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Bob Griffin
Joined: 22 Jan 2006 Posts: 34 Location: Slingerlands,NY
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Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 4:27 am Post subject: floatplane update |
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Good morning gang, I spent the better part of last week at Sanford Lee Co. airport in N.C. with Doug and Betty Hemstead, who heads up the distributorship of the Allegroin the USA. The purpose was to invite dealers to check out the Allegro on an amphibious float setup. Dealers came from Florida, Indiana, and New England. After addressing a high temp issue, by lowering the radiator below the cowling to increase airflow, we headed to the lake. The principal owner of the company and the factory test pilot did 8 TO & Ldgs onthe lake and when they beached to start demo flights they were kindly askedto leave by the park director. Being a new activity, never seen on the lake, brought safety concerns and they would need to look into this before allowing further operations. They did allow one more take off and landing (with Tom-- Florida dealer) jumping in, and then Lee (New England dealer) hopped in for the water taxi and take off back to Sanford Lee airport. I later spent time in the pattern, along with the Indiana dealer, doing T&L's onthe hard surface.
The usefull load drops to 330 lbs + fuel with this configuration. Cruse speed is around 90 mph. Climb around 4-500 fpm. If you look on theFull Lotus web site and look in the amphibious and gallery section you willsee that the gear portion of this set up is VERY LIGHT. Meaning "fragile". It is basically designed to allow the aircraft to taxi up a ramp out of the water at a lakefront camp. Our landings were done with 1 flap positionand power on to allow a gentile touch down and taxing was done very slow.
Two improvements are on order. First: a different design in main fuel tank will allow more head room for pilot and passenger. Second: retractable shoulder harness for pilot will be standard. (optional for passenger). This will allow forward movement to reach choke and panel and will lock if needed, such as some autos have.
Of the 30 certified LSA's in the USA, Allegro 2000 is # 2 in sales!!! There is also a glass cockpit avaliable now too.
Hope you all have a great summer of flying!
Bob Griffin
LandLsportaviation.com
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_________________ Fly Safe
Bob Griffin
Slingerlands, NY |
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Thom Riddle
Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 1597 Location: Buffalo, NY, USA (9G0)
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Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 12:56 am Post subject: floatplane update |
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Bob,
Thanks for the update and info on plans for some much needed changes.
The fuel tank won't us who already have airplanes much good but the
shoulder harness inertial reels should be easily retrofit.
Thom in Buffalo
| - The Matronics Allegro-List Email Forum - | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
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_________________ Thom Riddle
Buffalo, NY (9G0)
Don't worry about old age... it doesn't last very long.
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