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Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

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JonathanMilbank

Joined: 14 Apr 2012
Posts: 391
Location: Aberdeen area

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:19 am Post subject: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Please would anyone who has personal experience of having flown a classic monowheel for many hours with Rotax 912UL 80hp and then converted the same aircraft to a trigear, advise me on the performance aspect during take-off. My aircraft has the superb Airmaster AP332 propeller which greatly improved take-off and climb once it was fitted.

Also it has the strengthening mod which allows me to operate up to 1370 lbs. I fly off a 500 metre grass strip and when I get airborne on warm (20C) days near-fully laden in calm wind, the intial climb is sluggish until I can retract the flaps/uc and accelerate to 75 kts. Then it'll manage 700 - 800 fpm.

I realise that as soon as the wheels come off the ground, then the climb performance should be the same , whichever undercarriage is fitted. My real concern is whether the trigear has a noticeably longer take-off roll on grass which could affect obstacle clearance.

My budget won't stretch to the 100hp engine and I might be forced to relocate to a different airfield with a tar runway. Don't really want to move though.

Roland

Joined: 30 Nov 2009
Posts: 334
Location: EDLE

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:54 am Post subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Hi Jonathan,



you can have my 914. Only problem: it's overboosted.

Seriously - I think there are few 80hp Trigears left, thus I'm curious, if someone has an advise for you.



Good luck!

Roland



PH-ZTI

XS Trigear 914

jimpuglise(at)comcast.net
Guest

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 8:03 am Post subject: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Jonathan-



Call Peter Jeffers.  I believe his plane was a mono converted to tri and he is using an 80 HP Rotax.  As I remember from talking to him, it is just fine with He, Susan, and a little luggage.



Jim Puglise

N283JL 



From: "Roland" <schmidtroland(at)web.de>

To: europa-list(at)matronics.com

Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 9:54:31 AM

Subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.



--> Europa-List message posted by: "Roland" <schmidtroland(at)web.de>



Hi Jonathan,



you can have my 914. Only problem: it's overboosted.

Seriously - I think there are few 80hp Trigears left, thus I'm curious, if someone has an advise for you.



Good luck!

Roland



PH-ZTI

XS Trigear 914





Read this topic online here:



http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=381514#381514

carlmeek(at)gmail.com
Guest

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 8:46 am Post subject: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

We have an 80hp tri-gear with a wobbly prop operating out of our 450m strip, no problem.



Regards,

-Carl.



On 22 Aug 2012, at 17:01, jimpuglise(at)comcast.net (jimpuglise(at)comcast.net) wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  Jonathan-



Call Peter Jeffers.  I believe his plane was a mono converted to tri and he is using an 80 HP Rotax.  As I remember from talking to him, it is just fine with He, Susan, and a little luggage.



Jim Puglise

N283JL 



From: "Roland" <schmidtroland(at)web.de (schmidtroland(at)web.de)>

To: europa-list(at)matronics.com (europa-list(at)matronics.com)

Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 9:54:31 AM

Subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.



--> Europa-List message posted by: "Roland" <schmidtroland(at)web.de>



Hi Jonathan,



you can have my 914. Only problem: it's overboosted.

Seriously - I think there are few 80hp Trigears left, thus I'm curious, if someone has an advise for you.



Good luck!

Roland



PH-ZTI

XS Trigear 914





Read this topic online here:



http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=381514#381514





 	  Quote: 	
		  



href="http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?Europa-List">http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?Europa-List

href="http://forums.matronics.com">http://forums.matronics.com

href="http://www.matronics.com/contribution">http://www.matronics.com/contribution

GBWFH2010

Joined: 31 Jul 2011
Posts: 38

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 2:46 pm Post subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Jonathon,



I operate G-BWFH, the aircraft referred  to by Carl Meek which is based at Deanland a 450 metre strip in Sussex. It was converted from a mono five years ago has an 80HP engine and an Airmaster 322 prop, and has the 1370lb mod, so is very similar to your aircraft. It has an empty weight of 882 lbs and is not particularly 'clean' aerodynamically with only the flap hinge fairings fitted from the speed kit. 



I did not own the aircraft as a mono but can confirm I have been operating for two years of 450 metres without any major problems. As I am not a lightweight (190lbs!) I do look at weight carefully in calm/hot conditions. Recently I went out in zero wind/25C at 1300lbs. The take off run was about 370 metres, rotating at 45-50kts and building to 60kts in ground effect and gradually increasing to 70kts for the initial climb. I estimate we crossed the thresh hold fence at 50ft -70ft at a rate of about 400 fpm. This rate was maintained until 300 feet when the flaps were retracted and a rate of cimb of approx 600 fpm was maintained.



Of course I do have to watch the fuel load in these conditions, but most of the time I have no problems.



Hope this is of some use.



