Before heading offshore for work I took my airplane filled with the remaining parts of the “bargain” backcountry 170B recipe to my friendly neighborhood A&P. Desser 8.50x6.00, Sportsman STOL Cuff, and an 8042 propeller. (I already had BAS harnesses, 180 gear legs, and extended baggage).

I just picked it up and put a couple hours on it and a dozen landings. I'm mostly just posting out of excitement. Its not a 180. But with an 80 degree air temp, full tanks, and a bunch of crap in the back I was still seeing 1000+fpm climb. In cruise I'm seeing 95 mph indicated at 2500rpm. Care is required to avoid overspeed as the nose comes down during climb. Ground roll is improved. With 20* flap it seems to want to fly off in a 3 point attitude vs being brought onto the wheels and then lifted off. Off tarmac I’m at 100+’ AGL by my crosswind runway which is ~ 1100’. It seems about as happy over the fence at 50 as it was at 60 before. An attempt of a full flap approach at 40 resulted in a much firmer landing than anticipated… (definitely found myself behind the airplane, 6 weeks away will do that..)

The Dessers are MUCH bigger and softer than my old 8.00x6 and my single pucks are certainly at their limits. At 19psi they seem pretty spongy. In even a light cross-wind there is a distinct sensation of listing away from the wind. Will be interesting to see how they do off pavement.

I need to do a BUNCH of Airwork to learn how slow I can really fly this thing. But my first impression is that I’ve made a slow airplane even slower but doubled my short field performance. More to come as I get some time on it.

Would be sweet to find a CFI in the north east who has a bunch of sportsman wing time to give me some life advice.



The face of someone going to spend a bunch of money... Turns out you can fit the Stene shipping box in the back of a Cessna with extended baggage. Just need to pull the door off and remove the passenger seat.

Congrats! And here's to those who leave 'em better than you found 'em.

-DP

I have to agree. I had that setup on my 170 for four years and loved it. Totally best bang for your buck. I got greedy and went 0-360 and don’t regret it for a second but was it really necessary? I certainly love it but for 80% of my flying it wasn’t needed.

A 170B with an 0-360 under the hood is a sweet setup, it's a poor man's 180.

Mapleflt wrote:A 170B with an 0-360 under the hood is a sweet setup, it's a poor man's 180.

I guess definitions of budget/bargain vary… lol

Awesome plane and nice work on the bang for your buck mods!

I also run Desser 8.50s on my Pacer. I played with air pressure and settled on running 12psi. Really comfortable on rocky desert strips, and wearing great after 100s of pavement landings. I use the brakes fairly aggressively sometimes and have never had a tire slip on the rim.

My empty weight is 1150lbs so if your 170 is much heavier you can just scale the pressure up slightly.

Frankly, the single best performance mod you can do to a back country type Cessna is the Sportsman STOL kit. Period. That wing really loves what the Sportsman does for it.

MTV