Archer Air?

Greg Copeland wrote:
Down south (Texas), is air conditioning worth consideration on something
with only 180hp? What type of HP and weight hit does it incur? Is it
worth it? I suspect it's a possible source of ongoing maintenance. Should
it be considered or avoided at all costs? Does A/C add much to the cost
of annual? Impact gph in cruise?


Thanks,

Greg


I'm a partner in a '78 Archer II. It was manufactured with AC. Before
I bought into the partnership, the group had it removed. The general
consensus was that the weight (74 lbs) and additional maint was not
worth the limited use, even here in the south (Atlanta). Another issue
is that when you have the AC, the alternator belt is relegated to a very
small pully/belt which is very susceptible to getting out of alignment
and quickly destroying the belt. We finally had the pulley reconfigured
to a completely non-AC setup and the belt problems have disappeared.
The main time you would use the AC would be on the ground or cruising at
low altiltude, since you would not use it on take-off or cruise.

Mike pvt/IFR N44979 Archer II at RYY

We had pretty unsatisfying experience with our Archer' AC. The alternator
belt on an AC-equipped Archer is pretty fragile, and I think we saved 60
pounds taking the AC out. I don't remember the AC actually cooling the
airplane anyway.

The real trigger for us was that the relay for the condenser deployment
motor would fail - leaving the condensor hanging out in the breeze, and
reducing climb close to 100 fpm, cruise 5 knots. Since you shouldn't take
off with the condenser deployed, that meant someone (me) had to dive into
the tail cone (of course on a hot summer day) to manually turn the greasy
drive screw about a hundred and sixty turns. It didn't take doing that many
times before I'd had enough.

Jerry
"Mike" wrote in message
. ..
Greg Copeland wrote:
Down south (Texas), is air conditioning worth consideration on something
with only 180hp? What type of HP and weight hit does it incur? Is it
worth it? I suspect it's a possible source of ongoing maintenance.
Should
it be considered or avoided at all costs? Does A/C add much to the cost
of annual? Impact gph in cruise?


Thanks,

Greg


I'm a partner in a '78 Archer II. It was manufactured with AC. Before I
bought into the partnership, the group had it removed. The general
consensus was that the weight (74 lbs) and additional maint was not worth
the limited use, even here in the south (Atlanta). Another issue is that
when you have the AC, the alternator belt is relegated to a very small
pully/belt which is very susceptible to getting out of alignment and
quickly destroying the belt. We finally had the pulley reconfigured to a
completely non-AC setup and the belt problems have disappeared.
The main time you would use the AC would be on the ground or cruising at
low altiltude, since you would not use it on take-off or cruise.

Mike pvt/IFR N44979 Archer II at RYY