Stewart Aircraft was formed in 1961 when I designed the Headwind. The name "Headwind" was derived as a bit of fun by naming it the opposite of the Whitman "Tailwind", a very fast, two place cabin airplane. The Headwind is constructed from steel tube, wood and fabric and is a combination of several designs and concepts that I developed over a period of several years previous to building the airplane.
The prototype Headwind was built over a period of 5 months and was first flown on March 28, 1962. The airplane flew well right off the drawing board but in the intervening years, many structural (to simplify and make it easier to build) and aerodynamic improvements have been made to the design so that now the only part of the original design still used is the engine mount and the portion of the fuselage between the cockpit and the stabilizer. Everything else is new.
In the forty some years that the Headwind has been in existence, many examples have been built all over the world. Well over one hundred airplanes are now in service powered by a variety of engines, however, only the Volkwagen engine is shown on the plans. No other engine data is published.
The Headwind was the first design to use the Volkswagen engine in the United States and much development work was required to get the engine to it's full potential as an aircraft engine. The most important development in the engine work was the design and patenting of a propeller speed reducing unit (PSRU) to allow the engine to develope it's full horsepower. I named the unit the "Maximizer" and have the name protected. This PSRU design now forms the basis of all belt driven small engine PSRU's in use worldwide on engines powering everything from Ultralights to airboats. A twin engine version was also designed, developed and patented and flown extensively in the middle 1970's and early '80's in various Ultralight aircraft.
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Stewart Aircraft was formed in 1961 when I designed the Headwind. The name "Headwind" was derived as a bit of fun by naming it the opposite of the Whitman "Tailwind", a very fast, two place cabin airplane. The Headwind is constructed from steel tube, wood and fabric and is a combination of several designs and concepts that I developed over a period of several years previous to building the airplane.