This seems like a good thread to jump in on/hijack.

I'm also very interested in Flying in for camping, hiking, etc. Preliminary research the Taylorcraft F-19 keeps popping to the top of my list. The Champion 7ECA also has a lot of the features I want:

Reasonable speed (as guesstimated from the performance specs) 90-100mph .
A useful load of around 600lbs which can carry two people, fuel and enough beer, I mean gear, for a long backpack with some comfort margin.
Good short field capabilities.
Miserly fuel consumption and, most importantly, I might be able to afford one.
Can carry two people and, I'm hoping, room for gear, which brings me to the crux.

Finding specifications is proving to be difficult with the T-Craft. Most of what I have I've pulled from Bill Clark's "Buyer's Guide to Used Airplanes". And, as mentioned above, it's not just the useful load that's important but how much can actually load into the baggage compartment. I doubt my passenger will be happy with a 50lb pack in her lap no matter how funny I think it is.

Anybody know what the baggage capacity of the F-19 (85hp and/or 100hp)
if different? Realistic airspeeds and other performance information would also be helpful, like the true service ceiling barring the -30 degrees and strong updrafts the stated charts are based on.

I have 0 tailwheel experience but am jonesing to fly into places like Minam someday.

Craig

One thing to remember, useful load doesn't tell the whole story. An airplane might be legal to fly at gross weight, but it just might be a pig at that weight, and unsafe or at least uncomfortable to operate in short/high/hot environments.

Eric

Craig,

Look at the FAA Library website, and do a search for the Type Certificate Data Sheet for the aircraft you're interested in.

The F-19 T craft is here: http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guida ... LE/1A9.pdf

72 pounds in baggage.

People, the FAA Library web site contains a wealth of information on every airplane that's ever been certificated in this country, it contains reference to every stc that''s been issued, electronic copies of the FAR, AIM, PTS etc, etc, etc.

Look it up and use it: http://www.faa.gov/library/

Might save me some time

MTV

MTV

Eric, Good points regarding power/performance, etc. I really don't have enough experience yet to make a sound judgement of how much power is enough.

My base requirement is that the airplane should be able to satisfy 80% of the flying I'm likely to want to do since it's unlikely I'll ever be able to afford a plane that will satisfy 100% of my flying desires: Carries 4 people, 300lbs of cargo and will land on the tip of McKinley.

I assume most of my flying will be in the Washington/Oregon region (which has quite a bit of variation right there). I'll often have a passenger, and we'll spend a couple of nights or up to a week somewhere, typically below 5000'.

MTV,

Great info! Definitely a wealth of knowledge hidden in a byzantine maze.
Either I'm not reading the specs right or it doesn't list base empty weight (I'm assuming I'll have to find that info elsewhere).

With Tandem seating, is it often possible to squeeze baggage along side the passenger? Lashed securely to said passenger with high quality duct tape, of course.

Craig

Unless you're doing all your flying at low altitudes and in cool temperatures, there's not much point in even looking at the useful load, because you're not going to be able to fly at gross weight anyway. This is especially true if you want to fly in and out of mountain strips which are typically shorter, higher and, by definition, surrounded by mountains.

In the book 'True North' the author describes loading his float equipped 90hp PA-11 with 55 gallons of fuel, tools, survival equipment and camping equipment for extended stays, including such lightweight items as fresh fruit, hardcover books, five pounds of charts, and a supply of Mountain Dew. At a conservative estimate that's around 630 pounds. That might work in the low altitudes and cool temperatures of Canada, but try flying that load across Nevada in the summer and see if you even get off the ground, day or night...

A Maule with the Lycoming 180 hp engine has a higher "useful load" than the same plane with an Alison turbine engine, which gives you some idea how much the useful load tells you about what you can do with the airplane.

Groundlooper,

In older airplanes, you often wont' find a "standard" empty weight cause they weren't required to publish it. In any case, most of these, found in part 23 airplanes are fairy tales.

As noted in an earlier post, the Super Cub is listed at 930 pounds empty. I've never met one that light, and I've flown some that folks worked really hard at to get light, as in NO interior at all, no upholstery or seat cushions, no electricals. Piper listed electrical systems as an option on teh Cub, if that tells you anything.

ravi is pretty much correct to a point with the useful load vs performance thing. Where useful load DOES make a difference is where the useful load is REALLY high, and you are therefore able to leave a lot of stuff at home. This will therefore improve your performance considerably.

Performance is a function of the wing, the thrust, and the weight. If you have a 1020 pound Super Cub, with a gross weight of 2000 pounds (a real, but rare airplane that I've flown a good bit), the airplane won't perform real well at an 8,000 foot density altitude at 2,000 pounds.

But, let's say you and your wife together weigh 320 pounds. Your camping stuff adds up to say 80 pounds. Put in 36 gallons of fuel (that's max on that airplane) and brings your total load up to 616, for an all up weight of 1636 pounds. A Super Cub does pretty well, performance-wise at that weight.

