Towplane performance

I can't think of any regularly used towplane that will
achieve what you want. A 260 hp Pawnee will probaly
launch a Janus safely in anything but a significant
tail-wind component, but you won't usually get 300
feet over the fence, except on cool, windy days. Why
do you need the 300 foot margin?

At 22:30 02 April 2005, Roy wrote:
Our operation has started the hunt for a new towplane.
The main criteria is that from our 2200ft strip at
sea level we need
to have a two seater (janus) 'over the fence' at 300ft
in still air.

What would you recommend?
Dont dwell on purchase cost but rather performance/running
costs

We would consider
a) Used
b) New
c) Experimental/anything else.

Thanks for your thorts.

Chris Rollings wrote:

I can't think of any regularly used towplane that will
achieve what you want.

A Pilatus PC6 will do this just nicely. Ok, agreed, not exactly a
"regularly used towplane".

Stefan

In article ,
Stefan wrote:

Chris Rollings wrote:

I can't think of any regularly used towplane that will
achieve what you want.

A Pilatus PC6 will do this just nicely. Ok, agreed, not exactly a
"regularly used towplane".

Don't forget the NZ turbine cropduster offshoot being sold for
skydiving, the PAC 750XL:

http://www.utilityaircraft.com/

Brake release to 12,000 ft takes 12 minutes with a 2 tonne load. The
plane without the skydivers (but with fuel & pilot) weighs 1400 kg, so
it can presumably climb at over 2000 fpm lightly loaded.

Ground roll at MTOW is 1244 ft, so presumably considerably less at
light weights.


Biggest problem: best rate of climb is at 95 knots, best angle is at 85
knots.

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Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------