Towplane performance

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.

If performance is your only criteria, the following should be
considered. A 450 Steerman, a 650 Steerman or a 400 or turbine Piper
Brave. These are all crop dusters so you have to be careful what you
buy. The wings time out on the Brave and require major repair at that
time. The performance is directly proportional to the cost of operation
in just about the following order turbine Brave, 650, 450 and 400
Brave. The 650 Steerman with full power at sea level will make you
think you are on a winch. There are a lot of Braves available at
reasonable cost but see previous.

I agree that for really good performance and ok cost,
a nice big turbine is a neat deal. A lot of cropdusters
have gone from the radials to the turbines for performance/cost
reasons.

At 15:31 04 April 2005, 1jh wrote:
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.

If performance is your only criteria, the following
should be
considered. A 450 Steerman, a 650 Steerman or a 400
or turbine Piper
Brave. These are all crop dusters so you have to be
careful what you
buy. The wings time out on the Brave and require major
repair at that
time. The performance is directly proportional to the
cost of operation
in just about the following order turbine Brave, 650,
450 and 400
Brave. The 650 Steerman with full power at sea level
will make you
think you are on a winch. There are a lot of Braves
available at
reasonable cost but see previous.


Mark J. Boyd

The Zenair CH601XL SLSA has an O-200.
With 800# empty weight,
one pilot and light fuel, I wonder what it would tow...

At 300# under max gross, it may just get over the trees
towing 800# or less. 2 people in a 1000#+ aircraft,
hmmm...pretty doubtful there.

I have yet to believe an RV-9 under 1000# empty can
be built with any engine bigger than a O-200. An
inquiry to Van's confirmed that there are no plans
to try to make any of the existing RV kits into SLSA
or ELSA eligible aircraft. They are sturdy and capable,
but a few hundred pounds past the 600kg limit. Flaps,
engine weight, engine accessories, battery, and sturdy
landing gear all add up.

I think a good SLSA towplane would need to be made
from the
bottom up as a single seater. I don't see enough demand
for a single-seat SLSA to make this likely. I'm not
sure we will ever see a single seat SLSA airplane at
all...

At 01:00 07 April 2005, Bill Daniels wrote:

'Roy' wrote in message
. com...
Many thanks for all the advice and suggestions so
far.

Non of the suggestions were for other than standard
(old) aircraft
products.

It has been suggested that an RV9 with a big motor
(160-200hp) would
be great to do the job.

Anyone else considered this approach?
We are not a commercial operation and dont have to
pay our pilots.
There is no insurance problem so this solution has
some appeal. ie
new airframe, easy repair & maintenance.

'Experimental - Amateur Built' aircraft will always
have a 'No glider
towing' paragraph in their operation limitations letter.
However, Sport
Light Aircraft under the new regs seem to have a loophole
that allows glider
towing for profit.

Actually the key design parameter isn't the engine
it's the propeller and
after that, the wing. If you start with a prop optimized
for max thrust at
towing speed and then a wing optimized for that speed,
the HP requirements
go way down. This assumes that the prop RPM can be
reduced by belts or
gearing.

Maybe somebody should cook up an SLA design optimized
for towing. This
would be a very efficient and very quiet airplane.

Bill Daniels


Mark J. Boyd

Getting back to the original thread - what you need
my friend is a Turbo-Czmelak like they used at WGC2003.
1000ft/min+ with a fully loaded Nimbus4/4D/ASH25, throttled
back I believe!

Have you considered winch launching?

Mike Schumann

"Roy" wrote in message
om...
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.