G'day all from France

[rollerball]

Rotax 912 ULS powered Savannah MXP 740 owner here, British but retired in France, just logged in after googling the thread about cracks in the nose wheel bracket. Great to find such a lively and well informed forum. Came across the thread after stupidly bending my nose wheel leg and smashing my Duc 3-blade prop. Now in the process of getting the leg straightened (only a slight bend) and fitting a new 3-blade Ukrainian scimitar prop. Hope to be logging in regularly from now on and especially following news and updates on the good ole Savannah.

 

 

[ozbear]

Rotax 912 ULS powered Savannah MXP 740 owner here, British but retired in France, just logged in after googling the thread about cracks in the nose wheel bracket. Great to find such a lively and well informed forum. Came across the thread after stupidly bending my nose wheel leg and smashing my Duc 3-blade prop. Now in the process of getting the leg straightened (only a slight bend) and fitting a new 3-blade Ukrainian scimitar prop. Hope to be logging in regularly from now on and especially following news and updates on the good ole Savannah.

Welcome rollerball

 

 

[IBob]

Hey there from NZ.

 

And you're probably aware that ICP have now done away with those little L shaped brackets, and substituted a much more robust one-piece assembly that carries right round the front of the nose leg?

 

 

[Neil_S]

Bonjour, Rollerball,

 

Welcome to the site!

 

As a Savvy owner myself I shall be very interested to hear how the scimitar blade prop goes once you have had some time using it...

 

Cheers,

 

Neil

 

 

[Yenn]

G'day Rollerball and welcome. Where in france do you live. I have been to the area South of Bergerac where my brother lives. Very nice place too.

 

The Savvy is a good plane and we have one at my local field.

 

 

[rollerball]

Thanks for the warm welcome folks. Thanks for that info IBob, I wasn't aware of that. A SB recently came out of the UK about nose wheel bracket cracks that I hadn't paid much attention to to be quite honest and when I checked mine I didn't see any obvious cracks so hadn't followed it up at all. Then a few days ago I foolishly allowed my Sav, that has no handbrake, to move forward into an obstruction while warming up causing the present damage which luckily is mainly limited to my wallet and not to the aircraft. However, as there is now a slight bend to the nose leg, which did much to halt to the forward movement, it'll have to come out and be straightened and I'm pretty sure that closer inspection will again show no damage to the bracket. But it's fingers crossed until later today or tomorrow. Neil_S, re the scimitar prop, the props now coming out of the Ukraine have a fantastic reputation for both quality and price - I'm getting the 3-blade carbon prop, spinner and pitch gauge for under a third of the cost of a replacement 3-blade Duc - and all the reports are that the workmanship is superb. There's been a lot of comparative work done down your way on the stolspeed.com website (the guy who was the first to cut the slats off the Sav and fit VGs) and amazingly he found that even with various prop diameters and blade shapes, if all are pitched to the Rotax specified 5200 RPM at a climb speed of 57 knots, they all have almost identical performance in take off, climb and cruise to within a knot of each other. He found it to be so amazing that he did the tests all over again to confirm. Here's the link - I'd be interested to hear what others think.

 

StolSpeed Aerodynamics - Performance Enhancement for Light Aircraft

 

The prop that I'm getting is more or less equivalent to the Kool and Kiev with a diameter of 1750cm and a spinner 205mm dia x 220mm

 

Yenn, I live no great distance from the area you mention. I keep the Sav on a private field, Chateau Malbec at Fleurac. The chateau was owned years ago by a Mr Sterckeman, the owner of the caravan company that still exists in Europe, and he used to keep a small aircraft there. A pal of mine who lives close by found out about it and as he was looking for somewhere to establish an airfield checked with the owners (now Anglo/USA) who agreed to his reopening it. We even found the old wind sock pole still in place and completed the basic job in May 2015.

 

The runway is pretty short (160 metres) which discourages most casual visitors and like many (most?) here in the Dordogne is on an upslope, meaning you always take off downhill and land up. I've made a few vids and here's one of one of my better landings last autumn.

 

 

I also made a web site for the airfield mainly because we need anyone wishing to visit to be aware of how it is and sign a release form, which is quite common here in France. My Sav and the Citius that's also based there feature in the home page graphics.

 

http://malbec-ulm.rf.gd/wp

 

Once again, many thanks all for the kind welcome and I look forward to contributing whenever and however I can to the forum in the future.