Sold the thruster

[BrendAn]

54 minutes ago, Yenn said:

You will miss out by not learning on the Thruster. It is a much harder plane to fly well than the Jabiru. Just see what I mean by the comments about speed control on landing. From memory the Thruster had one speed 50kts. Climb,descent and cruise. I put mine in a dive once and it didn't go over 70 kts.

I heard the only way to get a thruster to loop is a full power dive until the windscreen buckles then pull her up.

[jackc]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Let us now your impressions. Good luck and have fun. Surely you are on grass? Nev

1.7km grass strip normally used by Gliders 🙂 

[facthunter]

A thruster is not much  of a glider.  Nev

[kasper]

14 hours ago, Arron25 said:

I did an hour in a Thruster with my instructor..to learn tail down, before I bought Soni. After doing my certificate in an LSA55, the shock of going from a trigear with an acceptable glide to a high drag with brick tendencies without power was frightening..

Needless to say only did the power reduction ONCE... 

Did the rest of my tail training in a 582 Lightwing, and Soni

Awwww.

 

The fun of learning in a two seat thruster is the power off performance - its the reason there used to be a need to have an AUF training for pilots from GA ... no inertia, all the drag and minimal airspeed between cruise and stalled brick was and remains a very different set of demands on pilots.

 

Still, if you go back to the thruster now that you can handle a tailwheel you might find it a lot of fun ... and a T500 engine out at MTOW can be handled quite safely in full power off safely into a unexpected paddock outlanding.  Plus there is less to worry about in a thruster outlanding - you know where you are arriving - its underneath you 😀

 

Instructing on thrusters, drifters and LSA55 Jabs back in the day was always fun and meant you got a wide range of experience, throw in weightshift and skydiving and my 20's were a lot of fun.

Edited February 22, 2022 by kasper

[extralite]

That is the fun of a Thruster. They are a bit of a pig and there are far more comfortable aircraft to fly. Sort of like there are far better bikes than Harley Davidsons. In addition to their famous glide, they want to roll into a turn sometimes. Even wheeling it on is a challenge at least for me. But if it was comfort and ease then we would all be flying a savannah. Pulling a Thruster out of a shed on a still morning or evening and going for a dusty noisy blast is great fun.

 

 

[facthunter]

Where you might hurt yourself is at about 60 feet on a min speed climb out engine stop.  You can't avoid a hard landing.. I've always added a bit of speed to the early climb to make it less critical. Nev

[RFguy]

what's the L/D at 50 kts ?

[Methusala]

22 hours ago, facthunter said:

I've always added a bit of speed to the early climb to make it less critical. Nev

Maintain 50kts till you get about 100ft under you. Then, if the engine quits you have sufficient airspeed over the elevator not to stall. It's all about energy management.  Best climb is about 42kts.

[RFguy]

So what's actually going on here? - tailplane stalls relatively early due to  characteristics?, 

or tail always ends up  in wash on main wing stall ?

or tail at low airspeeds relies on prop wash to generate sufficient authority ?

Edited February 25, 2022 by RFguy

[Methusala]

3rd option, I think.

[Markdun]

Don has heaps of experience in the Thruster and I would defer to his experience. For my part I was never able to comfortably and predictably land a Thruster to how I would have liked. The issue I think is that it has exceptionally high drag and there is just not much energy to convert from kinetic to generate lift without stalling at the lower airspeed (42kts say); you really do have to push the stick fwd quickly to avoid stalling of the engine quits, and any flare on landing is very short because it stops flying very quickly indeed.

 

 Brendan, it was a requirement when I first learned to fly that any student would need to read and be knowledgeable of the PoH before they hopped into the aircraft. At a BFR a few years back I had to put the instructor off a little while to give me time to: (1) read the PoH; & (2) familiarise myself with the aircraft and its controls (with the PoH in my hand); & then (3) do a quick daily inspection for myself. There was no problem with this, and in fact I think she was impressed that I did so. The plane was unfamiliar to me, and after the BFR she said she was more than happy to hire the aircraft out to me.  Always read the PoH.

Mark

[Thruster88]

I have never noticed any lack of elevator authority in Thrusters. The best climb speed around 45knots is only about 13knots above stall at MTOW, without pilot input that speed will go away very very quickly with loss of thrust. An experienced thruster pilot will be pushing nose down if the engine changes note on climb out. There is no time to be looking at the tachometer or other gauges.  As Don said a higher initial climb speed increases safety.  

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Thruster88

[facthunter]

At a slightly higher initial climb speed the plane has more kinetic energy which counters the speed decay till you lower the nose. Too high a speed and you won't climb. With engine failure IF you  Get too slow and you can't flare successfully and you'll get back injuries with a high rate of descent. The elevator is always effective (except at full rearwards) when sometimes the mains beat the tailwheel at reaching the ground. Most seem to do wheelers but I prefer 3 point. Nev

[RFguy]

while unlikely to be encountered in the thruster( subsonic flight),  I am spending my couple of hours rest this arvo  reading about coupling dynamics in aircraft, more specifically  inertial roll  coupling.

