Author Topic: Back to flying (Read 1158 times)

Chairboy · « **Reply #30 on:** April 23, 2005, 11:22:37 AM »

I've got a couple of friends who are building RVs, and I've been interested in them for a while, but... I can't spend the time building one. I'm looking for a cheap plane I can buy & fly, and the RV-9, while it might be economical to fly, would be anything but cheap to get into, both in terms of money and time.

eagl · « **Reply #31 on:** April 23, 2005, 01:55:15 PM »

There are used RVs on the market. A good one won't be super cheap, but you'll have the backing of a relatively huge enthusiast community and a factory that is still manufacturing parts and is probably willing to assist with mods if you need to change anything.

moot · « **Reply #32 on:** April 23, 2005, 02:33:00 PM »

Stupid question, but why are civil planes so slow and underpowered?

eagl · « **Reply #33 on:** April 23, 2005, 06:22:54 PM »

Speed and power are expensive. Well, actually it's RELIABLE speed and power are expensive. Any moron can put a car engine in a light plane and get some speed out of it, but chances are they won't live long. Think of any 200 cars of the same model and year. Now imagine if every time those 200 cars were run, they cruised at 65-85% of full throttle everywhere they went. How many cars would still be running after a year, without a single major malfunction?

Heck, how many cars get returned to a dealer after just a month or two with major mechanical problems, even with normal driving patterns?

With aircraft, the reliability standards are so much higher that it's tough to get the power without having the cost go through the roof. Add on the fact that the entire airframe must be overbuilt to the same reliability standards, and you can see how the weight will just add up.

Plus, drag increases rapidly as speed increases. 200 mph is a benchmark measure for both high performance cars as well as aircraft. Most cheap cars today will run about 125ish at full throttle, so it's not really too suprising to find that a great many lower-end light private aircraft top out between 100 and 130.

Mooney experimented with a porsche engine, specially modified to aircraft reliability standards. The engine was a work of art, quieter and smoother than just about any other aircraft powerplant. It also cost about as much as an entire new plane, so it remained an expensive novelty.

Fishu · « **Reply #34 on:** April 23, 2005, 09:42:39 PM »

Nice stories Chairboy, a good read.
I wish to do some of the same things in the future.

moot · « **Reply #35 on:** April 23, 2005, 11:21:24 PM »

Thanks, eagl.

bunch · « **Reply #36 on:** April 24, 2005, 12:45:50 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by moot
Stupid question, but why are civil planes so slow and underpowered?

$

CyranoAH · « **Reply #37 on:** April 24, 2005, 05:58:30 AM »

$ Indeed... while 1 hour (engine time) in a Zlin Z-50L (260HP, single-seater) can be around $150, just a step upwards to the Sukhoi 29 (400 HP, two-seater) means $500/hour.

Of course this has also to do with the M-14PF engine having quite a short TBO (500 hours), but still... powerful/fast airplanes are very expensive.

Daniel

Holden McGroin · « **Reply #38 on:** April 24, 2005, 06:23:03 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by moot
Stupid question, but why are civil planes so slow and underpowered?

this one's not bad... 370 kts. Kits start at $100k, but it'll be better than $300k by the time your done fully equipping it.

The certified, fixed gear Lancair models cruise at 180 kts +/- probably about $300 K, ready to fly away from the factory.

Chairboy · « **Reply #39 on:** April 24, 2005, 08:48:50 PM »

Those Lancairs sure look nice. Maybe eventually? A fast cruise sure sounds like fun, especially for cross country. I did a quick calculation, and it looks like a two and a half hour flight from Creswell to Snohomish's Harvey Field, near where my mom lives. The idea of doing that in a third the time, wowzers.

This morning, I took my two sons out to the airport. The ceilings were low, so I just showed them the plane. My one year old didn't notice anything, of course, but my three year old went absolutely nuts. He's been playing with airplane toys that I've bought for him, so I had to stifle a chuckle when he described the Cessna 152 as a 'big BIG plane!'. Sure, compared to the toys he had, well... I guess....

We sat in it together and I found out that the two of us fit just fine. Apparently, the Cessna 152 is a great two passenger airplane. Well, at least as long as one of the passengers is a 32 pound three year old. After I get some more practice, I'll fly him up to Seattle to visit my mom, who he's nuts about. I'll be soliciting tips and studying up on the logistics of flying with a kid as young as him. Also, looks like it'll be time to hit the eBay for a cheap pair of headsets for him to use. Then again, maybe I don't want him crying when I'm talking to Cascade Approach or Seattle Center. I'm reminded of this excerpt from avweb's short final:

Quote

I took my cousin for a plane ride a few years ago. After an hour, we headed back to DuPage airport. The last 10 minutes of the flight were quiet, with almost no conversation. About six miles out, I keyed the mic and opened my mouth to contact the tower, when all of a sudden my cousin shouts loudly, "HEY, LOOK, THERE'S A NAKED LADY DOWN THERE BY THE SWIMMING POOL!" My mouth was still open and the mic button was still pushed.

