Hirth F23 plans: Let's go racing

[mrpilotron]

I've seen the Hirth F23 mentioned in a few other threads and it seems to enjoy some popularity with other small aircraft, but has anyone actually finished a flying Badland with one of these engines? My F3 is fully expected to not make Part 103 weight and that's okay. I'm building it to be a purpose-built STOL competition toy and it will get an N-number. I watched Jonas Marcinco's winning run in the Sport Class last month at Pinedale WY in a very lightweight Kitfox4 running a simple 100hp Rotax. Density altitude that day was over 10k feet so he was only making maybe 65hp. He beat out some airplanes with 2x the horsepower and 5x the money with just a simple, no-frills, lightweight plane. I'm planning to go even farther into that realm and run a half-naked F3 with a slightly modified wing and the absolute maximum horsepower I can safely stuff into it. This is what Steve Henry does in the Unlimited Class and it works really well, but I don't have his income stream to support a machine of that caliber.

[LA F2 Flyer]

I'll have to look for that Jonas video...it's been a minute since I followed his adventures on YouTube. It would have been fun to see him try the competition in his Airbike, assuming he still has it. haha

[Flex]

Not aware of anyone actually mounting an F23 to their Badland, yet. Closest you'll get to a review of that combo would be the previous Belite. Good write-up in Kitplanes April 2011.

FYI, I got a reply yesterday from Hirth supplier NW UAV. For the F23, current cost is approx $13.5K fuel injected, $11.7K carbureted.

[mrpilotron]

Those are the numbers I got 10 months ago too. The carbureted version was 6,200 5 years ago. I was really hoping the prices would drop a bit now that supply chain chaos is settled down.