 

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/88484main_H-2106.pdf

 

[Methusala]

I have my share of poor landings in the Thruster. Trying to flare in a normal progressive sense results in an abrupt collision of mains on the ground bouncing  into the air. Application of power is required to avoid stalling. My technique is to pull and maintain full aft stick just before stalling. The elevator has sufficient authority at 50kts and I approach power off except with a passenger. I can land with idle power from 300 ft turning base quite comfortably. The power off attitude is quite steep.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Methusala

[facthunter]

I've done a rough calculation and I work it at  about 10 degrees, 3x what a normal Glide slope(ILS) is. I agree with your first 3 sentences absolutely and Tony Hayes  (TOSG) was re rigging the wing AoA when he passed away. I spent a lot of time corresponding with Tony, a very knowledgeable and pleasant fellow and a great asset to the Thruster movement. Nev

[BrendAn]

5 hours ago, facthunter said:

I've done a rough calculation and I work it at  about 10 degrees, 3x what a normal Glide slope(ILS) is. I agree with your first 3 sentences absolutely and Tony Hayes  (TOSG) was re rigging the wing AoA when he passed away. I spent a lot of time corresponding with Tony, a very knowledgeable and pleasant fellow and a great asset to the Thruster movement. Nev

The thruster has something like 8deg on the main wing. I have heard someone cut it back to 3 deg and added extra or stiffer battens. I don't know which. Also adjusted ailerons for slight neg and achieved a cruise if 80 knts with a 582.  And I know that's one but the vne was put as 80 knts because they had to put a figure in at the time. It was not a tested number. 

[BrendAn]

10 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

The thruster has something like 8deg on the main wing. I have heard someone cut it back to 3 deg and added extra or stiffer battens. I don't know which. Also adjusted ailerons for slight neg and achieved a cruise if 80 knts with a 582.  And I know that's one but the vne was put as 80 knts because they had to put a figure in at the time. It was not a tested number. 

Sorry. I put the wrong number there. It was 73 knts. Got my conversion wrong. 136 kmh

[facthunter]

Wing riggers AoA will affect the attitude the fuselage makes with the horizon at cruise speed.  Reducing to 3 Degrees would have to produce a nose up attitude at any speed the Thruster would achieve, I would think. There's no magic in all of this. A thruster is a pretty draggy machine and as I've mentioned before, Loose skins degrade the general performance a lot.. The near new one I flew about 1986 flew much better than any I've flown when they got older. I've done quite a few power off overspeed dives at very steep angles and you don't get high airspeeds there but you do get down fast. Nev

Edited February 27, 2022 by facthunter

[BrendAn]

51 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Wing riggers AoA will affect the attitude the fuselage makes with the horizon at cruise speed.  Reducing to 3 Degrees would have to produce a nose up attitude at any speed the Thruster would achieve, I would think. There's no magic in all of this. A thruster is a pretty draggy machine and as I've mentioned before, Loose skins degrade the general performance a lot.. The near new one I flew about 1986 flew much better than any I've flown when they got older. I've done quite a few power off overspeed dives at very steep angles and you don't get high airspeeds there but you do get down fast. Nev

The one I am talking about may have had more done than I know . Like strut fairings maybe. It was clocked by a policeman with a radar gun. 2 passes at 136kmh

[RFguy]

did you get booked ?  Victoria- so did he shoot at you ?

Edited February 27, 2022 by RFguy

[BrendAn]

31 minutes ago, RFguy said:

did you get booked ?  Victoria- so did he shoot at you ?

Towing my thruster on the trailer at 100 was about as close as I got to flying it.😁

[Thruster88]

My Thruster t500 is completely stock except for the 582 upgrade over the 503 it left the factory with. It will do 64knots GPS along the runway at 50 feet in calm conditions 100% power. To get 73knots would be a stretch in my opinion. In straight and level flight the elevator is neutral, changing the angle of incidence would upset that and add drag. I reckon Steve Cohen knew what he was doing, it wasn't his first rodeo.  

[BrendAn]

1 hour ago, Thruster88 said:

My Thruster t500 is completely stock except for the 582 upgrade over the 503 it left the factory with. It will do 64knots GPS along the runway at 50 feet in calm conditions 100% power. To get 73knots would be a stretch in my opinion. In straight and level flight the elevator is neutral, changing the angle of incidence would upset that and add drag. I reckon Steve Cohen knew what he was doing, it wasn't his first rodeo.  

Have you stiffened up the bottom of the wing. I was told this makes the biggest difference .

[Thruster88]

27 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

Have you stiffened up the bottom of the wing. I was told this makes the biggest difference .

I often look out at the wings while flying and have never noticed any sign of deformation.  In examples with slack skins putting more curve in the lower battons might help a little, there would be no magic, there never is in aircraft.