Musta been 12 or 14 then. Too many S's. Yes KitFox is great as long as you never want to let go of the controls.

RE: this is definitely a case of thread creep, but want too further explain the reasoning for not trying to bush fly a pusher aircraft. In the event of an incident that takes out the gear (a gopher hole or some such) in a typical Cub or tractor configured aircraft it hits the belly and if the nose digs in the first thing that is done crashing is the engine. In a pusher type aircraft in the same situation if the nose digs in the first thing to arrive at the crash scene is your feet right behind a fiberglass nose cone and if the crash progresses, the big piece of kinetic energy is behind the pilot. enough said...everyone else can do the math.
Think the original question was can a Titan be modded to be a climb rate rock star...saw aTitan years ago with a Rotax 618...climbed like a homesick angel. Definitely a hotrod.

S-12Flyer wrote: The Titans are stressed for aerobatics. Any "mishap that would rip the engine from it's mounts and send it ripping through the cabin would not be "little" nor would the same impact be likely to be survivable in an older Kitfox\Avid. .....

Look at the post-crash photos of Harrison Ford's mishap in his PT-22. Note the engine busted (or half busted) off the mount. I've never thought about it before, but after the subject came up I don't know that I'd want the engine behind me in a sudden-stop-crash scenario. I know a guy who was hit head -on in his van-- the impact didn't do him any damage to him. Too bad he can't say the same about the heavy toolbox in back which came flying forward into the back of his seat.

My Titan single place with a Rotax 503 climbed real well, but it didn't land all that short. If you got behind the power curve on short final like I did twice, it would really get your attention. Pretty small wing, LESS then 20'! Nice fat chord though. Due to the control authority it had plus the great viz, that narrow span, and though I hate to say it.... the trike gear, I have never felt more confident landing on narrow country roads. Single track, with fences both sides, no problem!

The thing that drove me crazy about it was I couldn't fly with the door open, or a window even. NOT a rough field machine, groomed grass would be about it, and it better be groomed. Great company to deal with BTW.

hotrod180 wrote:

S-12Flyer wrote: The Titans are stressed for aerobatics. Any "mishap that would rip the engine from it's mounts and send it ripping through the cabin would not be "little" nor would the same impact be likely to be survivable in an older Kitfox\Avid. .....

Look at the post-crash photos of Harrison Ford's mishap in his PT-22. Note the engine busted (or half busted) off the mount. I've never thought about it before, but after the subject came up I don't know that I'd want the engine behind me in a sudden-stop-crash scenario. I know a guy who was hit head -on in his van-- the impact didn't do him any damage to him. Too bad he can't say the same about the heavy toolbox in back which came flying forward into the back of his seat.

So I did the math as suggested.
A quick review of the NTSB reports for the past 15 years does not support the concern of impending doom from pusher engines.
Not the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads as some would have us believe.
Quite the contrary. The number of accident/incident reports for Kitfox and Avid far exceed those for pusher aircraft.
There's a reason that the Series V and newer Kitfoxes are substantially redesigned from the older models.
I looked at Titan, Rans, Earthstar, Challenger, Excalibur, CGS Hawks, Kolb, Skyboy, Aventura, Sea Rey, and several others to see if I could find an example of a fatality cause by the engine crushing the pilot in an otherwise survivable accident.
I was unable to find any. Stall/ spins and uncontrolled flight into terrain but no bounced landings or gopher holes that ended with the pilot wearing a Rotax hat.
Actually, when you look at the shear numbers of pushers versus the numbers of Kitfox /Avids, the pushers have fewer accidents.
Granted, most pushers are not flown into unimproved strips.
In fact one of the incidents I found was a Titan doing a precautionary landing on a dirt road that ended up with the Titan in the ditch. The sudden stop did not, however, send the engine crashing into the pilots head.
A similar review of the reports will also reveal a number of fatalities from unsecured loads in conventional aircraft.

The irony of this discussion is that one of the main reasons that nose wheel aircraft came into favor was the inherent instability of tail wheel aircraft.
All that heavy metal forward of the mains is a real problem if you need to stop in a hurry. Plenty of pilots have not walked away from a nose over landing. So an engine forward is not always a good thing.

