Homebuilders Workshop: January 2015
Hope for the eFIRC
By Ed Wischmeyer
By way of happy accident, I managed to establish correspondence with George Perry, Senior Vice President who has taken over leading the (AOPA) Air Safety Institute. One thing led to another, and I was talked into taking their eFIRC, electronic (online) Flight Instructor Refresher Clinic.
The bottom line? Good things are starting to happen at ASI. The eFIRC show’s balance, perspective, candor and even humor are so refreshing to see in an aviation course, or any other course, for that matter. Dogmatism is diminished. These are all harbingers of good things to come and a very welcome change from past offerings.
IO-390 vs. IO-360, etc.
On the RV-14, the standard engine is the IO-390, 210 HP, but I (and probably others) wondered about using a rebuilt, less expensive IO-360, at 200 HP. Second hand (or maybe more distant) information is that Lycoming wants to phase out the IO-360 in favor of the IO-390. The newer engine has different combustion chambers, better specific fuel consumption, and usually exceeds rated power, I’m told.
A friend just bought an IO-390 and, this being Georgia, where humidity goes to die, put the engine in a corner of his living room for climate controlled storage until he’s ready to put it into his RV-14. His wing kit is almost completely assembled, and his tail kit has arrived and been inventoried.
I learned from him that the RV-14 and RV-10, from which the RV-14 shares a number of parts and design elements, now have foam false ribs in the stabilizer (the horizontal tail). The foam ribs keep the skins from buckling under extreme loads and thereby add strength. My early RV-10 kit did not have the foam ribs.
P-85
Meanwhile, in Kansas, the P-85 (by Altitude Group LLC) appears almost ready for first flight. The P-85 is a variant of the Radial Rocket, the significant difference being that the P-85 uses a Chevy crate motor instead of a Russian radial engine. Total cost, firewall forward, is less than 20 grand. Part of the deal is that the P-85 uses a fixed pitch Catto prop, the three blades turning the “wrong” way.
Designer Jeff Ackland is one of the few homebuilt designers I know of who has a good feel for handling qualities, so that’s not a concern. However, a clean airframe and a fixed pitch prop make me wonder about the short field landing capabilities of the airplane. I bet Jeff has this in hand…
As soon as I can sell the beautiful straight tail Cessna, I’ll be ready for my “last” airplane, either a P-85 or an RV-14. The former is faster, more than 200 knots and the latter more practical with tricycle gear, side by side seating, and a baggage area you can reach in flight or use for carrying a puppy dog. But this is still a hypothetical conundrum… And I still need to recover from spinal fusion surgery with its protracted healing period.
Happy New Year to everybody!
