(Zivko) Edge 540 @·AIRCRAFTUBE

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Zivko Edge 540

The Zivko Edge 540 manufactured by Bill and Judy Zivko's company, Zivko Aeronautics, Inc, near Oklahoma City, is a world-class, highly aerobatic aircraft. Capable of a 420 degree per second roll rate and a 3,700 foot per minute climb rate, it has been flown to victory on the international unlimited aerobatics circuit several times since the mid-1990s. The predictable comportment as well as the symmetric profile of the wing gives the Edge 540 almost same characteristics in normal or inverted flight. The very high lift to weight ratio is also very important role when flying at low speeds.

A tandem-seat version is sold as the Edge 540T. With an empty weight of only 1260 lbs (or 570 kg) and the same engine as the single seat version, the Edge 540T has almost identical characteristics, compared to the 540. The 540X version is one of the aircraft commonly used in the Red Bull Air Races.

When Bill Zivko met Jim Bede for the first time, Bede was hard working on the BD-5 mini-jet project and Zivko lent his talented hand in building up this aircraft. Zivko worked with Bobby Bishop for years maintaining his air show BD-5J. After the demise of the Bede project, Bill Zivko was contacted by Burt Rutan, who asked Zivko to come work with him at Scaled Composites. This was the time the famous Beech Starship project got on running and Bill moved his family to the Mojave Desert to become shop manager for Scaled Composites. Bill and Judy spent a number of years in the Oklahoma City area before relocating their shop into brand new facilities on the Guthrie airport.

The high-G world of unlimited aerobatics was proving too much for the Stephens - Lazer type monoplane wings. Besides being a safety item, getting wood of high enough quality and long enough to make the 24 foot spar wasn't easy and was becoming increasingly expensive. Zivko looked at the wing and immediately saw an application for composites. Since 10 G's wasn't unusual in an unlimited sequence, Bill decided his Lazer replacement wing would have a safety factor of two, giving the wing a 20 G ultimate.

The final design combined some of the industry's best. John Roncz designed a new airfoil that would have a low stall speed, would corner well and have predictable, well-behaved characteristics at both ends of the envelope. The preliminary wing layout was done by Paul Finn, while Dave Boldenow, a Boeing composite engineer, did the structures.

Equipped with Zivko Aeronautic's wing, the Edge ZA-1 soon earned a reputation for giving the Lazer a new lease on life. In fact, Livko even began custom building airframe components for customers who wanted their own airplane that incorporated the wing along with a bunch of other modifications engineered by Zivko. The Edge 360 was born.

Bill and Judy looked at the track record being established by their wing and decided the next obvious move was to build their own high performance airplane around that wing. They wanted an airplane that could successfully bump heads with Sukhois and Extras. That meant going to a six cylinder, the IO-540 replacing the Lazer's 0-360.

By the time Zivko Aeronautics was getting ready to start into their own airplane project, they were already a production shop which had a client list including names like Tinker Air Force base, Leo Loudenslager and a most interesting client named Aurora Flight Sciences. Aurora's products were ultra-high altitude, unmanned aircraft which were aimed at doing all sorts of environmental surveying. The current production aircraft, the Perseus B has a loiter time that can be extended up to four complete days. Obviously these airplanes rely on light weight and long wings to do their thing. And that's where Zivko Aeronautics comes into the picture. The huge 59 foot wings wouldn't be possible without composites and Zivko built not only the wings, but all composite components including the tail and fuselage as well.

With their moves into the big time world of composite engineering, a full-time engineer, Todd Morse (his great grandfather invented the code), was added to the staff along with complete CADCAM capabilities. All of this experience and capabilities were brought to bear on their unlimited bird, the EDGE 540. This single seat version flew for the first time in May 1993.

The fuselage of this aircraft was relatively traditional, having evolved from the Lazer with careful attention paid to those areas where several decades of competition have revealed weak points. With the help of specialized computer software, the team proceeded to design an entirely new fuselage that would eliminate all those problems. Although the fuselage looks to be a Lazer derivative, it was actually a completely new computer designed structure.

On the Edge 540, the quest for ever-lower weight brought composites into play in many areas other than primary structures. Practically every external fairing which would normally be made of aluminium would be carbon fibre. This included the turtle deck, canopy frame and even the instrument panel. The cowling, complete with nose bowl and all fasteners would now barely weight 12 pounds.

The super slick and tight fitting canopy frame doesn't have a bolt or screw showing because the canopy, as well as all Plexiglas panels, is all bonded in place rather than being bolted. This makes for light, rigid installations that can be replaced by simply sanding the back of the mounting flange away and bonding in a new piece.

Wings are equipped with removable panels for easy inspection and maintenance. Each wing has an integrated fuel tank for ferry flights and the left wing has an 8 gallons reservoir for the smoke system. The acrobatics reservoir is integrated in the fuselage.

The Lycoming IO-540 engine, modified by Lycon, California, can be bought with a compression ratio between 9.5 to 1 and 11.5 to 1, corresponding to a power between 320 and 380 hp.

In the Edge 540 kits or finished aircraft, the propeller of choice would be a three-blade, variable pitch composite Hartzell.

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Zivko Edge 540

  • Role : Aerobatics and racing.
  • National origin : United States.
  • Manufacturer : Zivko Aeronautics.
  • First flight : 1993.

    • Specifications (Edge 540)

  • Length : 6.27 m (or 20 ft 7 in).
  • Height : 2.87 m (or 9 ft 5 in).
  • Wingspan : 7.42 m (or 24 ft 4 in).
  • Wing area : 9.1 m² (or 98 ft²).
  • Empty weight : 531 kg (or 1,170 lb).
  • Loaded weight : 703 kg (or 1,550 lb).
  • Max takeoff weight : 816 kg (or 1,800 lb).
  • Max speed : 426 km/h (265 mph).
  • Rate of climb : 1,189 m/min (or 3,700 ft/min).
  • Roll rate : 420°/sec.
  • Powerplant : A modified Lycoming IO-540.
  • Power : 340 hp (or 254 kW).
  • Power/mass : 0.472 hp/kg (or 0.214 hp/lb).

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Zivko Edge 540 : Your comments on this subject
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