Aeroprakt A22 Foxbat - Flight Impressions

[Guest pelorus32]

I had the opportunity to fly this aircraft on Saturday as part of the Shepparton Try & Fly days. I thought it would be interesting to write my purely subjective, individual and untutored views about this aircraft after a brief trip in it. If others do the same for other a/c it could become a resource.

 

The Foxbat is built in the Ukraine and is a high wing STOL aircraft. On walking up the the aircraft the most noticeable feature is that the fuselage has many panels made of lexan rather than metal. This includes the door and all of the rear fuselage before it becomes the empennage. This gives an outstanding view. You can look down at the main wheels as they touch down for instance. The view forward through the windscreen is slightly less good and the aircraft has a more "nose up" windscreen picture than the Tecnam P92 for instance.

 

Control layout is interesting, the stick is centrally located and has a Y configuration with each pilot being able to grasp one branch of the Y. The handles have a motorcycle style brake handle for the brakes. The stick has a feeling of substantial "heft". It isn't stiff but it feels meaty to move. Trim and PTT are on the stick. The throttle is mounted on the outside of the seat close to the door on each side. This takes some getting used to but I imagine that you would with time.

 

The day I flew this aircraft the wind was 18-20 knots gusting to 30 knots. We opened the throttle at the start of the piano keys and we were off before the end of the keys - it wasn't Sydney airport either! This is truly a STOL aircraft. The aircraft rode the bumps extremely well it didn't get busy or start hunting around the sky. Cruise seemed to be in the 80-85 knot IAS range - I doubt that you'd get more than that consistently.

 

What was truly amazing was the agility of the aircraft. Cranking it into a turn was simple and fuss free. It felt incredibly pitch stable in a turn and went around absolutely on rails despite the bumps. Reversing a turn was easy and simple. This is an aircraft that feels absolutely as if it would be safe and dependable down amongst the trees. Not that we fly our aircraft in that situation!!

 

Stall was a basic non-event in the low 30 knots clean. Plenty of buffet to warn you of its intentions and no sudden break - just shuddering and nodding. The aircraft was still fully controllable in the stall. Slow speed handling was simple and dependable with no major changes in the control deflections required.

 

The approach profile was fairly steep but very easily controlled. The aircraft is very stable in the side slip with just a hint of airframe buffet. Flaps seem to be entirely optional. Touch down was simple with plenty of elevator available and the distance was comfortably short.

 

Would I buy one? This seemed like a well made aircraft with few if any vices. It was amazingly agile and maneouverable. This aircraft is not for me.

 

If however I wanted to get in and out of short strips, if I wanted to muster or check fences and tanks then I'd buy this aircraft in a flash. Long distance touring would be a bit of an endurance test. For what it is built for though I think it does a great job. The distributor tells me that it is well thought of by goat musterers!!

 

Distributor site here:

 

http://www.silverwing.com.au/foxbat/index.php

 

Please note that it appears that the aircraft currently only has 450kg MTOW but I am told that this will change with the LSA version due shortly.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest danda]

Thank you for that Mike it was quite a comprehensive report The Foxbat has never really appealed to me however you are right in saying that if everyone who enjoyed the privilege of flying another aircraft through this great initiative by the people at Shepparton with their Shepparton Try & Fly days made a little report on that aircraft what a great resource it would be.

 

I would love to go down to Shepparton one of these days and try out one of those aircrafts that do appealed to me.

 

Fantastic Job both the people at Shepparton and your report.

 

Don;);)

 

 

[pylon500]

With our club toying with the idea of replacing one of our LightWings, our CFI began singing the praises of the Foxbat and organised all our instructors to fly one at NatFly'07.

 

I had not read Mike's post above before flying the Foxbat, and am intrigued by the differences I experienced.

 

From a numbers point of view, the Foxbat sounds good;

 

ie; Stall 25kts, cruise 85kts, top speed 105kts!

 

When flown at Narromine in 10~15kt winds, all but the top speed were achieved, I felt it was too rough to push that far, but I do feel it would do it.