I submit that any impact capable of ripping an engine from its mounts and pushing it through it's support members into the fuselage would not be survivable in any aircraft.

A Kitfox \ Avid is still a way better backcountry plane than a Titan. A stock Tornado is a grass strip plane at best.
But that was not the original question. Again it depends on mission.
It also depends on your definition of "backcountry". Courier Guy lands in places that no Titan could ever safely land no matter how many mods it had. But then I couldn't take my Savage into most of them either.

The Carbon cub is Great -except for the price ! There's 3 of them here and all fly quite a bit. At 180,000 bucks a copy there great LITTLE airplanes. Think of them as very light weight -very powerful -light wing loading airplanes. There are "experimental cubs " for 1/2 or way less price that will do as much or more. I personally like Stinson 108-3's with 165-180 hp. hanging off firewall. Think in terms of Large wing area with low weight per sq. foot and Clark Y airfoil.

182 STOL driver wrote:The Carbon cub is Great -except for the price ! There's 3 of them here and all fly quite a bit. At 180,000 bucks a copy there great LITTLE airplanes. Think of them as very light weight -very powerful -light wing loading airplanes. There are "experimental cubs " for 1/2 or way less price that will do as much or more. I personally like Stinson 108-3's with 165-180 hp. hanging off firewall. Think in terms of Large wing area with low weight per sq. foot and Clark Y airfoil.

Look again at the CC prices.....$180 won't even get you close.

MTV

Since the dead horse needs beating a bit more...
Many pushers are not registered aircraft (folks that skated the regs claiming ultralight "trainers"... of the 2 locals I witnessed, both were registered E-AB but when local sheriff calls the FAA he says "they look like ultralights..."...FAA says "we don't investigate ultralight incidents"...end of FAA/NTSB involvement. Folks were still dead. The math I was referring to was the laws of physics, not government paperwork.
And for full disclosure neither "wore a Rotax hat" but were killed by the structure ahead of the Rotax being pushed forward by the substantial kinetic energy of an engine being decelerated rapidly. The majority of common pusher aircraft (Challenger, RANS, CGS hawk, Drifter) all have aluminum tube structure between the engine and the pilot...Not nearly as crashworthy as chromoly steel. Titan and Kolb have CrMo structure but in the effort to keep it light, it is very small diameter and very thin. Titan had a service bulletin years ago for engine mount cracks from regular use...Not crashes, that had to be reinforced. Former Kolb manager/part owner Norm Labhart was killed at the factory field when a approach got too slow and started sinking...hit a bit short of the runway and pancaked the gear...nose dug in a bit, and enough of the rear structure came forward and killed him...after looking at the wreckage and seeing the crash site, I would bet anything a cub driver would have unbuckled and got out mad about the repairs he would have to make to get it flying again.
Now just as a word of caution to all out there...The danger of injury from rear impact in otherwise minor incidents isn't exclusive to pusher aircraft. Old school homebuilt legend Ken Brock was killed when his Thorp T18 run off a runway when he had a tailwheel linkage break. Supposedly he tried to keep it straight with differential braking but lost it at the end. He was killed by a small plastic box that rode on a baggage shelf behind the seats...It shot forward and hit him at the base of his neck. His wife was sitting next to him and didn't have a scratch. Everyone take a minute before your next flight and look in your cockpit...is everything as secure as it can be?
S12 flyer...If you are comfortable bouncing into the rough stuff in your S12 than awesome...like I said at first, everyone buys their own tickets and takes their own chances. Since this is "BACKCOUNTRY pilots" and the initial question was a fellow asking about modding a Titan...I was stating why I wouldn't recommend using a Titan in the "bush"...Not that it wouldn't be a great plane or great performer...because your typical bush strip mishap might be a lot worse than typical bush plane damage

Apologies for my last post...I'm a fast typist...didn't realize I typed a book...

