The TCD Sherwood Ranger was designed by Russ Light as a successor to the
Micro Biplane Aviation Tiger Cub, a foldable biplane built in
Worksop. Almost 100 Tiger Cubs, which Light partly designed, appeared on the UK civil aircraft register. The Sherwood Ranger is named after an inn in
Retford,
Nottinghamshire, perhaps the only aircraft to be named after a public house. The Sherwood Ranger is a
single bay biplane, its wings having 3.83° of
sweepback, 3° of
dihedral on the lower wing alone but no
stagger. They have constant
chord and are of mixed construction, with single aluminium spars and drag struts, plywood covered D-box
leading edges, ply and
spruce ribs and fabric covering. There are externally interconnected
Frise ailerons on both upper and lower wings. The latter are mounted on the lower
fuselage longerons and single,
faired, deep chord, I-shaped
interplane struts position the upper wing well above the fuselage, assisted by central
cabane struts. These latter struts, together with the wing centre section, are part of the tubular aluminium fuselage structure. Additional bracing is provided by two
flying wires and two
landing wires on each side. The wings fold for transport. The fuselage of the Sherwood Ranger has an aluminium tube structure, with ply formers and spruce stringers, and is fabric covered apart from
glass fibre mouldings in the engine and cockpit areas and forming the rear decking. The nose is quite slender; the separate open cockpits are in tandem with the forward one a little behind the leading edge of the wing and the other under the trailing edge, where a slight upper wing cut-out improves the pilot's view. The
fin is integral with the fuselage structure and carries a deep, rounded
rudder which extends to the lower fuselage. The
tailplane, mounted on top of the fuselage, has an unusually low
aspect ratio and is almost semicircular in plan. These horizontal surfaces are thin and without
camber. Separate
elevators allows rudder movement between them. The tailplane is braced to the top of the fin and to the fuselage bottom. The fixed
conventional undercarriage has mainwheels, fitted with brakes, on split axles mounted from a
bungee sprung compression frame below the central fuselage and hinged by faired, V-form legs to its lower longerons. There is a bungee sprung,
castoring tailwheel. The Sherwood Ranger first flew in 1992. Several versions of the Ranger have been built, with different maximum take-off weights (MTOW) and engines. The early aircraft were built as the LW variant, with a MTOW of 390 kg (860 lb) and with engines in the 37-49 kW (50-65 hp) power range. Engines fitted include the
Rotax 532, the similar
Rotax 582 two cylinder
two stroke engine and the
Jabiru 2200 flat four. Some were later built as, or upgraded to, an MTOW of , the ST variant standard. Some of these use the Rotax 582 or Jabiru engines and one is fitted with a
BMW RS1100. The LW is no longer offered but the ST is available for building from plans, kit or quick build kit. The XP variant has short span wing ( to provide aerobatic capability and can be fitted with engines rated up to . Twelve Sherwood Rangers kits were produced by TCD until the death of Russ Light, after which the company ceased to trade. TLAC acquired the rights in 2007, flew their first prototype on 31 July 2009 and in 2010 were working on an XP prototype with the target of aerobatic approval. ==Operational history==