3] Construction throughout is of wood and skinned in plywood.[2] Some of the hull contours are formed with polyurethane foam covered in fiberglass.[3] [4] [5]
The aircraft is designed so that it may be constructed by amateur builders with restricted space available – Pereira's prototype was built in a workspace 16 ft × 26 ft (4.8 m × 7.9 m) and took 1,300 hours to complete.[2] To simplify construction, no molds are required, and even the canopy is formed by a simple bend in an acrylic sheet without any compound curves.[6]
Osprey markets the aircraft as sets of plans rather than kits, and had sold over 1,000 copies by 1985.[3] Over 500 examples have been completed and flown.[7]