paramotor engines that is if you can get your plane to balance out with the smaller ones. Two stroke still dominates in the power to weight / fuel burn market. The hirth f33 weighs 45 lbs complete with electric start and even with that you may have a tail heavy airplane. the hirth f33 burns 1.5 gph on your average ppg trike. In the ppg community there is a foot launch motor called an atom 80 that burns less than 1 gph, I don't know the exact numbers but I guess a motor like that on a super light weight max and a non fatty pilot could fly half way across america before running out of gas.
Generally speaking I'd say I was the last person who should be advising people on piloting skills. If I ever get my "Epic Sport" completed, I'm certainly going to want a good flight instructor to test it out thoroughly and then teach me about it's handling. However I will say this: I am qualified to say that the handling characteristics of any of the Rutan type canard aircraft is going to very different from the Mini-Max types and I hope that the comment above assumes that anyone who wants to go from a Mini-Max to a Rutan type canard is going to get a lot of training before soloing.
There were two fatal crashes in this area (eastern Kansas western Missouri a number of years back. One caused be the failure to secure the fuel cap. On takeoff it went into the propeller which disintegrated, the aircraft did the lawn dart thing. There were also several non fatal landing accidents (I watched one happen), and several crosswind landing puckers. Any airplane is a compromise, fortunately, for the ones we fly are fairly benign. Just don't stall it close to the ground.
I was just reading the flight manual for the vari eze which IMHO is very confusing. This is going off topic and I dont know where the varieze came into the discussion but I found the flight manual confusing so I have to say something.
The varieze is a remarkable aircraft.The manual says It does not stall.It does not drop its nose or wing at 46/49 knots with the stick all the way back at any throttle setting!
But then it says that approach speed for landing is 80-85mph and you should not flare to a full stall landing.The touch down should be not less than 62-65mph. The question is if the low speed handling is so benign then why the high landing speed recomendation?
Because when it gets close to the ground, the ground effect works somewhat differently to the nice soft cushion that keeps a 'Max up. It screws up the lift. For the same reason, they cannot be operated from grass and need lots of paved runway to take off which means that over here where we fly off fields, they aren't very popular. For the record, I'd love one but my piloting skills would need a huge kick in the pants!
A Hirth 3003 makes 100hp, at about 130 lbs, including gearbox. They've been discontinued, but there's numerous ones out there, and Hirth supports them.
Sadly, I haven't had the chance to fly any other Max. They are very rare in Australia. So I can't comment on 'standard' aircraft.
I would point out that my Eros feels most comfortable flying at 60 - 65 mph, so that although it can go a lot faster, it seems this is the 'sweet spot' as regards feel. So no great loss in having a smaller engine for cruise (unless you're into long cross country flights, in which case the Max is probably not ideal).
But where I do value the extra power is the ability to climb very quickly after aborting a landing. It goes up like a train and this is very useful if there are tall trees at the overshoot.
I am very excited about this.. Also, I admire the expression 'goes up like a train' because don't trains have trouble going up hills?
In all seriousness though, I very much agree, and it's one of the reasons I am happy with my Kawasaki 440A. Extra power might not be necessary, but.... When that tree line is coming up fast, I think its appreciated.
I am not a mechanic, though oddly in our business, I used to be called on sometimes to figure out what was wrong with engines that other shops in the area viewed as mysteries. No great trick. All I did was put them back to absolute factory specification and of course they'd run. But I do have a thought on engines for very light aircraft:
The choice has been either two cycle engines which are lighter but less reliable or four cycle engines which are generally viewed as more reliable but hard to get light enough. There are two factors I've managed to identify which have made the two cycle engines less reliable. The first is that while four cycle aircraft engines are routinely fitted with carburetor heat, few people seem to think to provide carburetor heat for two cycle engines. However let's put that aside and talk about another factor.
There are at present two lubrication systems for the two cycle engines used in aircraft. The first is the common mixing of oil into the fuel and using the crankcase air mixed with the fuel/oil mixture to charge the cylinder. The second is to keep the fuel and oil separate until they are injected into the engine. The result is much the same in the both the lubrication and combustion are provided by a mixture of fuel and oil. This is tricky in that it is too easy to get plug fouling.
However there is a third way of running a two cycle engine. I've worked with two cycle engines which were 50 years old, still operating daily, and very reliable. They used a lubrication system just like a four cycle engine. In other words the oil is in the crankcase and separate from the fuel. The cylinder is charged with a mixture of air and fuel not by using the crank case but simply by using a blower which charges the cylinder when the port is open, very much like a super charger. This prevents the various plug fouling problems which tend to shut down two cycle engines and results in a very powerful reliable engine which can be quite light weight. Unless your ignition system fails they pretty much have to keep going.
Does anybody know of a two cycle engine line that works like this which is suitable for really light aircraft? Or perhaps someone would like to try to develop one?
Logged
