Originally posted by Michael Beckman
Flame out one last flight of the night....too low and too slow and missed the field and went into the hollow Hit hard, broke the bottom wing in two, clipped the left tip and folded it upwards, shattered the side of the fuse at the wing saddle, BUT, THE AIRCRAFT WAS INTACT WITH ONLY ONE FLYING WIRE BROKEN. I WAS AMAZED! The repairs are going well and I hope to have it ready for the Rally of Giants in Muncie next week.
Hey Mike, met you guys last weekend at the Rally, and I didn't know that the plane had gone through all THAT! It MUST be strong, and that's good news. OTOH, that's one reason I'm going with gas for my Pitts, to minimize glow engine deadsticks.
Flew my Pitts with a Brison 3.2 and a 20x10 prop...WAY too much torque. 1st flight. Removed engine and put my Moki 2.1 in the front of it and wow...what a great airplane.
You did mention that the plane turned hard left on the takeoff run from the torque, but didn't say it was too much torque in the air (only one flight to check things on). My Cermark Pitts with the Saito 1.80 would do the same thing if I firewalled the throttle on the takeoff run. I found that taking off at half throttle significantly reduced the torque, right rudder took care of the remainder, and I was rewarded smooth acceleration and the tail slowly rising then a rollout with rudder adequately handling the steering, and a scale-like liftoff (fun, fun, fun!!!)
Think I'm going with the Taurus 3.2 also for the airborn performance, and throttle back to reduce torque for good ground handling.