Is the engine monitor primary equipment or is it backed up by the original equipment ?
It is a Robin, and the finish looks unusual. It might be Oratex, which is this thread.
Wrong thread?
I can recommend an engine monitor. This picture is at level flight, 25", 2500 min-1. It is possible and necessary to lean agressively to get CHTs below 400°F. FuelFlow is not installed yet.
Hello,
some update on the project. Second first flight is done.! Flying well, straight and fine.!
*in last sentence above “shiny” should read “slippery”!
Apologies for delay replying @Capitaine I was in the process of selling my aircraft and didn’t want to risk ‘jinxing’ it with a public discussion – I was the eventual owner of the UK demonstrator mentioned by @Stampe above -a couple of things:
1 – I was told at the factory that this was the only airframe where they ever fully covered the wings in Oratex as it was so challenging to work with – they still use it for elevator/ailerons as an option.
2 – It was very easy to clean flies off- almost Teflon-like – it cleaned itself if I flew through a half-decent cloud
3 – In my opinion it worked very well with a Matt painted airframe with shiny metallic detailing- it would look odd if the rest of the plane was shiny – compared to shiny Robins the wings also loooked smoother,(less rippled) but the seams did not
3. – After 2 yrs a very faint grey-brown “stain” began to show through in stripes over where the ribs would be – presumably these parts had been subject to more heat reflection. Though not enough to show up in photos I t made the aircraft feel less-than-perfect, as I’d kept everything else in “brand new’ condition – while the airframe was in Dijon for warranty work they kindly re sprayed the white parts of the wings at cost – this looked in my opinion whiter and better it remained easy to clean, now by virtue of smoother seams – it made no measurable difference to speed/consumption and they re-weighed the plane to within, from memory, about 3kg of the original weight ?within margin of error?
In summary – in my case, Oratex provided a headache for the makers, and later a headache for the user. Though it certainly is very shiny and easy to clean.
Myself and a fellow Robin owners looked at the U.K. demonstrator in oratex a couple of years ago.We both agreed that the finish was not to the level we would expect from an aircraft costing over a £300k.Both of us felt that the original Dacron and paint finish which I believe is still an option had a much better appearance.Given the Robins enormous payload it does not need to save every last kilo of weight in its construction. Regards Stampe.
From my impressions at Friedrichshafen (or maybe somewhere else, don’t remember), white Oratex was the least interesting – probably for lack of gloss; anyway, yellow and red were much more impressive. I wish it were also available in black.
Your are right, you don,t get the glossy shine with Oratex. It is more classic. Repair is not a problem. Just apply a patch. But this is not unvisible.
During flight tests for EASA STC there were some aerodynamic benefit detected. Min speed was lower than before. Maybe the surface of the fabric works like a micro vortex generator.
