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Lancair Mako / Barracuda

I think a row of Long-Ezs lined up and parked on their noses is a pretty good looking thing The best thing about that particular Rutan design feature is that hand propping the engine becomes very simple and safe, so much so that many builders couldn’t see any benefit in adding a (heavy) starter. That weight saved in addition to the nose gear drag reduction are two contributions to getting 200 mph on 100 HP, which is what a Vari-Eze can do.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 16 Jun 16:19

Another big contributor to the Vari-Eze’s performance is tiny cross section thanks to tandem seating.

Biggin Hill

Another big contributor to the Vari-Eze’s performance is tiny cross section thanks to tandem seating.

Right. Many past discussions on this but basically in the low subsonic region there really is no free lunch, there is little in the way of clever aerodynamics, and the MPG of a plane (limited by certification to a 60kt Vs, monotonic and progressive control forces, etc) depends primarily on how much air it moves out of the way i.e. the cockpit volume.

If you can dispense with Vs (as Lancair do, de facto if not in the data sheet which gives figures well below what the plane will fly at safely) then you can go faster… I bet you anything these figures are and will be fiction

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Cross section and cockpit volume are not synonymous and the Vari-Eze is actually a quite comfortable place to sit… as long as you’re not stuck on sitting side by side. That aside I can remember cruising along at 8000 ft in a Comanche retractable while a 100 HP Vari-Eze flew race tracks to stop from disappearing off into the distance. Every so often he went by on one side or the other, backwards then forwards

Last Edited by Silvaire at 16 Jun 20:59

I have once flown a 4 seat Velocity with an IO-540, and It was very impressive how you cannot really stall that thing! Before the main wing reaches a critical angle the two canards will stall … and that thing was fast and had a big cabin!

Peter wrote:

Retractable nose gear only??

Funny enough I was just yesterday looking at the Lancair ES/ESP build manual and noticed that it used the same engine mount/NG support as the retract Lancair IV, but with a solid tube where the hydraulic actuator would be.

Easy, peasy to swap out the tube and lower cowl.

But is it worth it ?

What is the performance gain ?

Last Edited by Michael at 18 Jun 08:15
FAA A&P/IA
LFPN

Michael wrote:

What is the performance gain ?

The RVs have a difference of about 2-4 knots on max/cruise speed between tail wheel and nose wheel versions. This is at about 150-180 knots. The faster you go, the larger this difference becomes. On this Lancair it’s probably around 5 knots or slightly more (the tail wheel also has some drag). This should be around 2-3 %. Not much, but definitely something.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Easy, peasy to swap out the tube and lower cowl.

Indeed; one would be astonished to see a massive investment at this point, from what is basically a startup. They went for the lowest hanging fruit.

But I still don’t get it; a full retractable goes a lot faster and opens up a bigger market which if certified is currently untapped (no certified BRS retractable, apart from the nonexistent Panthera). Cessna TTX sales have been really low and IMHO this is purely due to lack of BRS, since it seems to be better than an SR22 in every tangible way (a view of a frequent pilot of both that I know, who did the transatlantic flight too).

And if you just want a very fast kitplane with uncertifiable low speed handling then Lancair has various offerings already which you can buy ready built – right up to the Evolution.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

But I still don’t get it; a full retractable goes a lot faster and opens up a bigger market which if certified is currently untapped (no certified BRS retractable, apart from the nonexistent Panthera). Cessna TTX sales have been really low and IMHO this is purely due to lack of BRS, since it seems to be better than an SR22 in every tangible way (a view of a frequent pilot of both that I know, who did the transatlantic flight too).

The competition is mainly these things, with emphasis on the RV-10:


Cessna TTX and Cirrus are both in a completely different level, price wise. If I were to get myself a 4 seat tourer (not remotely likely though), it would be an RV-10, a Bearhawk or this Lancair, which actually looks very nice all in all, also performance vise.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Michael wrote:

What is the performance gain ?

About 5 kts with the addition of 14 lbs of weight, if direct experience on another type is of any value. It depends as LeSving says on the cruise speed, and also how well faired the fixed nose wheel was.

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