 

The agility of the foxbat was very apparant with nicely coordinated controls although I got the impression of being a little sensitive in pitch?

 

I found it easier to fly by holding the base of the 'Y' on the control stick, this added some stick force and also gave me some stability for my arm by resting it on the centre console.

 

Maybe a higher console would solve this?

 

while in flight, the throttle falls easily to hand, but is a bit awkward to avoid when climbing in and out, as a pre start checklist I think it would me mandatory to include 'Confirm throttle closed' before start, a 912S with only quarter throttle can still lurch a bit if started.

 

Compared to the Lightwings I usually fly, I found the visibility to be great!, so much so that I think it could be hard to get a student to find a good reference point to hold an attitude with, I kept looking at the VSI to check my attitude, and would start to chase it due to the light pitch loads.

 

Stalls were very interesting, I don't know if I'm so used to stall buffet that I just forgot about it, or if it really was noticable by it's absence?!

 

What I did notice was a tendancy to get aileron snatch at the stall.

 

I did get the Foxbat down to the stated 25kt stall, and had the stick on the backstop, and could still easily steer the aircraft with rudder, and surprisingly use a fair amount of aileron safely!!

 

Landing with all that visability was just too easy, flaps are optional as the aircraft will touch down fairly slow even clean.

 

The first stage of flap exhibits a bit of pitch down which can be held without trim.

 

As conditions were a bit gusty, I only used one stage of flap for the landing and held the nose off a bit to be nice to the nosewheel as rudder authority was doing well.

 

Then to avoid floating off, I retracted the flap only to be caught by the pitching moment which actually caused me to lift off!! 'oops'

 

Verdict;

 

I was impressed with the structure and build quality of the foxbat.

 

The handling qualities are precise and assuring.

 

Comfort was close to the best I've come across so far.

 

Performance exceeds a 912 LightWing.

 

Where can we borrow $85k?

 

Arthur.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Hi Arthur,

 

it's great that you have added to this - it's why I called mine "Flight Impressions" - the impressions of one person prone to bias and error.

 

We must have met in the lunch queue - there were two guys with Trevor - he asked me about the aircraft and I said tongue in cheek that it was a shocker!!

 

Now let's get personal :;)3: how much do you weigh? I'm 105kg so with me and Trevor onboard I suspect we were pretty heavy and the weather was also gusty and bumpy. I think that may account for the difference in stall speed. As for the buffet - who knows? Having said that my experience of the Tecnam I usually fly is that there is some buffet sometimes and not others.

 

As for the $85K - that's got to be simple if you are going to be working it hard. It has to be a cheap trainer. The Shepparton Aero Club has bought 2 new Tecnams since last June and I'm pretty sure they didn't have all that cash on hand.

 

Best of luck

 

Mike

 

 

[pylon500]

I don't know about meeting in a lunch queue, I was at Narromine, but not Shepparton.

 

According to my medical last week, I'm right on 100kg, and like our LightWings, I know it will lift us so I don't get too worried about AUW.

 

Ohh, I can hear the rule ranters already!!

 

Our club, The Sydney Recreational Flying Club is fairly low key at the moment, generally only flying on Saturdays and probably doing about 150 hours a year on our LightWings.

 

We also only charge $100 per hour wet solo and would like to stay about that cost realative to GA.

 

Actually the real finance problem is getting people to go guarantee to the loan.

 

I just wish there was more choice of tail draggers around to teach real pilots.

 

Arthur.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Hi Arthur,

 

I was talking about the lunch queue at Narromine.

 

My comment about weight was not about AUW but about stall speed. Stall speed increases with weight as we all know and I just wondered if your 25 knots cf my low 30s was because you were more sylph-like than me:).

 

As for the money...I pay $108.80 per hour wet for solo hire of a Tecnam and my guess is that it is about 50% more capital cost than the Foxbat. Utilisation is the real issue I suspect. If you are getting say 500 hours a year then it is a lot easier to pay the loan than 150 hours a year.

 

Best of luck.

 

Mike