I will talk to Jim this weekend and find out what motor he has in his pitts. Jim has been to the past 3 or 4 local airshows and he is the best performer out of everyone that shows up. I am getting tired of these darn jet teams and I want more Jim Leroy's there.

Chris Puckett

Chris, you will have to tell us what you think about Jimmy Franklin after the air show. Jimmy's airplane has to be close to having better thrust than weight. Tom

SUNNAVA#####!!!

That shark looks AWESOME!!! Now, if I sold the house and the kids, put the wife out on the streets..........

I'm sure SOMEONE will take this incredible aircraft up.

As to modding Lyc. 540s, there are two main shops. Dick Demars Fire Wall Forward and a group call Lycon. They will do a number of mods including porting, polishing, putting in after-market cams and higher compresstion pistons.

I've read various figures (some a little generous, I don't think Sean Tuckers aeroplane is putting out 400hp) on peak HP. I think a 540 with "The Works" might be getting 360hp at around 2900rpm.

I used to own a Laser which had a Demars IO 360. Stock 200hp and it put out about 230 at 2750 rpm.

I watched this years Oshkosh coverage on ESPN and there was a guy in a 'custom built' biplane (looked like an Ultimate to me). It was red with big white ORACLE lettering. This guy DID HOVER his plane, not could have or should have but DID. Until then, I didn't think real airplanes could do it. I've ran across his website before so someone could probably find more specs by searching Yahoo! or something.

- Joe

I think that's Sean Tucker Joe. His aircraft is actually a very highly modified Pitts. That hovering manouvre he does is, as I described earlier, a very high A of A pass. He still doesn't quite have 1 to 1 in his aircraft, which makes doing things like that all the more remarkable.

Sean's airplane, the 1-800-COLLECT and 10-10-220 challenger, was a modified pitts but it was lost by another pilot. Sean's new challenger is designed from the ground up for him.

-Kelly

Here's a URL to the above mentioned ORACLE plane:

http://www.poweraerobatics.com/as-photogal.htm

I believe the guy in question was Sean Tucker, but not sure. I do specifically remember the announcers talking about his plane, it's 'custom' status and how it had a high power to weight ratio to be able to 'hang on the prop'. They were using those terms ont he ESPN show a few weeks ago. It's hard to tell from video because he was not low to the ground so there were no stationary object for me to personally compare against however he was vertical and the announcers commented on the planes ability to do this so I'm inclined to believe he was doing it. Although wouldn't be the first time someone hyped up their event for the sake of conversation.

The Juka designed by the B E S T flyer in the world by far.. Jurgis Kairys has a 1.3 to 1 power to weight, with those huge 3d surfaces and that pilot im sure well be seeing some til touching very soon...

I am confident that the Shark would have hovered. It was going to be much lighter than anything else out there with an AEIO 540.

My understanding is that the Static thrust of an AEIO 540 puts out almost exactly the same power as the weight of the Edge 540 but the prop wash creates about 150 lbs of drag on the airframe causing slightly less than 1 to 1 thrust.

Dan

I saw Sean fly a year ago. He "hovers" for about a count of 5 seconds. He really doesn't stop (I believe), but the last few feet of his vertical climb are really streached out time wise. He seems to really hover, then he does a torque roll on a down line. I think it's a modified Challenger 2 Pitts.

Kelly,

You are abslolutley correct. The original "Challenger" was lost when Seans' ferry pilot crashed en route between airshows. The current aircraft WAS scratch-built, but is a lot like the older aircraft, so perhaps "New design inspired by the Pitts" is more accurate than "Highly modified Pitts".

In a full size aircraft a "High" thrust to weight does not necessarily mean in excess of 1 to 1, and many "Prop Hanging" figures are possible by having the wing, while mostly stalled, producing a little lift in the prop-wash. (A stalled wing still produces some lift, but the co-efficient of lift reduces as A of A increases post-stall.)

3Dmike,

That's an interesting looking aircraft. What's the engine? An M-14PF?

I know that General Dynamics reports the F16 as having a better than 1 to 1 power to weight ratio. I have seen a air force demo pilot hover the plane in a very high angle of attach with the landing gear and flaps down at zero airspeed. The plane was definately not moving I had a clear view of this. Then throttle up and raise the flaps and gear and accelerate vertical gaining speed till out of sight.

harrier has over a 1:1 power ratio.

-Kelly

When you say a fighter has better than 1 to 1 thrust to weight, you have to know which weight you mean. Most modern fighters approach or exceed equity with no pay-load and only internal fuel, but few do with armaments and external fuel tanks.

With a useful war load, even the Harrier needs a short take-off run to get the wings generating some lift before partially vectoring thrust to achieve lift off. Having used fuel and weapons, it is almost always capable of a vertical landing.

If you want some good video of a full scale jet doing some 3D flying follow this link:

X-31 videos

Specifically check out the mongoose videos. It shows the X-31 doing a quick turn, pulling vertical and stopping, then accelerating vertically.

Yes the Juka has a M-14P. I highly doubt that Sean Tucker has a O-520 in his plane because Lycoming never did make a 520 ( to the best of my knowlege, some of you older fellows can probably prove me wrong, I'm only 16), only Continental. I agree with Rossan about not getting 400 hp out of an IO-540, because Kirby Chambliss more horsepower out of a -540 that was putting out 260 to begin with. I don't think you could get 100 or even 140 hp (if you had a -540 that put out 260 hp) without compromising reliability and safety, or without ending up building a brand new engine. But what do I know ?

Rossan, what year was your Laser? I know this is somewhat random, but since I am a pack rat with aviation magazines, I kept an issue of Aero Trader from a couple years ago that had a big picture of a Laser with 230 hp. Did you ever compete with it? I have a friend that is going to check me out in his CAP 10B, which might become a 10C in the future. I am really looking foreward to that!!

Hi Ryan,

I was active in Competition Aerobatics (Full size) in my home country of Australia for several years until last year. I was thinking about quitting, but loosing my job (I'm an Airline Pilot) and moving countries (I'm now living in Japan!) kind of accelerated my retirement!!

I only had the Laser for a year. It was an Australian built version and I sold it to a guy in England. Previously I had a Pitts S2a, followed by a Pitts S1S, then had an Extra 300 for a couple of years.

Best of luck in your Aerobatic endevours, Model or Full-size, there is nothing more rewarding.

Ryan, I had a brain fart or something. You are correct it would be a AEIO 540, which in stock form is 300hp. Lycoming now has a new AEIO 580, but very few of these are out there. There was one person flying at Oshkosh in a Cap with one I think. Tom

I believe that Matt Chapman has one in his Cap. I think the -580 has 320 or 330 hp and was probably designed for people that had aerobatic planes to have a certified engine that was lightweight and did not have to have mods to put out 320 or 330 hp, which seems to be the magic number these days. Are there any legal problems with having an engine sent to Demars or Barret for some mods, since you have to take it out of registry?

Ryan, most of these airbatic airplanes are flown in the expermental catagory, and in that case there would few problems with the engine mods. The one problem that could pop up is if you wanted to place it back into a certified aircraft. Tom

Tom,

Do you fly full scale?

Zivko's Shark is on display at the EAA musem in Oshkosh, WI. I was at AirVenture there this August and saw it for myself! Pretty awesome looking airplane. The control surfaces are HUGE; bigger than the Edge's I'm pretty sure. It was to have better than 1:1 power ratio I believe. I took pics, but they didn't turn out.

Carl

Ryan, yes I do fly full scale for the past 22yrs. RC for the past 27, and a little C/L before that. I've watched and followed acro for about 30yrs. All this and I'm still under 40. Tom