Posted for "Neal Longwill" <neall@lancair.com>:
Hi
Marv,
Here's a write up on one of our demo flights at Oshkosh that might be
interesting to the
list.
Regards, Neal
Neal Longwill
Lancair International
(512)
241-3703
neall@lancair.com
________________________________
LARRY
L. WASEM
414 AVIATION BOULEVARD
SANTA ROSA, CA 95403-1069
707-578-5344
REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
E-MAIL:
LLWasem@Wasem-USA.com <mailto:Larry%20L.%20Wasem%3CLLWasem@wasem-usa.com%3E>
AND
INVESTMENT
FACSIMILE:
707-578-3140
To My Flying Friends:
On Friday, August 1, I did a demo ride in the new Lancair
Evolution
<http://www.lancair.com/Main/evo.html> . Here is my review of the airplane.
First, the Evolution is a
kit-built, four place, pressurized, retractable
gear, all composite construction, turboprop airplane. The engine used is a
Pratt
& Whitney Canada PT6A <http://www.pwc.ca/en/3_0/3_0_5/3_0_5_1_1.asp>
-135A, a lightweight, turboprop, reverse-flow, gas turbine
engine. The
take-off rating for the PT6A-135A
<http://www.pwc.ca/en/includes/pop_template_2.asp?MotorID=210> is: 944
Thermo ESHP (shaft horsepower), 750 Mechanical SHP, 1900 Shaft RPM. There is
no lack of power.
Lancair Evolution N927LE
<http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/N927LE.html> ,
the only current flying Evolution, first flew in March, 2008. The first kit
was delivered in late July, 2008. N927LE is still a work in process. It does
not yet have door seals and is not
pressurized. The Lancair people had a
legitimate explanation for this: since N927LE is a flying demonstration plane
and
getting pressurization approved requires basically pressurizing the plane
until it blows up, the want to wait for later
prototypes.
I actually got to fly in N927LE twice on Friday, August 1. Lancair had a lot
of demand for demonstration
rides (despite the $1,000/hour cost). They
nevertheless made up a new slot for me at 7:30 AM. But they had also
scheduled a photo shoot of the airplane at 7:30 AM. So, I couldn't bring my
wife along on the photo shoot but they did let me ride
in the back seat for
about an hour while we flew in formation with a Bonanza with two photographers
shooting. The close formation
work itself was a very new experience for me.
We were flying pretty slow, around 110-120 knots, doing both shallow and step
turns, and
transitioning to almost every possible position about 50 feet
around the Bonanza. The Evolution was extremely stable and very
responsive
(of course, the pilot was a very seasoned pilot with lots of warbird formation
flying experience).
They had a
no-show at 10:00 AM so I got chance to fly left seat for an hour.
I have about 1,500 hours of flight time now, but all but 1 hour are in
high
wing aircraft and about 1,200 of the hours are in a PA-18-150 Super Cub.
Thanks to Pete Bevans of Hillsboro Aviation in Hillsboro,
Oregon, I got a
chance in the middle of July to fly a Cessna 400 (nee Columbia 400, nee
Lancair). It was my first low-wing single
and my first airplane with a
sidestick. Pete actually let me land it at Grangeville, Idaho (S80). It
wasn't a really
pretty landing, but I didn't break anything. It did let me
learn about the "hat" trim controller on the sidestick (I didn't use it
enough
on final to slow the airplane down). While the differences between the
Lancair Evolution and the Cessna 400 are great, the
similarities are pretty
striking also.
The airplane is relatively easy to get into. The back seats are actually
easier to enter than the front and the back seats have lots of headroom and
even more leg room. Standard fuel capacity is 146
gallons, with an option to
go to 172 gallons. The current specs say that the full standard fuel payload
is around 814 pounds,
meaning the plane is a true,"fill the seats, fill the
tanks, fill the baggage and fly" airplane. The Lancair people at Oshkosh told
me, though, that the actual production airplane appears to be coming in about
200 pounds lighter, so they think the actual full standard fuel
payload will
be about 1,000 pounds. Simply amazing. Baggage is in a separate door behind
the rear seats. 39
cubic feet and 225 pounds. Very nice.