Gordon Grant

_________________
Gordon Grant

G-BWFH

GBWFH2010

Joined: 31 Jul 2011
Posts: 38

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 2:48 pm Post subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Jonathon,



I operate G-BWFH, the aircraft referred  to by Carl Meek which is based at Deanland a 450 metre strip in Sussex. It was converted from a mono five years ago has an 80HP engine and an Airmaster 322 prop, and has the 1370lb mod, so is very similar to your aircraft. It has an empty weight of 882 lbs and is not particularly 'clean' aerodynamically with only the flap hinge fairings fitted from the speed kit. 



I did not own the aircraft as a mono but can confirm I have been operating for two years of 450 metres without any major problems. As I am not a lightweight (190lbs!) I do look at weight carefully in calm/hot conditions. Recently I went out in zero wind/25C at 1300lbs. The take off run was about 370 metres, rotating at 45-50kts and building to 60kts in ground effect and gradually increasing to 70kts for the initial climb. I estimate we crossed the thresh hold fence at 50ft -70ft at a rate of about 400 fpm. This rate was maintained until 300 feet when the flaps were retracted and a rate of cimb of approx 600 fpm was maintained.



Of course I do have to watch the fuel load in these conditions, but most of the time I have no problems.



Hope this is of some use.



Gordon Grant

_________________
Gordon Grant

G-BWFH

JonathanMilbank

Joined: 14 Apr 2012
Posts: 391
Location: Aberdeen area

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 12:23 am Post subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Many thanks to everyone for your prompt and encouraging responses. As a further insight into my present operating situation, I'm the owner/major shareholder of G-EIKY and three friends each have a minority interest, but we all have equal access to the aircraft. In order to avoid misunderstandings re fuel, the arrangement we have is always to leave the tank completely full before leaving G-EIKY for the next person.

Furthermore there is no fuel gauge fitted; only the vertical transparent sight tube next to the pilot's ankles. I'm a strong advocate of not putting too much faith in gauges and that the most reliable technology is your watch doing the measuring of a tank which always starts out full. This has kept me out of the "ran out of fuel" reports for over 4 decades.

Having said all this, I need to find a good "rule of thumb" which the G-EIKY group members can follow to keep us out of the statistics. Perhaps only ever one person on board when flying from our airfield, which is 500 metres of soft grass (well-cut) and down in a valley? There is rising terrain when taking off on 31 and minor power cables on wooden poles to clear when taking off on 13.

My arithmetic for flying G-EIKY with me as pilot is 1370 minus 860 empty weight minus 110 fuel leaves 400 lbs for me and passenger and bags. Not bad ! Take away me in flying suit being 185 lbs and that leaves 215 lbs for the rest.

All the 15 years that I have flown G-EIKY like this, take-offs at mauw in 20C nil wind conditions at our field have been possible, but it's the extra rolling resistance of a three-wheeled undercarriage which now worries me. I guess that there is no magic "get out of jail free" card. We'll just have to "suck it and see".

Perhaps I should make a rule which places an embargo on all take-offs with a passenger from our field whenever the headwind component is less than 10 knots. What do you think?

John Wighton

Joined: 18 May 2010
Posts: 241

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 1:26 am Post subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Hello,

Thought l would add my opinion on this matter.  I own G-IPOD a 100hp 912ULS XS trigear, empty weight 889lb.  As an aeronautical engineer (stress being my specialist subject!) l pay a lot of attention to the relative performance of my aircraft to others.  Having attended the Popham AGM, LAA Rally, AeroExpo, Aero, SunNFun, Airventure, etc l gathered subjective data of T/O, landing performances.  



As far as Europa's go, for ground T/O performance (meaning the take off roll distance) all the Europas l have seen (encompassing 80 hp mono to 115 hp superships like Frans') all appear to get off within 20-30m of each other.  What happens next seems power dominated (climb rate, etc).  But as far as clearing the end of a short strip l don't think you have anything to worry about (500m) at 1370 lb MAUW.



Aerodynamically the mono starts off at a disadvantage (high alpha plus full flap hence high drag), the trigear with sensible tyre pressures on grass (with 15 deg flap) may even have lower drag at this stage.  As the T/O alpha doesn't change a lot for the mono (tail lifts at 25-30kts?) it probably has a drag benefit during the 2nd part of the T/O run.



An exception to the above maybe a 80hp trigear with fixed pitch prop, but l cannot recall seeing one of those recently.



Once off the ground achieve Vx or Vy as needed and let the wings do the work.



Happy T/O and landings.

_________________
John Wighton
Europa XS trigear G-IPOD

GBWFH2010

Joined: 31 Jul 2011
Posts: 38

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 9:24 am Post subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Jonathan,



I Have sent you a PM.



Regards

_________________
Gordon Grant

G-BWFH

JonathanMilbank

Joined: 14 Apr 2012
Posts: 391
Location: Aberdeen area

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 11:11 pm Post subject: Re: Trigear conversion; only 80hp. Advice please.

Got it, thanks Gordon. I've emailed a reply to you.

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