Aw, I can type fast too. Only trouble is that the result is in a language no one (including me) can read.

kilocharlie wrote:Since the dead horse needs beating a bit more...
Many pushers are not registered aircraft (folks that skated the regs claiming ultralight "trainers"... of the 2 locals I witnessed, both were registered E-AB but when local sheriff calls the FAA he says "they look like ultralights..."...FAA says "we don't investigate ultralight incidents"...end of FAA/NTSB involvement. Folks were still dead. The math I was referring to was the laws of physics, not government paperwork.
And for full disclosure neither "wore a Rotax hat" but were killed by the structure ahead of the Rotax being pushed forward by the substantial kinetic energy of an engine being decelerated rapidly. The majority of common pusher aircraft (Challenger, RANS, CGS hawk, Drifter) all have aluminum tube structure between the engine and the pilot...Not nearly as crashworthy as chromoly steel. Titan and Kolb have CrMo structure but in the effort to keep it light, it is very small diameter and very thin. Titan had a service bulletin years ago for engine mount cracks from regular use...Not crashes, that had to be reinforced. Former Kolb manager/part owner Norm Labhart was killed at the factory field when a approach got too slow and started sinking...hit a bit short of the runway and pancaked the gear...nose dug in a bit, and enough of the rear structure came forward and killed him...after looking at the wreckage and seeing the crash site, I would bet anything a cub driver would have unbuckled and got out mad about the repairs he would have to make to get it flying again.
Now just as a word of caution to all out there...The danger of injury from rear impact in otherwise minor incidents isn't exclusive to pusher aircraft. Old school homebuilt legend Ken Brock was killed when his Thorp T18 run off a runway when he had a tailwheel linkage break. Supposedly he tried to keep it straight with differential braking but lost it at the end. He was killed by a small plastic box that rode on a baggage shelf behind the seats...It shot forward and hit him at the base of his neck. His wife was sitting next to him and didn't have a scratch. Everyone take a minute before your next flight and look in your cockpit...is everything as secure as it can be?
S12 flyer...If you are comfortable bouncing into the rough stuff in your S12 than awesome...like I said at first, everyone buys their own tickets and takes their own chances. Since this is "BACKCOUNTRY pilots" and the initial question was a fellow asking about modding a Titan...I was stating why I wouldn't recommend using a Titan in the "bush"...Not that it wouldn't be a great plane or great performer...because your typical bush strip mishap might be a lot worse than typical bush plane damage

Not true. The Ran's S-20 and the Rans S-7 have 4130 Chromoly Steel welded fuselage and tail frames.

Stated common PUSHERS...Have flown S7's for over 10 years...great aircraft...great bushplanes as well

In the RANS line up the S12 and S14 are the most common pushers. They also sold the S17 and S18, which were pushers but I think they did have more CrMo...

kilocharlie wrote:Stated common PUSHERS...Have flown S7's for over 10 years...great aircraft...great bushplanes as well

You're forgiven!

Another big issue I had with my TT was that hor stab was so low to the ground, especially when you got out and the thing rested on its rear end, nose high. Any small bush or anything would be a problem. Plus it wasn't a taildragger

romaja wrote:

