Sportstar down

[pmccarthy]

According to this article, sportstars(evector), Remos and Piper Sport (czeck? aircraft works) are the most dangerous LSA in the USA.http://flightdesign.com/files/Media/The Aviation Consumer - LSA Accidents.pdf

Fascinating article. Jabs doing really well. And I can relate to the "pancake carrier landing" problem that older pilots experience. The low inertia catches you by surprise when you are less than 100% focused on the flare, when any GA aircraft would settle politely.

And I might add, lots of practice circuits solo with 40 litres of fuel don't help, because the landing behaviour is quite different two up with a heavier fuel load.

 

 

[rankamateur]

I have heard of people carrying a bag of sand to adjust for the weight of the instructor when going solo, but maybe it has some merit to carry the sand when getting up the hours before carrying passengers again too.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Interesting article that. I think the Geeza factor is a huge player in those stats. This accounts for the low (comparibly) incident rate across GA, and having done countless conversions, some in Piper sports (Czech airworks) and The Evektor, I can tell you for sure, Cessna pilots really do need 'help'.

 

 

[rgmwa]

.... , I can tell you for sure, Cessna pilots really do need 'help'.

Sounds like me Motz. I'll be getting some transition training soon (in a Pipersport, as it happens), but any handy hints regarding what `help' I'm likely to need will be most appreciated.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Less is more!!! Leave it alone and it will leave you alone. It's incredibly pitchy, so think about pressure on the controls rather than ' moving ' them.

 

Good luck :)

 

 

[rgmwa]

Less is more!!! Leave it alone and it will leave you alone. It's incredibly pitchy, so think about pressure on the controls rather than ' moving ' them.Good luck :)

Thanks, I'll remember that!

rgmwa

 

 

[facthunter]

Pressure on the controls is a very big variable. Coming from something "heavy" or stiff in the controls to something very "touchy" can produce some quite amusing antics particularly near the ground, as you would expect. At the other end of the equation if the plane has to be "put" into an attitude, that is where it must end up.. You initially tend to overcontrol in a small aircraft, which generally require much more attention than BIG stuff. so I reckon they are more difficult to fly. Nev

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Did you read the article Nev?

 

 

[facthunter]

No Merv. I couldn't download it, unfortunately. I'm going entirely from my own experiences with my comments.

 

Bear with me on some of the replies. This computer is almost dead and I have to have multiple goes at getting it to post often.. Nev

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Its very interesting. Theres a case where a student over controlled on the elevator and a fire extinguisher broke free and smashed through the canopy.

 

Ive instructed a few hundred hours in this type and I can relate to the concerns raised in the article. The ailerons are firm and require quite strong pressures, while the elevator is twitchy to almost " joke" proportions. In fact its the only aircraft ive ever instructed in where I felt the need to "gate" on the controls to stop gross errors low to the ground causing a prang.

 

 

[facthunter]

Yes, you can subject the aircraft structures to high loads in those circumstances inadvertently if the student has little feel for what's happening. Perhaps the elevators could better have some trim adjustment that opposes control movement with a tab... There are many ways of providing artificial feel.. Nev

 

 

[elon]

Interesting comments from Motzartmerv - and yet here we are with CASA potentially grounding an Australian brand of aircraft due to safety/reliability concerns and saying they have to" protect" the public on the ground and student pilots from the possibility of having to do forced landings etc. It seems that imports such as these come under no scrutiny from CASA in spite of the "safety" concerns expressed and potential for an incident to occur. Go figure.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Welcome to the forum elon. There are already other threads discussing this topic in detail.

 

 

[gandalph]

Welcome to the forum elon. There are already other threads discussing this topic in detail.

Well....... Not much detail but certainly discussed at length.

 

 

[rankamateur]

You're a real salesman Chuck!

 

 

[Phil Perry]

The Sportstar ( Evector Eurostar in the UK ) is a well sorted machine, right on the edge of the weight limit allowed here, hence the reason that very few of them have a fully painted airframe, as the weight of full paint puts them over the 450Kgs limit. . . . . so they get painted halfway up, with a couple of stripey graphics on the wings. . . . the "Sportcruiser" named the Pipersport in Oz,. . . .is somewhat different as it is a composite build rather than alunimu alinumin Metal. . . . . . but anyway, is a bit of a disappointment, well, . . . .I thought it was anyway,. . . ie, it looks a million bucks but it takes a bloody long runway to get it to fly,. . . . and although it looks like it will cruise at a high speed, . . . . . It doesn't. . . . . . . with two fat ba$terdz in the seats, you are lucky if you get 100 MPH ( knot nots ) and it tends to fly very nose - up, and this is using the Rotax 912S powerplant. Even with an "In - flight" variable pitch propeller, it is still a bit poor. Basically, it's a heavy airframe, and would do very well, if you stuck a Lycoming 200Hp in the front,. . . . but I dunno whether this is allowed under new European legislation.

 

The other thing which disappointed me was that it doesn't ride turbulence very well at all,. . . .you're on the damned thing all of the time, which makes a long trip ( Czech Republic to the UK ) very tiring. . . the pitch trim (as standard ) is a waste of space. I have to say that I'm really totally unsurprised that Piper dropped it like a hot brick after a very short time indeed. There may have been other reasons behind this, for gawds sake, I do not profess to be any kind of test pilot, . . . ( Far from it. . . ) but from ordinary pilot Fred Nurk's point of view the thing was a dog. ( This is not to say that it could not have been improved quite a bit with some adjustments and tuning refinements. . . )

 

And what ( you ask ) has this got to do with this thread ????????????????? err,. . . . .well, ???????????? nothing really, . . . . .I was just musing and blabbing a bit. . . . .( Sorry )

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Phil, the Piper sports is not a composite aeroplane? Its all aluminium apart from soem fiber glass around the cowling..

