Building the new Bushbaby SAFARI

[t-bird]

Hi Boet

Definitely looks better.

What is the difference in performance ?

Is a left had tracktor anti clocks wise ?

[Boet]

Anti-clocwise, from the hot seat. for the performance figures, we have to wait for feedback from Oupa.

[Oupa-G]

At this stage the PProp is winning hands down. With a stall of 35mph and a cruise of 100mph a fixed pitch prop is sufficient. I have the variable two blader and for completeness of the project I am going to pursue the variable option. But I promised to do honest reporting and at this stage I think the variable pitch is a waste of money. If you want to fly round the world and you need max performance and money is no problem then go for it and play, sofar the vp prop has cost me 35klips for that I can buy 5(five) PProps I can have a different prop for every mission I want to use the plane for. To morrow it is tuning for fuel consumption.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Got up this morning at six I have to fit in with Ystervark's sleeping pattern. While I refuelled the Bosvark Ystervark flew his Trike till the South-Easter started pumping. We tuned the EGT to be 750 degrees on take-off . and as I throttle back to cruising rpm the EGT's climb closer to 800 degrees. The engine seems very happy and those figures closely resemble my R1100 that I have on my trike. which runs with a factory Motronic and series one Eboxi. That engine goes to 810 and 820 in the cruise. So I'm still conservative. I have done 16 hrs now and I'm settling in to her little distinct nice habits. The cockpit is very roomy but still a bit noisy but I will mobilize an anti noise war. Now I will do some consumption tests, and will report these figures as soon as I have them. 6000rpm and 100mph is still the figure. The engine spins effortless. After tuning this morning the engine oil temp was 105 it was the first time I have seen a temp above 100. I taxied out and did the take-off as soon as I had forward airspeed the temps dropped to the normal figures I am used to. I now know that the system copes with the heat dissipation, a very thrilling bit of information. Will report again to-morrow.



Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Little news from my front I have applied for the National Pilots License. RAASA was very efficient and they answer there phone and give a good service.

The wind is blowing and the time for flying is very little. Have so far done 18hrs and to-morrow being a holiday I will get up early and try and put as much time in as possible. I was chasing the magic 100mph now I'm going to do some slower flying and fuel consumption tests. Then once I have those figures I can do longer cross-countries. I'm working like crazy on the Xmas rush and before the year end rush.


Cheers Oupa-G

[JACO]

Hi OUPA G
Congrats once more, I see you've reached the 70 000 Hits mark !
Can you please tell me what the Max Thrust Kg you pulled with your SAFARI as I plan to do a similar test and want to get the appropriate digital scale for the tests. Thanks for all your sharing of info.

[Oupa-G]

70000 hits hard to believe.
Today was a lovely day started by flying to Morning Star. Landed on the grass she prefers grass to the tar runway at the moment the gear has a little bit to much toe-in. I will make some spacers to set the final toe-in. At Morning Star the runway is marked and their is a 100m mark so it was an ideal chance to test the take-off run. At the 100meter mark I was solidly airborne and about 2 meters above the ground. The short field performance is stunning. The short field landing is becoming better I'm already turning of at the 200meter mark at our own airfield. Today I then did a longer run to Malmesbury testing the speeds. The now already commen100mph at 6000rpm is a regular setting. This afternoon I throttled back to 5500rpm which is very easy on the engine and also the ears. It was quite a warm day 28degrees OAT and at 5500rpm the highest temp was 71degrees and the IAS was 90mph. At those settings she feels as if she can run all year round. The speed also correlated with the GPS ground-speed. This little aircraft is becoming a get in start and fly machine. The coming week promises less wind, so a lot of flying will be done. The hobbs is now reading 18hrs. The PProp is superb the whole package is coming together.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Oupa-G]

Jaco thanks for your comments. Static thrust is just not a very reliable test with a fixed pitch prop because max thrust at a static setting gives a prop that runs out of pitch as soon as you start the take-off run. For Aeroplanes to about 100 to 120 mph the prop should re-act as follows. The beginning of the take-off run she can even cavitate (this will give a low thrust on a static scale) then as soon as there is forward speed the prop should bite and give about 200 t0 300 rpm below max rpm ( I'm now talking about 4 strokes that have a reasonable flat torque curve the rules with 2 strokes are slightly different) then when you give full throttle in level flight the max rpm and your speed should then climb to about 10% below your VNE. I have not tested the static thrust for this reason. What I can do is to hook up my scale and get a figure but it will not be the maximum thrust. I hope this explanation is clear enough. When I get my blades for my VP prop I will be able to give you a static thrust figure that makes sense.

Cheers Oupa-G

[KFA]

Hi Oupa, your elevator and prop shipped on Monday and should be there by tomorrow. I agree with you about the cruise speeds. Everybody is chasing the high end speeds, but these aircraft were designed to cruise comfortably at 90-100mph and still give you good shortfield performance. Aerodynamics is always a give and take. You want speed, your landing distance and take off run gets longer and vica versa. The speed limiting factor in all these type of planes are the flapperons. You can have a look at planes like the Kitfox, Eurofox, Appollo fox etc. All have a VNE not exceeding 140mph or there abouts. Enjoy her, these planes have a tendency to grow on you. As you can see in the for sale section, no Explorers for sale. The factory Explorer is sold.

[Oupa-G]

Stefan the elevator has arrived and I now sit with a dilemma if I change the elevator I have no bush-plane to fly with. Thanks a lot I will report back. You mention that these planes grow on you. My Bosvarkie is already grown on me, the thought of it being out of action for a day is already difficult. This aerie is a 100 mph machine and I'm not planning to enter it in the Reno air races. Fast aeroplanes have small wings high stall speeds and if something goes wrong the forced landing happens at high speeds and also more severe injuries.


Cheers Oupa-G

[Mogas]

Nice job Oupa, keep the reports coming.
I think I am responsible for a reasonable amount of those seventysomething thousand hits so far, I have to have the daily update, it's addictive
Why not wait for the inevitable bad WX day for the elevator upgrade?
Mogas

[Boet]

And tomorrow is Oupa`s birthday!!!

[Oupa-G]

At the end of the day I quickly wanted to do the all up weight, because I was issued with with a brand new National pilots licence and now that I'm so legal as I can be. How do you load a Bushbaby all up weight you fill it with fuel load one Vliegvark in the co-pilot seat and take-off. She wanted a bit more runway then 80M but she was airborne in about 150m climbed away at 600ft/min and at 6000rpm indicated a solid 100mph. On the topic of RAASA I got my papers and Vliegvark's papers at RAASA and today is Thursday and I have my licence back. I must say that I had a girl called Lee-Anne who really knows how to work the courier system she works for Waterjet and took my papers in hand on Monday morning at 8 O'clock and had them in the RAASA office by 1 O'clock When the paperwork was done she had the licences picked up and it is Thursday and I have the licence in my dainty little paws, and that all the way from Cape Town. RAASA you are on the ball. In the 45 years that I have been flying I have never experienced such wonderful service. All this was made possible by Johan Froneman who was prepared to fly with me under severe windy conditions . Fuel consumption tests next.Boet thanks for the good wishes to-morrow , for every-bodies interest I turn 24 at least that is how I feel the actual fact is I was born in 1942 hence the name Oupa-G


Cheers Oupa-G

[bosbok]

Good morning and happy birthday Oupa-G !

[Lieb Liebenberg]

Happy birthday Oupa! May there be many more.