The Evolution has a free castering nosewheel, so all steering is done by
differential braking, but it was pretty intuitive. Since the Evolution is a
turboprop, the propeller can be placed not only in
flight idle, but also in
reverse (the "beta" range). This makes it pretty easy to taxi the airplane
and control the speed and it
also allows for very short landings, since you
can reverse the thrust after touching down. The current specs for the
Evolution says
it requires 1,000 feet for both takeoff and landing. I think
for an experienced pilot you could shortening each of those by
50-75%.
As expected, take-off requires a fair amount of right rudder, but the POH
limits take-off power to 1250 ft/lb of torque
(which is far from full power).
Once off the ground, you can add a much power as you want. It is extremely
impressive. N927LE is equipped with the Garmin G900X
<https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=153&pID=419> instrument
panel which
is essentially the experimental airplane equivalent of the certified G1000.
Since I fly a Turbo 182T Cessna with a Garmin
G1000, the transition was
almost non-existent, although the engine indications are certainly different.
The Evolution version already
has the full Garmin Synthetic Vision Technology
<http://www8.garmin.com/pressroom/aviation/040708.html> which was extremely
cool, even in flat Wisconsin.
At Oshkosh all incoming planes come in at 1,000 AGL and outbound planes are
limited to 500
AGL for several miles. Once we got past the ceiling
restriction, we went to full power aiming at 10,000 feet. The CFI told
me to
hit 130 knots on the climb, but it really took some mental effort to point the
nose up that far. I saw vertical speeds as
high as 5,000 feet per minute.
The stabilized 130 knot climb with full fuel and three passengers (my wife
was in the back seat) looked
pretty close to the 4,000 feet per minute the
specs say. Obviously breathtaking to climb to 10,000 feet in about 2 minutes
while
still moving at 130 knots. Damned hard to keep the airplane at 10,000
feet; it just wanted to climb. It took a very
nose-down sight picture to hold
altitude. We pulled the power quite aways off and we were still cruising
around at 230
knots. The specs say that you will see 338 knots at high speed
cruise using 39 gallons per hour or 270 knots at economy cruise using 24
gallons per hour. I assume these figures are at the plane's service ceiling
of 28,000 feet, but that is
unclear.
The ailerons are a little heavy, but they said they were fixing that. Very
smooth, very
quiet. We had Bose headsets, but I would say that even without
door seals and interior insulation, the plane was still quieter than my
182.
The turbine is, of course, much easier to manage than the piston, since it is
basically set it and forget
it.
Next we did some stalls in dirty condition, full flaps with gear down. Very,
very gentle buffet right at 60
knots with a small drop of the nose and you are
flying again. I noticed no tendency whatsoever to want to spin. It was
really easy just to stall, fly, stall and fly. At minimum airspeed you still
had very good control of the
airplane.
Next we powered the airplane down to idle and we were comfortably gliding at
110 knots (best glide speed) showing
about 800 feet per minute down. Then the
CFI feathered the prop and all of a sudden the vertical speed went to about
250-300 feet
per minute. It would glide forever.
Descents are no-brainers. Although it is a very fast, slick airplane, it
doesn't need speed brakes (unlike the Columbia) to come down fast. Just pull
the power and the big prop is your speed
brake. Very comfortable, very easy
to control.
Next we shot a couple of touch and go's at Sheboygan, Wisconsin
(KSBM). I
was amazed. The approach numbers are virtually identical to the 182.
Downwind at 90-95 knots, put in
half flaps, turn base at about 85 knots, full
flaps turn final, over the numbers at 75 knots and touch down somewhere around
60
knots. On roll add a little power and the the plane jumps back into the
air in about 20 feet. We practiced a couple of go
arounds which turned out
later to be a good thing. You have to pay attention on a full flap go around,
but basically pretty
easy.
It was time to go back to Oshkosh, which by this time was a beehive of
activity.
We came in over Lake
Winnebago at 2,300 feet doing about 160 knots. By this
time I was doing a much better job at maintaining speed and
altitude. We had
to do a couple of 360's over the lake waiting for traffic. Finally, got a
slot into runway 36, but on
really short final (after a much improved
stabilized approach) a Ford Tri-Motor pulled onto the area of the runway we
were supposed to land
on, so the tower called for a go around with a short
approach back to 36. The power of the turbine just makes it all look pretty
easy.
Well, there you go. As you can undoubtedly tell, I was pretty impressed. I
want
one.
Take care.
Larry Wasem
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