kilocharlie wrote:Since the dead horse needs beating a bit more...
Many pushers are not registered aircraft (folks that skated the regs claiming ultralight "trainers"... of the 2 locals I witnessed, both were registered E-AB but when local sheriff calls the FAA he says "they look like ultralights..."...FAA says "we don't investigate ultralight incidents"...end of FAA/NTSB involvement. Folks were still dead. The math I was referring to was the laws of physics, not government paperwork.
And for full disclosure neither "wore a Rotax hat" but were killed by the structure ahead of the Rotax being pushed forward by the substantial kinetic energy of an engine being decelerated rapidly. The majority of common pusher aircraft (Challenger, RANS, CGS hawk, Drifter) all have aluminum tube structure between the engine and the pilot...Not nearly as crashworthy as chromoly steel. Titan and Kolb have CrMo structure but in the effort to keep it light, it is very small diameter and very thin. Titan had a service bulletin years ago for engine mount cracks from regular use...Not crashes, that had to be reinforced. Former Kolb manager/part owner Norm Labhart was killed at the factory field when a approach got too slow and started sinking...hit a bit short of the runway and pancaked the gear...nose dug in a bit, and enough of the rear structure came forward and killed him...after looking at the wreckage and seeing the crash site, I would bet anything a cub driver would have unbuckled and got out mad about the repairs he would have to make to get it flying again.
Now just as a word of caution to all out there...The danger of injury from rear impact in otherwise minor incidents isn't exclusive to pusher aircraft. Old school homebuilt legend Ken Brock was killed when his Thorp T18 run off a runway when he had a tailwheel linkage break. Supposedly he tried to keep it straight with differential braking but lost it at the end. He was killed by a small plastic box that rode on a baggage shelf behind the seats...It shot forward and hit him at the base of his neck. His wife was sitting next to him and didn't have a scratch. Everyone take a minute before your next flight and look in your cockpit...is everything as secure as it can be?
S12 flyer...If you are comfortable bouncing into the rough stuff in your S12 than awesome...like I said at first, everyone buys their own tickets and takes their own chances. Since this is "BACKCOUNTRY pilots" and the initial question was a fellow asking about modding a Titan...I was stating why I wouldn't recommend using a Titan in the "bush"...Not that it wouldn't be a great plane or great performer...because your typical bush strip mishap might be a lot worse than typical bush plane damage

I see now you were referencing Pushers only models. My mistake.

Apologies

The Rans S-12 and the S-14 have Chromo cabins . As does the Excaliber. I don't own my S-12 any longer. It was sold several years ago. I have owned an S-6ES and an S-7S and my current Savage Cub. Interestingly enough the new owner of the S-12 and his instructor hit some trees at the end of a runway and totaled the aircraft. Both walked away with only minor scrapes and bruises. The engine mounts remained intact even after clipping the trees and falling nearly 30 feet to the ground. My first 2 seat aircraft was a Challenger II. An engine out on take-off necessitated an off field landing that ended abruptly in a Palmetto field. It ripped the left main off and pancaked the nose gear. The engine didn't move an inch.
Any fatality involving a registered aircraft would make it into the NTSB databanks. There are loads of incidents listed with expired and non-registered aircraft in the database. Eventually there would have to be an insurance investigation (life insurance) as well as a medical examiner report. The information would make it to the FAA and the NTSB. Even if some hick Sheriff mis-spoke. Weather or not they send an investigator, there is still a report. The EAA maintains a database of ultralight accidents as well.
Short of some alleged mystery crashes, the incidents of pusher engines squashing pilots in an otherwise survivable accident are rare and are just not documented. Certainly when you consider the proliferation of pushers and the length of time they have been around.
Fatalities from ground loops and nose over accidents are not rare. And they are well documented. A sudden deceleration from flight speeds to stopped are often fatal regardless of the position of the engine.
A Titan Tornado is a poor backcountry aircraft mostly because of it spindly gear legs and low belly height.
But for those who's idea of backcountry is Johnson Creek the Titan would be an inexpensive fun ride.
Which was the original question. Not weather it could land like a Carbon Cub with 35 inch ABWs or an S-7 with Roberts gear.
I'm not suggesting that we all run out and buy Tornados. But a lot aircraft can be flown safely of airport if you use common sense.
I've seen bright red Mooneys and stock C-150s at fly-ins. Right next to Carbon Cubs. Fairly sure they were having just as much fun.

Great thread.

For sake of clarity, it might be helpful to sort out the reasons why a pusher might or might not be suitable for off pavement use.

Certainly having the prop up and away from the ground would be an asset. A botched landing could result in some dings on the plane but not on the prop and that would be a benefit. Can't say that about a J-3 on its nose.

The high thrust line, as pointed out elsewhere, would not be helpful under high power settings. As for the heavy mass behind your head, it would as pointed out be a matter of what holds that engine in place. I think most of us get the picture based on what is posted here.

At the risk of a thread hijack, regarding the Kitfox and Avid early models:

I've seen a bunch for sale over the years and the early models always come with a great price and sometimes some damage. How tricky are they really? I'm a non current CFII, 1350 hours and one of the two planes I have owned was a Citabria with heel brakes (no mishaps).