 

Piper bought a heap of them back when cessna were releasing that abortion they called the skycatcher, to compete in the LSA market. It didnt work out very well and now its gone back to being a czchech airowrks 'sports cruiser'.

 

Apart from that, I agree. Not a nice aeroplane in the air and horrible in turbulence.

 

In smooth air its quite good, but still far to pitchy for a training aeroplane IMHO

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Phil, the Piper sports is not a composite aeroplane? Its all aluminium apart from soem fiber glass around the cowling..Piper bought a heap of them back when cessna were releasing that abortion they called the skycatcher, to compete in the LSA market. It didnt work out very well and now its gone back to being a czchech airowrks 'sports cruiser'.

Apart from that, I agree. Not a nice aeroplane in the air and horrible in turbulence.

 

In smooth air its quite good, but still far to pitchy for a training aeroplane IMHO

Sorry Merv ( must desist from inhaling Barossa Valley juice late at night ) Mixing it up with the sting, which we also flew from Czech Rep to UK. That is, of course a plastic plane. . . but that had other design issues, as I was discussing with Daffyd recently. . . . my friend the prospective importer gave up on the project, I think someone else took it over but It seems to have gone all quiet in the UK, as I have not seen one with a UK reg.

 

T/O performance two up with half a fuel load on the Sportcruiser is marginal at our site ( 480 metres ) without a bit of wind,, although we do get a couple of brave souls flying them in solo occasionally. . . shame as the airframe LOOKS really nice. . . . Phil

 

 

[microman]

Phil - your comments regarding the Sportcruiser are very interesting - there are several in New Zealand and the owners rave about them, especially their load-carrying ability and short strip performance? (props may be a factor here) but I guess it all depends on what you are comparing them with. From my experience locally the Tecnam and Alpi (both Italian designs) seem to be two of the best around in terms of STOL capability and performance in rough air. We have a lot of wind where I come from and heat thermals in the summer so wing loading is a big factor. My old Skyranger was a great strip aircraft, but in rough air you had to hang on to anything available.

 

Would be interested to hear of others experiences with some of these European imports - they all look a million $, but when you delve into it a bit more its sometimes a different story.

 

I should state a bias here - I have an Alpi 200 and couldn't be happier with it.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Back to original topic.....

 

I'm confused. There's no way this could have been caused by an engine failure! It' not a Jab !

 

 

[rdarby]

Phil refers to a 450kg limit, whereas herein Australia they are all on a 600kg as far as I know. That may explain the comment about useful load.

 

 

[Camel]

Phil refers to a 450kg limit, whereas herein Australia they are all on a 600kg as far as I know. That may explain the comment about useful load.

The European Sportstar equivilant is the Eurostar and is only 450 MTOW, the Australian and US has different empty weight and MTOW, the early Sportstar with fuse tank is 550 MTOW, the wing tank model was 575 MTOW when released but was increased to 600 MTOW.

 

 

[jeffd]

your all wrong with the aircraft type .its a cessna, its always a cessna dont u know that

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Phil - your comments regarding the Sportcruiser are very interesting - there are several in New Zealand and the owners rave about them, especially their load-carrying ability and short strip performance? (props may be a factor here) but I guess it all depends on what you are comparing them with.

Hi Micro,. . . . . .

 

I think that the term "Bush Strip" needs quantifying, . . . ie, when I flew in both PNG and parts of Indonesia, we regarded anything less that 1200 / 1000 metres as a "Bush" strip ! ! !

 

We don't have enough available "Bush" in the UK to afford that sort of luxury ! ! ! you mentioned that the type of Propeller could be an issue, although the ones here seem to be all fitted with a constant speed system, colloquially known in UK microlight circles as a "Wobbly" prop ! ! Now if a manually variable pitch prop were employed, it would be easy to use full fine for a takeoff from OUR version of a bush strip, but still the Sportcruisers have difficulty with our runways. Only last weekend, a pilot decided to leave his passenger behind so that he could get a lift by road to Halfpenny Green Wolverhampton Airport, ( 24 Km distant ) as he'd given up after three attampts to achieve a satisfactory airspeed. I took my hat off to the guy for taking the safe option, but he only just made it . . . . if we had not removed the airfield fencing years ago, he wouldn't have, as the aircraft rotated (apparently) prematurely and sank a good eight feet below airfield elevation into the valley at the end of rwy 16 and then only JUST made it over the trees. . . .. . . .

 

Yes, of course, maybe his technique was faulty, ? ? Dunno, I have not flown a takeoff in one. . . . I lifted off from Lilydale (Vic) in my wild and wooly youth flying a Cherokee 6 /300. . . .on a muddy runway, which should have been good enough at the temp and density and headwind for 1.5 times required length in the POH,. . . .but it still needed the sudden application of 25 flap at the last minute to leap over the end fence ( YES I know, . . ." Should've aborted. . . .) I'd already de-camped five passengers and sent them back by road also ! This was a classic case of getitbacktobasebeforesomeoneelsewantsit. . . . . but I digress. . . .

 

Sorry about the thread drift . . . . ( No Really ! )

 

Phil