That would be a 70" Kiev. It seems to be the lightest prop out there, good for the airframe of course and the Rotax gearbox likes it also. Very smooth even down at low revs. My backup is a 72" Warp, it pulls better on takeoff, cruises the same, and weighs a fair bit more though. Plus the Kiev is supposedly the quietest prop out there, I can hear the difference between it and the Warp. Super smooth also.
BUT....I don't know how much prop making is going on back in the Ukraine right now, something about a possible third world war and Russian expansion, so as a backup plan I've been talking with Craig Catto about optimizing one of his designs for the bushed S-7S. His name is very familiar to me, from 30+ years ago when we were both involved with ultralights and/or hang gliders. Same guy,
and he had a great rep back then and I see he has maintained it with his little prop biz. The Cub guys genuflect when his name is mentioned, his props are the gotta have, and I am pretty sure his props have been involved with the last few Valdez wins?
Here's the best part, after bragging to Craig about how light the Kiev is, he dropped the bombshell that a optimized prop by him for the S-7S would weigh 1.5 lbs. LESS! Oh yeah, also about 25% greater climb, with the same cruise. It's blowing 45 mph today up here, but first chance I'm up to get some numbers for him to work with. He has things so fine tuned that if you fly with bushwheels while the same design flies on teenytires, he wants to know about it and will tweak accordingly for max performance. Crap, we haven't even talked price yet but I know I am going to get one
A minor thread drift from ski flying I guess.
My new greatly enlarged ramp back up into and out of the hangar worked out real good, the old one was too narrow and cause of much grief. Simple in retrospect, but the other problem with the narrow steel ramp was it melted off the snow quicker then the surrounding ground, the earth ramp holds the snow much better.
