I was thinking of keeping my camping plane about the size of a Piper Tri-Pacer that being 30 foot wingspan and 20 feet long.

But thinking it over and crunching numbers I think going with more wing area is better for low end performance. This will give the design more utility over all for general use, in the end it's all about having a safe and enjoyable flying airplane.

So what tradeoffs am I looking at? The wingspan will grow to 36 feet this will lower the stall speed to 45 mph clean and 32 mph with flaps. What do the changes needed do to the cruise speed? Less than you think. With the added wingspan and longer fuselage the 70 horsepower cruise speed drops from 125 to 120 mph, that's with a calculated fuel burn of 4.5 gallons an hour, but it you push it it will do 135 at 80% power on a 125 horse power plant but the fuel burn is now 6.6 gallons an hour.

Of course if you use a legacy aircraft engine the fuel burn will be higher because they are not as efficient with their fuel as the convention engine I'm looking at using.

With the 36 foot wingspan and 21-22 foot long fuselage it will be about the same size as a Piper Super Cub with about the same low speed performance, but will have better cruise performance on the same fuel burn as the Super Cub. I see myself flying this more by fuel burn than by the actual cruise speed.

With any design spreadsheet the spreadsheet make assumptions about the design in the calculations, so this design could do better than what the spreadsheet is saying. With the fuselage being a 4 foot wide lifting body the speeds may be better than what we see.

Anyway enjoy your day and have a safe weekend. Oh keep a bit of craziness in your heart... it helps with dealing with the mundane world around you!