If, on the other hand, you have an 85 hp Champ, and you, your wife and half fuel bring it up to max gross weight, don't expect a lot of performance.

Fly a Cessna 206 some time, with the load described above, if you want to see a rocket ship. Load it to gross weight and it won't do real well at high altitude either, unless it's turbo'd.

So, useful load DOES matter, just as power matters, the amount of wing area and the airfoil matter, etc.

MTV

GroundLooper wrote:With Tandem seating, is it often possible to squeeze baggage along side the passenger? Lashed securely to said passenger with high quality duct tape, of course.

This is my problem with taildraggers especially tandem taildraggers.

They seam to have very small baggage areas with <100lb loading.

As a test I'm going to list http://www.airbum.com/articles/ArticleTenCheapest.html 10 cheapest airplanes with the baggage limit.

Ercoupe 415C - 65lb
Aeronca Chief 11AC -70lb
Aeronca Champ -40-50lb
Luscombe 8A -75lb
Taylorcraft BC-12D -50lb
Piper Colt (PA-22-108) -50lb
Cessna 150 -120lb
Cessna 120/140 -80lb
Piper Tri-Pacer (PA22-150) -100lb
Piper Clipper (PA-16) -50lb
Piper Vagabond (PA-15/17) -40lb
Grumman AA-1A/B/C -100lb

So who wins the most baggage for the buck?...

The lowly Cessna 150.

Now I'm still a greenhorn but I try to keep flying relatively inexpensive so if I wanted to go flycamping I would buy an early Cessna 150 with a climb prop and keep it light.

What do others say?

-Todd Giencke

Jr.CubBuilder wrote:
No way, I'd go for the TriPacer.
Although the C150 would be better for cruising around solo.

I would go for the Tri-Pacer also. But they are harder to find for <$20k in good shape.

-Todd Giencke

The only nose-wheel planes I can think of owning are a North American OV-10, or the AOPA Cardinal I'm planning on winning at the end of the year. And after I win the Cardinal I'm going to convert it to a tail dragger.

I second (third?) the vote for the TriPacer. Although I'd vote for a Pacer or PA-22/20 instead (I don't care for nosedraggers). A friend of mine has a nice 22/20 for sale for $24K-ish, if you're interested.
What that list doesn't tell you is that you can pull the back seat out of the Pacer and carry your load at that station, and avoid moving your CG aft any farther than necesary. Or load the whole back end up, lighter stuff all the way back, heavier stuff (anvils,book collections, and such) right behind the front seats.

Eric

zero.one.victor wrote:I second (third?) the vote for the TriPacer. Although I'd vote for a Pacer or PA-22/20 instead (I don't care for nosedraggers).Eric

I would go for a Pacer or a converted Tri-pacer but it doesn't burn any less fuel than I do now.

I think the Bushcaddy LSA ( http://bushcaddy.com/en/LightSport.htm ) is the closest aircraft for what I want 2 seats (380lb), 5gal/hr, 3hr fuel, 170lb baggage.

But I have a problem with the cost $20k for the e-LSA kit +$20k for the engine. I can buy a very nice certified plane for $40k.

I'm still looking for an old plane that closely meets my needs

-Todd Giencke

Again, as I said, useful load DOES matter, and in that list of aircraft, the useful load of the Tri Pacer is going to be greater than the Cessna 150, if they are similarly equipped.

That will permit you to CARRY more than the 150, OR, carry the same amount but perform a LOT better.

So, does this whole basic physics thing confuse people, or what .

MTV

Part of the confusion I believe is that Gross weight and therefore useful load can come as a result of a couple of completely different things and therefore can only be used to determine the legal weight that an airplane can operate at. It cannot be used to determine how well an aircraft may perform at that weight. The example of the Maule was a good one. The Gross weight limit of the turbine is a structual limit of the airframe, not an engine performance limit, but some aircraft's airframes are structually capable of carrying more than their gross weight, but the engine doesn't produce enough power to meet the rate of climb performance required by the FAA so the gross weight for that airplane is a performance limit. So therefore some airplanes are hotrods at their gross weight and some are dogs.
Just like demonstrated crosswind performance is just that, it may or may not be an actual aerodynamic limit, or service ceiling, sometimes a manufacturer will pick a number and test to that. A turbine Thrush's service ceiling is 12,000 ft. because who wants to fly an AG plane higher than that? It will fly much higher than that though, but why flight test it to higher?

I'm not confused about empty, gross, CG, max baggage. I'm just a fustrated A&P/IA.

I have about 50 hours in a Tomahawk. My wife and I took a trip in it to Niagara Falls and it did fine at gross weight but I wouldn't go on grass with it because of the t-tail. The reason I bring this up is I miss the 5-6gal/hr burn rate at 75%. Bring it back to 55% and it really sipped the fuel and you could tour fly all day and just have fun.

