T-18 more roomy than I had thought it would be

One friendly and generous T-18 builder let me sit in his standard T-18
down at SNF. I'm 6'2" and had thought I wouldn't have enough leg room.
Boy was I surprised! turns out, I had more than enough leg room. The
main thing that was tight was the fact the plane I sat in was the
original fuselage, with the 38" width. The wide body version with the
40" cabin width would be fine. The headroom was tight with the canopy
closed, I had to tilt my head forward, but the builder, who was a bit
short, said he had a 5 inch thick seat cushion on the seat bottom.
With a 2" cushion of temperfoam, I would have had enough room. I sure
do like the look of the T-18, more than the Van's designs. But that's
just a personal preferance. I just can't get past that big rectangular
wing. Reminds me of an old Hershey bar winged Cherokee. Another T-18
builder told me that it's basically a dying design. The folding wing
of both the T-18 and the Mustang II appeal to me. But the t-18 owner
said he knew of no one that actually folded his wings and towed their
airplane home. So maybe that idea isn't as practical in actual
practice as in theory. And with a 180hp engine, the T-18 owner said
he couldn't do a full power runup with the stick all the way back,
without the tail coming off the ground. Seems the 180hp T-18's are a
bit nose heavy, especially with a constant speed prop. I've noticed in
accident reports, nose overs are the most common occurance. One reason
is probably that the gear is swept back, and as the nose rotates down,
the gear moves aft, making the situation worse. Van's have the same
geomety. The Mustang II, with the gear swept forward has the advantage
on that one. But the approach speed of the T-18 and M-II are a lot
higher than a Van's. So short runways are out with those.

"Sliker" wrote

One friendly and generous T-18 builder let me sit in his standard T-18
down at SNF. I'm 6'2" and had thought I wouldn't have enough leg room.
Boy was I surprised! turns out, I had more than enough leg room. The
main thing that was tight was the fact the plane I sat in was the
original fuselage, with the 38" width. The wide body version with the
40" cabin width would be fine.

Say what? The 38" cabin is not wide enough, but if you have a two inch wide
cabin, then you get one inch more, and the passenger gets 1 inch more, that
is enough?

I'm surprised that 1/2" extra on each elbow and/or hip is enough to even
notice.

Of all the things wrong with small airplanes, the lack of width is what I
would say is most wrong.

I don't mind cuddling up with my sweetie, but for hour on end, sometimes hot
sweaty, tired and irritable? Nope.

Of course, then we are talking about the guy you though would enjoy going
flying with you, and rubbing elbows with you for a few hours. NOT!!!

Really, is a few more inches going to kill your speed all that much more?
Would it really matter, most of the time? It isn't like a few more inches
in width is going to destroy the mission of the plane, is it? So it goes a
few knots slower. Big deal, I say. Cripes sake, even a VW bug has it way
over on about everything out there, in the width department. It even beats
the pants off of most of the 6 and 8 place, 1 million dollar and more
airplanes, in the elbow room department!

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I on my own with this pet peeve? You
can be darn sure if I design my own, it will be wider than 98% of the
offerings out there, today.
--
Jim in NC

"Sliker" wrote in message
...
...
practice as in theory. And with a 180hp engine, the T-18 owner said
he couldn't do a full power runup with the stick all the way back,
without the tail coming off the ground. Seems the 180hp T-18's are a
bit nose heavy, especially with a constant speed prop. I've noticed in
accident reports, nose overs are the most common occurance. One reason
...

Personally, the 180 hp is a bit of an overkill for a T-18 if you want my
opinion...
They will also tend to end up well over John Thorp's design gross weight.

Take a look at http://www.t18.net/resources.htm if you havn't already.

If you put a lot of attention into the details, you can do pretty darn good
on a little old O-290 - see
http://www.t18.net/resources/T-18%20orig%20hdbk.doc for some extensive
performance data in the middle (I know the builder real well and I believe
his numbers. )

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.

On 2008-04-12, Morgans wrote:
Of all the things wrong with small airplanes, the lack of width is what I
would say is most wrong.

Not all small aircraft are that narrow. The Zodiac's 44-inch cabin and seats
are as wide as a pair of first class seats on a Northwest A320 or DC-9, and
that's plenty wide for two.
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
Fairmont, MN (FRM) (Yes, that's me!)
AMD Zodiac CH601XLi N55ZC (ordered 17 March, delivery 2 June)

On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:56:52 GMT, Jay Maynard
wrote:

On 2008-04-12, Morgans wrote:
Of all the things wrong with small airplanes, the lack of width is what I
would say is most wrong.

Not all small aircraft are that narrow. The Zodiac's 44-inch cabin and seats
are as wide as a pair of first class seats on a Northwest A320 or DC-9, and
that's plenty wide for two.
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
Fairmont, MN (FRM) (Yes, that's me!)
AMD Zodiac CH601XLi N55ZC (ordered 17 March, delivery 2 June)

Yeah my rebel is 44" wide too. Lots of room between the seats for the
float hydraulics pump handle and the water rudder retract cable. If
you both have shoulders like linebackers the seats move far enough
back that the passenger can have his shoulders behind the pilot Or
just choose a tandem design any that I've sat in have tons of elbow
room for 1

"Morgans" wrote:
....
Of all the things wrong with small airplanes, the lack of width is
what I would say is most wrong.
....
Really, is a few more inches going to kill your speed all that much
more? Would it really matter, most of the time? It isn't like a few
more inches in width is going to destroy the mission of the plane, is
it? So it goes a few knots slower. Big deal, I say.

