Got the pipe in the mail today. It is very nice. T-shirt was a nice touch, and my son was pleased to see the gummy bears ;-) The bell mouth comes off, wouldn't go in otherwise. I might need to trim the bell mouth a bit, find out this weekend.

Okay u had me at avanti but now u have my 7 year old with gummy bears.

Just got my pipe too, and picked up a new T35 for the Avanti, now just waiting for the Avanti. Pipe is very well built and service
from Grumania is outstanding.

Chatty.

Had a chance to weigh everything. 8.4 pounds with tanks dry and a 2oz piece of lead in to account for the header tank. Kero weighs 80% of water by volume, (according to google)… ;-) So, the 32oz tank will be roughly 1.6 pounds of fuel, so take off weight will be right at 10 pounds. This is with a 2100 life turbine battery and a 2600 liion. My 8S habu 32 is gone, but this plane sure feels lighter than it.

I think Ilja and I had a communication error, the pipe might be too short. Need to see where CG is, then see if it will work. The pipe is fine if the turbine is back farther, but where I had it, its 4cm too short. ;-(

Trial CG. I put the turbine as far forward as it would go on the mount. The pic shows where the batteries were, there is room to move them another 4" forward. So, I think you could easily get away with having the turbine in the stock mounting location and still not have to add weight. Henke's words were running through my head when setting this thing up, wanted the turbine as far forward as I could get it.

Only thing left is the ebrakes. I found some with 2" wheels. This isn't going to effect the CG much, and will add a small amount of weight over the stock wheels. Both of the fields I fly at follow AMA rules, so we gotta have brakes!

Looking great Sir! I have my K45 and ran it on the test bench yesterday...awesome! Hoping to get my Avanti in the first shipment.... THanks again for this thread.
Len

Thanks for the updates DrScoles! And does that mean the pipe you have now will work?

BTW, for those interested we currently stock Grumania pipes for the larger Avanti S models, so once we know what pipe configuration works for the Mini we'll be stocking those pipes here as well (which will save you quite a bit on shipping!). This will be in addition to the pipe we already have for the P20 and up to 30N turbines.

All,
My friend maidened his at the basin today with a K45 and put two beautiful flights on it. Required some elevator trim and a click or two of aileron and away it went. Very fast and all the vertical you could ask for. He Set the timer for 5 minutes and landed with a third of a tank of kero. He uses a demon cortex gyro. We have a great photographer at the field so will try and post some photos soon.
Steve

Congrats to Gary on his mini Avanti S maiden...

I know he is using a "Tam" pipe and I like his setup and I will be going with that setup. In my opinion the Grumania pipe bell mouth is slightly too big..

David

Where do you find the 2" wheel with e-brake?

Hey Dr is you ever get tired of this little fella let me know this would go great with my big Avanti

Steve, do you know how big a tank he installed? Please share pics!

The bell mouth on the grumania pipe does need to be cut down. I've been talking to Ilja quite a bit the last few days. If you want the turbine farther forward, the rear former gets in the way of the bell mouth. I may move it back a bit to find a happy medium. I did need to get a slightly longer pipe made.

The wheels were from a guy on regroups out of singapore. I will post a link.

Hey guys,

Just wanted to tell you I made the first 3 flights with my mini Avanti powered by JetCat P-20SE today.
It was very very windy (crosswind as well) so fine tuning was not possible. It definitely feels very light on the stick and it's easy to fly. Power of the P-20 seems to be really good including decent verticals.
I flew before the Airworld Cougar and Habu32 with a P-20 but this is by far the better model.

My goal was to build it really light and made some small mods.
I removed the 2 geardoor servo's and sequencer and made a mechanical linkage (saw this idea on RC Network and works great), made a pull-pull system on the nose wheel steering (stronger on grass), replaced the carbon stab rod to a hollow one and use small batteries (2x 450 mAh RX, 1x 1300 mAH turbine)
Weight without fuel INCLUDING battery's: 3,075 kg (6,77 lb).
Including fuel (750cc): 3,7 kg (8,15 lb), so the plane is lighter then Seba's plane.

Small movie of today to give a little impression. Sorry, recored by phone.
https://youtu.be/OFODYSTeklk

Cheers Didier

Great work Didier, which tail pipe are you using, would appreciate some pics of the tail pipe mounting from the rear.
I too may copy your idea of the pull pull system and mechanical door system, does the nose gear just push the doors open during gear extension.

Thanks
Chatty.

Ahh, I think I got it, the bent wire must be under load when retracted.

Chatty.

Hey Chatty, you give already the answer yourself. ;-)
The nose wheel push the door open and the wire does the rest.
The pipe is a Grumania single wall pipe.
I had a left-over titanium pipe and cut it to 4cm/1,5 inch. This will function as the outer pipe. (only 4 cm)
I made a wooden ply ring, glued it to the aft wooden section of the fuselage and glued the outer pipe inside the ring.
The separation between the inner and outer pipe I made with a stroke of Titanium, Z-bended it as you can see.

Thanks Didier, My Avanti should be hopefully here next week, I got the stock pipe from Grumania and will be using a lambert T 35.
will try to keep weight down to a minimum.

Chatty.

I got the ebrakes and the pipe installed. For those of you who need brakes due to flying at AMA fields, these are 2" replacements. The axle is 4mm, so you have to drill the strut out, pretty simple. They look very nice, but will obviously add some weight.

The grumania bell mouth is too wide to place the pipe and it at the same time. You have to bolt it together using three 3mm bolts while its in the plane. If you have large hands, might want to teach the wife how to turn wrenches. If your wife has big hands…. well… I put an angle bracket on the bulkhead for the bottom, and used one of the aluminum straps that grumania supplies and clamped it to the turbine. I had to cut down the bell mouth 2cm. Obviously, neither this pipe or the the kit were meant for each other, but you can make it work. I know Tam has made a pipe that might be easier to install???

I need to do some wire routing and it will be ready to go. Moving in the next two weeks, so doubt I will get a chance to maiden for a month or so… ;-(

I have KT45 #006 lol I am waiting too

I think the landing gear is going to be fine. It seems more robust than my Habu 32 with tams struts. I wish I would have weighed the habu, it felt a lot heavier than this plane.

My apologies for not seeing this through maiden. The e-brake controller I had was bad, and another one is coming from singapore. I'm knee deep in moving into a new house right now and planes can't be a priority. Hope to maiden in August. I know someone else above has already flown their K45 powered Avanti and sounds like it went well.

Finally finished building. lambert T35, grumania pipe. Total weight with UAT full and i gyro 3e is 3050 grams.
should have good performance. Can't wait to get her airborne.

Chatty.

Following this thread with much interest there some of my customers also want to fit the Kingtech K45G in the mini Avanti S airframe when they arrive

See keep every info regarding the set ups and flight characteristics coming.


Grt,
Berto.

Test flew the Avanti yesterday, had 3 flights. Was actually surprised by the Verticals she had, almost out of sight.
All systems worked flawless so far, the igyro 3e made landings a breeze even in cross winds of around 15 gusting 20 knots.
With the 3.5 kg lambert, she is just a super sweet combo.

Chatty.

My finger is shivering above the "send order" button on this one.

Keep the info coming on the K45 set up, i'm really interested in how the combo works and if the airframe and gears can handle the load.....

Cheers,

Ed

Not needed, I have 4 coming ;-)