Starlet Flying

"She's a beauty!"

STARLET SA500    "She's a beauty!" - Top aerobatic expert Art SchollThe STARLET SA500 is easy and economical to build and fun to fly. It is stable and relatively fast. The parasol wing makes it especially suitable for operating out of rough field. Although a small airplane, the Starlet has a roomy cockpit suitable for a large adult. Construction follows standard Stolp Starduster practice. All basic structure except the wing is made of 4130 steel tubing. The wing uses spruce spars and plywood ribs with cap strips. The airfoil is a Clark Y, High-Lift. Optimum engine is the 108 HP Lycoming; however, engines of 85 HP to 125 HP may be used. The Starlet will fly well with Rotax, Subaru, Suzuki, or Continental engines. The drawings are quite complete and easy to follow, with ribs printed to full size. The drawings are printed on an offset press so they will not fade and shrinking is held to a minimum. All material kits are available from Stolp Starduster Corporation at reasonable prices. In addition, we can furnish fabricated wings ready to cover, complete welded assembly, turtlebacks, nose cowls, wheel pants, windshields, aluminum fuel tanks, etc. Most items are in stock at all times. "Some people come up with a really sexy airplane design once in a while. Some other people do it habitually." - Sports Planes magazine click on images

Taxi Back of Stolp Starlet

A Starlet Takeoff

N2300 - Second Prototype with Lycoming O-235 engine

EAA’s Starlet prototype (N2300) comes from a distinguished line of outstanding airplanes designed by Lou Stolp, offering a family of kits for homebuilders with a common theme -- open cockpit, single and two-place, fully aerobatic machines that are powerful, stout, graceful, and perhaps most important, with lines conveying the basic message which draws most to aviation in the first place: “This airplane would be fun to fly!” In the words of the late Art Scholl, the legendary aerobatic and movie stunt pilot who conducted early some of the early test flights, (the Starlet) “is probably one of the prettiest of all the little homebuilt airplanes I have ever seen, and I think its name is very appropriate … Starlet.”

A 1970 follow-on to Stolp’s highly successful Starduster biplane series, the Starlet was aimed at a specific market niche -- customers seeking the Stolp experience, but through a simpler design and construction process, i.e., eliminate the lower wing and step down in horsepower. The resulting single place, high wing parasol got the builder into the air faster, with more dough left in his pocket, and with a sturdy airplane that was just as comfortable operating on rough turf as it was on paved runways.

N2300 actually is the second Starlet prototype produced by the Starduster Corp. of Riverside, California. A 1500cc Volkswagen engine producing only 48bhp, which proved to be underpowered, propelled the first but sufficient, proof of the Stolp design concept. The second prototype, powered by the 108 hp Lycoming O-235C-1, dazzled everyone who flew it and led to kits with 85hp to 125hp engine options from Lycoming, Rotax, Subaru, Suzuki and Continental. Completed Starlets soon were showing up at fly-ins with the proud builders-owners attracting numerous admiring glances and questions about performance. N2300 also has a distinctive audible signature that adds to its appeal. The 108 hp Lycoming has short stacks, which produce a most pleasing, head-turning, rumbling/crackling growl in the pattern and on fly-bys.

The stylish Starlet is compact, with a length of just 17 feet and a wing span of 25 feet. Normal gross is 1,000 lbs, and the O-235C-1 with a metal McCauley prop produces an easy 1,200fpm climb and 100mph cruise at 6.8gph. Fuel capacity of 22 gals (13 in the wing center section and 9 in a fuselage tank forward of the cockpit) offers a 300-mile range with reserve.

Handling is responsive and stable, much like a Piper Super Cub, and the Starlet likes about 80mph on the approach to a normal flare and stall at about 60 mph. Once accustomed to the Starlet, the average pilot will find takeoffs averaging 300 feet and landing rolls of 400 feet. It’s fun flying at its finest, as long as the pilot remembers the airplane is very much like its namesake … she demands your undivided attention.

This aircraft was researched by EAA volunteer, Jerry Cosley, who donated N2300 to the museum in 1981.

• Stolp Starlet Design and Construction
• Stolp Starlet Specific History
• Stolp Starlet Specifications