Agreed on all counts.

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I on my own with this pet peeve?

You aren't alone.

"Jim Logajan" wrote

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I on my own with this pet peeve?

You aren't alone.

For a while, I thought I was crazy, for the comments coming in. I'm glad to
see someone else agree. I'm not that big of a guy either, at 5'11", and
right at an "official" FAA person's weight of 175! I was a bit more than
official, but got down to fit in the FAA idea of ideal. g
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Jim Logajan" wrote

Does anyone else feel this way, or am I on my own with this pet peeve?

You aren't alone.

For a while, I thought I was crazy, for the comments coming in. I'm glad
to see someone else agree. I'm not that big of a guy either, at 5'11",
and right at an "official" FAA person's weight of 175! I was a bit more
than official, but got down to fit in the FAA idea of ideal. g
--
Jim in NC

You are not alone at all, and I would not be at all surprised to find that
the miserable amount of space in most light aircraft might be a large part
of the pilot recruitment problem. Most of the RV series are 43" cabin
width, about the same as a Piper Tomahawk, which is tolerable; but needs
improvement.

While I'm on a rant about the lousy accomodations, I am 6'1" and only
slightly above that 175 pound target weight (but I'm working on it g);
which brings me to a couple of additional complaints. Most of the high wing
light airplanes have poor visibility, especially for most people taller than
about 5'9" and actually seem to be getting worse. In addition, egress is
awkward from many of the newer low wing designs--especially when you
consider that most "customers" are at least middle aged when they are ready
to buy. I watched the sales chick demonstrating how to exit one of them (I
think it was the Europa derivative--possibly a Liberty at the LSA Expo) and
I have to laugh about what a wife or girl friend might have to say. It
seems that the perferred method was to slide your fanny sideways and back
out onto the wing walk, rock back and pull your feet out, swivel on your
fanny (the sales chick was not wearing white), and then slide off the
leading edge of the wing. No wonder that I looked awkward, even though I
work out, when I tried to exit in the same way that I used to exit a
Tomahawk!

Clearly, much improvement is deperately needed.

Peter

In a previous article, "Morgans" said:
Really, is a few more inches going to kill your speed all that much more?
Would it really matter, most of the time? It isn't like a few more inches
in width is going to destroy the mission of the plane, is it? So it goes a
few knots slower. Big deal, I say. Cripes sake, even a VW bug has it way
over on about everything out there, in the width department. It even beats
the pants off of most of the 6 and 8 place, 1 million dollar and more
airplanes, in the elbow room department!

That's why I was so sad when our flying club sold our Piper Lance - the
PA32R cabin is quite a bit wider than the PA28 cabin, wide enough that I
could put my flight bag down between the seats. It meant my wife and I
didn't knock elbows for the entire flight.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
"Orcs killed: none. Disappointing. Stubble update: I look rugged and
manly. Yes! Keep wanting to drop-kick Gimli. Holding myself back. Still
not King." - the very secret diary of Aragorn son of Arathron

A 180 does seem like a big engine in that little T-18. If I did put
that much power in one, I'd use something like a Prince prop, which is
made from wood, and light. A 180 with a constant speed is a lot of
weight to hang on the nose of that little plane.

Another thing about the T-18 I'm not wild about is the nose section
taper. The sides of the nose taper inward, a design left over from the
original idea of the T-18 being open cockpit and having it's cylinders
hanging in the breeze, like a J-3's. When it was discovered the plane
was too fast for open cockpit, and open cylinders, a canopy was
installed and "cheeks" put over the cylinders sticking out. But what
should have been done then, was to straighten out the sides of the
nose, like an RV 6 or 7. Which would have eliminated the cheeks stuck
on the side of the cowling, and provided more room in the forward part
of the cockpit, where your feet are. I can't imagine that plane ever
being an open cockpit. What was John thinking!? I remember something
he wrote that said when they flew it open cockpit, if felt like it
would suck you right out of it. So that idea was abandonned early. I
guess John just didn't want to go back to the drawing board and draw
all new plans for the entire nose section.
Another thing one T-18 owner said at SNF was when John designed the
T-18, he was thinking in terms of the FAA's 170 lb pilot. But if he
had known, the reality is, most guys are upper middle age by the time
they finish one, and many have the usual spare tire, and need more
than a 38" cockpit width, even 40" is barely enough. 44" should be the
minimum for side by side planes. My Glasair 3 is 42", which I think is
a bit tight for 2 big guys.

On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:11:16 -0400, "Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea
Hawk At Wow Way D0t C0m wrote:

"Sliker" wrote in message
.. .
...
practice as in theory. And with a 180hp engine, the T-18 owner said
he couldn't do a full power runup with the stick all the way back,
without the tail coming off the ground. Seems the 180hp T-18's are a
bit nose heavy, especially with a constant speed prop. I've noticed in
accident reports, nose overs are the most common occurance. One reason
...

Personally, the 180 hp is a bit of an overkill for a T-18 if you want my
opinion...
They will also tend to end up well over John Thorp's design gross weight.

Take a look at http://www.t18.net/resources.htm if you havn't already.

If you put a lot of attention into the details, you can do pretty darn good
on a little old O-290 - see
http://www.t18.net/resources/T-18%20orig%20hdbk.doc for some extensive
performance data in the middle (I know the builder real well and I believe
his numbers. )