Savannah-Tom wrote:I, too, sure wish Tyler was still here. I built his plane, and put 600 hours on it before selling it to another fellow, who sold it to Tyler.

The empty weight was 630#. Max take off weight was over 1200. I forget how much. With 20 gallons of gas, 180# pilot, 120#passenger, you still have over 150# of crap that you can haul. It definitely makes a difference on performance to carry max vs pilot and a little fuel, but you are talking, at sea level, 200' vs 300' takeoff distance. Landing accuracy makes far more difference than what the plane is able to do. The 750 is probably not very different from a Savannah in that regard.

The bigger issue with the Savannah, and probably the 750 is balance. 150 pounds of useful payload in addition to full fuel and two people sounds pretty good, but it can't all go in the rear luggage area. Too tail heavy. You can fly it that way with a lot of trim, but you will be getting close to the point of instability and stall recovery and spin recovery would be a big question. For the same safety margin reason, I like tricycle gear over conventional. I wouldn't load it that way. Each pilot gets to make that decision on his own. In my case, heavy stuff, like water was always carried in the foot well of the passenger. That sucks for the passenger, and it has to be tied down to not interfere with the rudder pedals.

As far as rough ground is concerned, that is more a function of how big of tires you want to drag through the air. The spring legs of the Savannah did a reasonable job with 18" diameter tires, but it is pretty obvious that 30" would handle a lot rougher ground. Again, pilot decides how he wants to trade fuel economy, cruise speed, with big rocks. Mile High, Willamette river bars, and farmers fields were all easy with the 18s.

The speed of the Savannah, with 912 engine, with throttle wide open was 95mph. That produced a burn of 6.5 gph and 5500 rpm, which is redline for continuous operation. They say the engine can do that all day, but i usually ran it at 4.2gph and 80 mph. Take your pick. It would take me 2.5 hours to get to Lakeview, OR from Corvallis, OR. It would have been nice to have a faster cruise for the longer trips.

Best luck picking your next plane. Whatever it is, it will be fun to hear about your adventures.

tom

Their pilots are clearly getting lots of utility out of the design while being aware of it's limitations, heck, I don't go places a Cub with 35's can go. The Zenith's seem like a great deal for their time to build and cost, and good for 95% of the places I go, but that last 5% is the gotcha and always an unknown/surprise!

It is possible to put tailwheel gear on the 750

aktahoe1 wrote: I love the photo of me on my nose [emoji41]. I was playing unicycle around cones a few years back. ...

Zenithguy: Great feedback on about the 750.

GroundLooper wrote:Here's a nice comparison of a 172 taking off vs the Savannah. I was barely climbing, the savannah not a problem at all.

Zenithguy: Great feedback on about the 750.

Highlander folks, sell your beasts!!!

Denali wrote:.
Anything can fail of course, but boy, this Beech Bonanza retractable nose gear sure shows some robust engineering. .02

GroundLooper wrote:Highlander folks, sell your beasts!!!

GroundLooper wrote:
Highlander folks, sell your beasts!!!




I just realized that could be taken literally... I meant more feedback from the highlander folks. Wasn't trying to imply the 750 is better than the highlander.

Re: CH750 or Highlander

Wasn't that a Savannah in the video?? The creases in the fuselage skins gave it a way to me....and the fixed fin

UngaWunga wrote:Out of all his videos, I think this highlights the STOL capabilities of his plane best.... Little language at the end.

EZFlap wrote:Wasn't that a Savannah in the video?? The creases in the fuselage skins gave it a way to me....and the fixed fin