Now I have the Musketeer because I got a good deal with it. It does well on grass strips and can fly ok at full 2350lb gross on on a 90deg day at 1000'msl. It's a good plane with a 900lb useful and 60gal tanks. It can fly all day on a tank of fuel also but I miss the 5-6gal/hr burn rate.

I'm impressed with the 100hp rotax with it's 5gal/hr burn rate. But I really can't afford the $50k finished price of the experimentals. So I'm looking at old smaller planes with C-65/85/90, O-200, O-235 engines. I would like a taildragger like a Champ but for my flycamping uses I need at least 100lb baggage area because I fly with my wife. If I have to go down to 2hr of fuel to stay under gross that is ok because MN has a lot of airports and this is flatland so density altitude never goes over 3,000' (I think).

Enough frustration for now.

-Todd Giencke

tgiencke wrote:

So who wins the most baggage for the buck?...

The lowly Cessna 150.

Now I'm still a greenhorn but I try to keep flying relatively inexpensive so if I wanted to go flycamping I would buy an early Cessna 150 with a climb prop and keep it light.

True, but aside from being a nosedragger on potentially rough turf, the ground run is 735' or 1385 over a 50' obstacle. Seems a bit long to me.

The 150 also gets pretty anemic on a warm day. I had a hard time getting past 7500' with myself (125lb) and a 200lb passenger. On a tangent, my coworker claims to have flown one up to the service ceiling. It took him 3 hours. I suspect the fuel burn pushed him over the top.

Jr.CubBuilder wrote:

No way, I'd go for the TriPacer.

The tri-pacer also looks good but it always seems to be qualified with "It will make you a better pilot". Right now, I'm looking for a plane that says, "Crappy pilot friendly!".

Craig

tgiencke wrote:I have about 50 hours in a Tomahawk. My wife and I took a trip in it to Niagara Falls and it did fine at gross weight but I wouldn't go on grass with it because of the t-tail.

Hey Todd, what's the downside of a T-tail on grass?

Jr.CubBuilder wrote:You can't unweight the nose with a T-tail till you get some airspeed over it, it's out of the prop blast.

Well you just educated two people, I hadn't thought of that

Jr.CubBuilder wrote:You can't unweight the nose with a T-tail till you get some airspeed over it, it's out of the prop blast.

Yes. The T-tail is a bad idea for small planes. On a King Air 200 it's great.

The Tomahawk has No soft field ability. The nose will not unweight until very close to rotate speed.

A funny story; I did my PPL checkout in a Tomahawk with an examiner that had never been in one. The examiner pulled the power over a grass strip that I hadn't been to, in a simulated engine out emergency. I did a 360 over the field to loose altitude then did a great no power landing.

The examiner wanted me to do a soft/short field takeoff. I told the examiner that the takeoff is going to be hard because of the density altitude, our weight, the t-tail, and the fact there isn't a published procedure for short/soft takeoff in the Tomahawk POH.

So I told him I was going to do the "normal" short/soft field takeoff procedure as 10deg of flaps and hold the elevator full back until the nose unweights. He agreed to this so we gave it a try.

Because I had the elevator full up it created too much drag and we never got to speed where we could lift off. It must been funny to look at, us bouncing down the grass runway.

After we taxied back I told the examiner that I could get us airborne if I did it my way. He agreed.

I kept the elevator streamlined and the flaps up until we were close to rotation speed. Then added 10deg of flaps and climbed out to a safe altitude and raised the flaps. The examiner was happy with my performance.

I wouldn't recommend a Tomahawk landing in soft grass. But then again I did fly in the winter off a paved runway with 5" of fresh snow and it did fine. But it was a cold day.

-Todd Giencke

Believe it or not I just had a guy come over to me at the airport this past Saturday and asked if I knew anything about takeoff and landing techniques he could use with his Tomahawk on grass! I was just climbing out of my Maule which is why he asked I guess.

I didn't know anything about Tomahawks on grass and asked him how it handled so far. He said he had problems unsticking the nose wheel. I told him that I never had problems unsticking my nosewheel and that was all I knew about Tomahawk techniques.

He is a new guy on our field so I guess I better look him up and pass along that bit of information from you guys. Thanks!

Hi guys,

Well the wife and I went fly camping this last weekend to Bowstring, MN (9Y0).


But she doesn't like to pack light.





We even found a place for the dog.


This is why I like the Musketeer for fly-camping, Wife & I (380lbs.), 3hrs of fuel and 350lbs of camping gear. I was within gross weight and within aft CG with any fuel load. The bad part is it takes ~2,000' at gross weight at 2,500' MSL density altitude.

I really want to downsize my plane and fuel burn but I don't think my wife will allow a smaller plane. She likes her creature comforts.

I would like a super cub with the extended baggage, belly pod, floats, and wheel skis. But I think my next plane is going to have to be Maule sized.

I guess I'm trying to share is define the mission and find a plane that fills the mission. Even if it is outside the box. The best plane is the one you're flying and can afford.

-Todd Giencke