Do I still need to get a chest hair transplant in order to handle a Kitfox? I have to think most of the damaged planes were people who built it and had little flight time and/or experience with tail draggers in general. Am I wrong?

Kitfoxes and Avid are NOT hard airplanes to fly, take off or land. What they are is short coupled and quick on the controls. They do require you to pay attention until it's tied down. They are not docile Cubs or Champs.

Complicating factors on them often giving them the reputation as "twitchy" are improperly set up tail wheels, poor performing brakes and the early models had limited tail authority at low speeds. You need to have some type specific training from someone who has experience in type.

Just because someone has 10 hours of dual in an old Citabria does not make them an Avid/Kitfox expert. Unfortunately, that is what most tailwheel instructors pass off as training.

S12's and S14's have a CrMo "pan" in the fuselage...ties the seats, gear legs and tail boom together...everything from there up to the root tube that attaches the engine and wings is aluminum tubing. I just point that out as a mental exercise...can't argue with NTSB statistics...(interesting thing about those...Have never seen a online NTSB narrative describe the structural failure mode of a crashed aircraft...at least not the synopsis version must people get on the web. "The structure of subject aircraft suffered local crippling of vertical bulkhead at station 1345...causing forward shift of overhead structure...etc."
I would say I'd like to read through the versions you must have read doing all the research you did...but I got to say I've seen enough in person to tell me what I need to know.
I'll state a couple of things, and call it a day...we actually agree on several points.
If we are talking manicured grass...I'm all in. I am not anti-pusher...still fly them when I can (have access to a challenger 2 that is a blast to play around in)..I just realize if things go wrong I have lower chances of walking away scratch-less.
They are fun and visibility does even add some safety in a way...see and avoid the danger so-to-speak.
To aftCG...The high prop would seem like a plus to keeping FOD out of the prop. Maybe/maybe not...remember the prop is behind the wheels. Where a tractor plane just has to worry about keeping the prop out of the grass, a pusher has to worry about anything the wheels might kick up. I added wheel pants to the pushers I flew...Not for streamlining but to help stop the occasional rock or small stick from being kicked up. Anything kicked up will be sucked into the prop by aerodynamic forces(or more likely Murphy's Law...take your pick ) I was more comfortable with the carbon fiber props for that reason

One of the props on my wall of shame is from a Pterodactyl ultralight, a pusher. I was taking off a rocky gravel bar in the Snake River and right at lift off BAM, a rock took out the prop. I got it shut down and stopped, and then after reviewing my options (this was about 30 years before cell phones, what a boon they are for getting out of off airport problems ) I jumped in the river and swam across. The 'dac had great rough field gear and we took them into incredible places, but we also took out a lot of props.

With the S-7 nowadays, though I always expect it to happen, so far no prop damage, other then minor abrasion probably from grit getting sucked up. The belly fabric and hor stab/elevator fabric sure take a beating though. I've gotten in the habit of making it a point to eyeball the belly as part of my post flight inspection. Especially after I once found a cantaloupe sized hole in the belly once that had been there for who knows how long I poly brush a patch on but don't bother to take it through the whole process all the way to finish paint, it just seems like a losing battle plus who cares down there. If someone tells you "oh yeah I do a lot of off airport and gravel bars" etc., take a peek at the belly of the plane, and you can gauge the frequency they do it.

I also subscribe to the theory that a tractor is just better as it is working with clean undisturbed air, as compared to what a pusher has to contend with. I do remember that when I transitioned to tractor aircraft, I was worried about the loss of viz of looking through the prop, seems funny now!

I don't much care how extreme my climb rate is, as long as it's good enough to get me out of somewhere I got into, that's good enough. I'd rather take a few minutes longer and work my way up a ridge line, using whatever lift is there, thermal or otherwise, at a greatly reduced throttle setting, saving fuel all the while. It seems a bit more challenging and rewarding then just hammering the throttle. A super climb rate is fun, but a pretty small part of what makes a good off airport plane, great low speed handling is more important, along with with good viz.