Afterwards, we went home. This afternoon, the weather cleared up a lot, so I went back out and asked the operator there if he had any 152s for me to fly. He did, and it was different from the one I checked out in, so I both went flying today AND added another plane to my repetoire.

Today's plane was a 1979 Cessna 152 with a different radio then I saw in N9494 Golf. N4962 Hotel has some weird setup with what look like nixie gauges instead of LEDs for the numbers. After I turned it on, I was trying to figure out a good way to test that the radio was working (uncontrolled airport) when someone else transmitted, and I was able to verify that I was on frequency.

I preflighted, started up, did my runup, and took off without incident. I was on crosswind when someone announced they were entering on the 45, so I transmitted. "Creswell traffic, Cessna four niner six two hotel on crosswind for runway 33, creswell traffic." Immediately afterwards, the previous plane transmitted that he had me in sight and was going to enter the pattern behind me.

I landed just fine, did a touch & go, and took off with a straight out departure.

I climbed up to about 1,500 AGL and zipped over to see if I could find my house. I was amazed to find it instantly because of some distinct fields and buildings nearby. I circled a couple times, taking pictures, then flew over to my parents house and did the same.

Photographing their house was a lot more challenging, both because it's in deep forest and hard to find, there's some tall television towers nearby that I need to steer around, and also because, well... those trees really mask it from sight, so even when I'm looking straight at it, it's just a point in the trees next to a nice pond. I snapped some more pics, then flew back to Creswell.

I entered on the 45, turned base and found myself a little high. I came in a little hot, but just added a couple hundred feet to my touchdown point, nothing extreme. My intention was to do a touch and go, one more pattern, then land, but when I jammed the throttle back in, the engine sputtered once. I automatically aborted the takeoff and exited the active without incident. That emergency training really works, even if my 'trigger pull is so light'. I'm sure it would have powered up fine after a second, but I was a little further down the runway then I wanted, and I'm a jumpy low time pilot.

I verified, when doing my post landing checklist, that the carb heat was on, fuel was good, mixture was fine, etc, so I don't know where the sputter came from, but it taxied fine.

.7 hours only cost $42, amazing! It's kinda hard to rationalize owning my own plane on a money basis... but I'm still thinking about it.

Golfer · « **Reply #40 on:** April 24, 2005, 09:11:41 PM »

Hey chair...throw me an email I lost my address book when I upgraded to XP and I wanna yap at you about Hobby!

George/Golfer

bunch · « **Reply #41 on:** April 25, 2005, 01:33:47 AM »

I now a C-150 that will do that if the throttle is pushed in too fast. I learned it in power off stall recovery training, but maybe finding out at 30kts with 1000' of runway in front of you would be just as memorable

SunTracker · « **Reply #42 on:** April 25, 2005, 04:11:34 AM »

Rented aircraft are more prone to mechanical failures. A pilot was killed at my local airport after the control pin on the elevator broke in flight and he crashed.

Do you really want to trust your life to a plane that every tom dick and harry has thrashed around the sky?

Chairboy · « **Reply #43 on:** April 25, 2005, 08:33:06 AM »

Good point... of course, the other side of that is that a plane that is flown often has a better chance of reaching TBO, and stays in better shape by mere virtue of being used, right? I've been reading books and posts on the subject, and one constant theme seems to be that planes thrive on use, and the ones that sit unflown are the ones that degrade the fastest.

I still want a plane, of course.

eagl · « **Reply #44 on:** April 25, 2005, 02:17:11 PM »

When I was learning to fly in 150s and 152s, the club I rented from had a 152 that was notorious for fouling the plugs. The plugs had to be pulled every 10 or so hours to be cleaned and gapped, and that number went down even further if the pilot didn't aggressively lean the mixture at cruise even when at relatively low altitudes. One student on a cross country got stuck out in that plane when he couldn't get a good mag check due to engine roughness caused by fouled plugs. After that, I was always careful to always keep fiddling with the mixture. The planes I was flying didn't have an EGT so it was all by ear and feel. Funny thing, I never had problems with plug fouling or engine roughness except for a mild case of carb ice when the carb heat cable broke on a humid San Diego day.