Harmon Rocket II questions

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 04:16:40 -0800, Jerry Springer
wrote:

Jason Grass wrote:
Does anyone here know much about the Harmon Rocket II?
I've been looking at it, and it concerns me in the fact that the
cockpit demensions look a little snug. It has enough room in width,
but the distance between the front and back seat seems too close, as
does the distance of the instrument panel from the front seat pilot.
Also, in looking at pictures of it, pilots seem to have their heads
right up against the top of the canopy. Is John Harmon a short guy?
I suspect it was designed by someone not so tall. I guess it would be
nice to go sit in one somewhere, but that's not always easy to find.
And I wonder if the wing is strong enough. His webiste says he did
nothing to the RV-4 wingspar to strengthen it. He only shortened it to
to reduce the bending moment on it, and reduced the rib spacing. Then
it says he sand bagged the wing to 6 G's. 6 G's isn't all that much
for an ultimate load test. So I'm a bit leery of the design. I wanted
to build one, but after doing a little research, I'm turned off by
what I've found out.

I got a ride with John Harmon in his Rocket and it is a great airplane.
While I was not in the front seat the back seat has all kinds of room. I
am 6'3" tall and 200+lbs. and was not a bit crowded. One of my friends
just finished one and he is 6'+ and has a lot of room. You customize the
seats to fit your size. 6 G's is the load it could stand before it
could bend something, 9 G's is ultimate load. YOu might be turned off by
it but I would built one if I could afford one, but I will have to be
satisfied flying my 16 year old RV-6.

Jerry

Thanks for the info ... I'm 6'2" so was naturally concerned with the
cockpit demensions. I'm flying a tandem homebuilt now with a 32" wide
cockpit, and it's comfortable. But the instrument panel is so close I
have to wear bi-focals to see it. The Harmon's panel looks even closer
to the pilot than my airplane's is. So I may need a new perscription
to see it :-)
9 G's as an ulimate load isn't all that much, but compared to spam
cans is plenty. Definitely not in the class of the unlimited acro
ships. But I don't do those types of maneuvers anyway, so would never
approach anything that would break the Rockets wing.
You know once I went through the FAA's exhibition hanger in Lakeland,
and the inspector was handing out accident info on homebuilts, and the
one plane that stood out among the rest in the list was the RV-3. It
had numerous wing spar failures, resulting in accidents. So I've
always felt the entire RV line has weak wings, since they are pretty
much similar in design. And there was an RV accident once involving
wing failure, and a fellow homebuilder I was talking to on the flight
line in Lakeland said he asked Van about that accident's cause, and
his reply was "I guess we'll never know". And that fellow told me "If
I were the designer of that line I'd sure as hell want to find out!"
He definitely didn't care for Van's answer to his question.
I guess aluminum just can't approach the strength in some of these
I-beam type of spars you see in the composite ships.