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The Georgia Gorilla is not a new design. It is an evolution of work done by many
others. The starting point of the Gorilla is the Lee Liddle designed Smack and
Roy Appleton’s upgraded version the Smack II. The Gorilla uses the same
plastic electric fence post material as Roy’s Smack II. Don Pruitt took the design
to its current level by changing the nose and tail moments, enlarging the tail
surfaces, and changing the wing airfoil to the Clark YH with a somewhat blunted
leading edge. AeroWright, the supplier of the foam cores for the Gorilla calls the
airfoil the "Clark M" on their web site.
The secret behind the Gorilla’s success is its wing design. The wing is large
enough to fly the airplane entirely on lift and is structurally designed to absorb
and dissipate shocks from mid air collisions. The plastic fence post is not a rigid
structure. If it were rigid the shocks from collisions and ground impacts would
shatter it. Because it is not rigid it flexes slightly upon impact to absorb almost all
the forces and energy accompanying the collision.
The Georgia Gorilla is designed for Slow and Survivable Combat (SSC), but is
also suited to Open B combat if the CG is kept at 2.75” from the leading edge at
the root of the wing. The plane is sensitive to small changes to the CG and it is
better to have the CG at less than 2.75” than anything greater.
