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The Pawnee Chief is an American helicopter that was designed and produced by Pawnee Aviation of Longmont, Colorado and later McCook, Nebraska. It was first flown in December 2005. Now out of production, when it was available the aircraft was supplied as a kit for amateur construction. ==Design and development== The Chief was designed to comply with the US ''Experimental - Amateur-built'' aircraft rules. It features a single main rotor, a two-bladed tail rotor, two or three-seats-in side-by-side configuration in an enclosed cockpit with a windshield and skid-type landing gear. The standard engine used is a V-8, liquid-cooled, four-stroke, Chevrolet automotive racing powerplant of derated to . The aircraft fuselage is made from welded 4130 steel tubing with a composite cockpit fairing. Its diameter two-bladed rotor is made from carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer. The aircraft has an empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . With full fuel of the aircraft has a payload for crew and baggage of . The cabin width is .〔〔 The Chief was the subject of a protracted development time line. The company explained the long development, "we were determined not to put a product on the market before its time. We have seen other kits sold that did not complete their development and testing. Their customers paid for completion of the development and in reality did much of their testing.. By delaying our availability project until it was truly completed, we will avoid placing unnecessary a lot of "Airworthiness Directives" and flight restrictions on our aircraft."〔 In December 2005 first kit delivery was forecast for as early as January 2006, with a production rate of eight to ten per month and a first-year production of 50 to 60 kits expected for 2006. In 2005 when the aircraft first flew the company reported having "700 interested customers". The manufacturer estimated the construction time from the supplied kit as 150–200 hours.〔〔 The company seems to have gone out of business in late 2008. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pawnee Chief」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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