I'm not a speed freak by nature. I drive like a retirement home escapee on the freeway as a matter of fact. And I was quite content lumbering along in my old Commander at 140kts watching the world go buy (no, that's not a typo). The only real reason (besides the fact that it was starting to get hard to get parts for the old girl) for the Aerostar was that I could go 140kts on almost 50% less fuel compared to the Commander. An idea that really excited me as a big xc traveller. The top speed wasn't what got me hooked (OK, maybe a little...:wink2
.
But.
As I sit here booking yet another taxing business trip to the mother continent, I can't help but daydream about ways to do it in my own plane. If you've spent a lifetime at godforsaken airline hubs, smelled the stained and stale old wall-to-wall-carpets they always come with, suffered through colonic irrigations by blue gloved TSA agents, had your luggage sent to Katmandu, had a CBP officer interrogate you every time you come back to what's been your home country for years, constantly been downgraded to middle seats between obese people that snore or very small children - you know what I mean. Or faced yet another one of Delta/American/Uniteds old 757's with ash trays still in the arm rest (how long has there been a smoking ban on airlines? 25+ years? That's how long those seats have been in there). I wish I could just jump into my own ride and be done with it. And for about the same money and about the same time door to door. Inevitably, my mind drifts off into theoretical ways of solving this problem for humankind.
Flying time with the airlines this time will be around 20hrs not including above mentioned colonic irrigation. Sure, it would be easy to jump into that brand new Piaggio Avanti II that you paid cash for, going 405kts at 41000ft. Hell, I'd get there before the airlines, even with fuel stops. Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of money.
Then I remember Mike Arnolds old AR-5 he built over 30 years ago. 213mph on 2-stroke Rotax 65hp. And I think - why haven't we come a bit further?
http://www.ar-5.com
What this world needs is a super light, small 1 or 2 place aircraft, pressurised, de-iced, with great range that can fly high and get good TAS for not much fuel burn. A slippery little sucker. But there's nothing to be had.
Let's look at that lovely mozzarella the Piaggio Avanti II again. 405kts at 41000ft. How does it do it? Well, first of all it's slippery. Fine - we can do that. It also has a pretty narrow cross section and thin laminar flow wings. Aerostars share the same philosophy - get the cross section down and have thin, short wings and you'll get the speed. No problem, we can do that. The Avanti has 2x850shp PT6's. That's 1700shp for a 11500lbs ship, or 6.76lb/hp. Hmm, harder, but not impossible. But wait a minute, a TBM 850 has about 8.67lbs/hp (320kts) and an Aerostar 700 (260kts) has about 8.57lbs/hp. We can certainly do that with pistons. Don't think the TBM is much slipperier, but it does fly higher and has an engine that doesn't get asthmatic up high.
To be an alternative to jet airliners, we need an aircraft that does at least 300kts, ideally 350kts. From the above weight-to-power ratios, it's easy to see that we would need to get to somewhere around 7-8lbs/hp to be able to achieve that speed. I'm sure you've all heard of the Reno speed dragon, Relentless. It's a Sharp NXT kit build. From pilot Kevin Eldredge's website we can see that it's more than capable to do that - max speed is 380kts, high speed cruise is 350kts and economy cruise is 325kts. Jet speeds on avgas! As long as you minimise drag, you can get there. Take a look:
http://www.kevineldredge.com/Kevin_Eldredge/For_Sale/Entries/2009/8/14_2005_Nemesis_NXT.html
But here is finally my point - surely there must be a way, with todays technology, to build a very snug, small, narrow, reduced drag, 1 or maybe 2 seat slippery speed demon that could be an alternative to the airlines without breaking the bank? If Mike Arnold can go 185kts on 65hp, the Cassutt racers can go 200kts on 100hp, surely we should be able to get a single seater to +300kts on 200hp up high?
Wouldn't that be cool? Being able to beat the airlines door to door, for just about the same money (at least in fuel)? Tell me I'm not just a dreamer?
.But.
As I sit here booking yet another taxing business trip to the mother continent, I can't help but daydream about ways to do it in my own plane. If you've spent a lifetime at godforsaken airline hubs, smelled the stained and stale old wall-to-wall-carpets they always come with, suffered through colonic irrigations by blue gloved TSA agents, had your luggage sent to Katmandu, had a CBP officer interrogate you every time you come back to what's been your home country for years, constantly been downgraded to middle seats between obese people that snore or very small children - you know what I mean. Or faced yet another one of Delta/American/Uniteds old 757's with ash trays still in the arm rest (how long has there been a smoking ban on airlines? 25+ years? That's how long those seats have been in there). I wish I could just jump into my own ride and be done with it. And for about the same money and about the same time door to door. Inevitably, my mind drifts off into theoretical ways of solving this problem for humankind.
Flying time with the airlines this time will be around 20hrs not including above mentioned colonic irrigation. Sure, it would be easy to jump into that brand new Piaggio Avanti II that you paid cash for, going 405kts at 41000ft. Hell, I'd get there before the airlines, even with fuel stops. Unfortunately, I don't have that kind of money.
Then I remember Mike Arnolds old AR-5 he built over 30 years ago. 213mph on 2-stroke Rotax 65hp. And I think - why haven't we come a bit further?
http://www.ar-5.com
What this world needs is a super light, small 1 or 2 place aircraft, pressurised, de-iced, with great range that can fly high and get good TAS for not much fuel burn. A slippery little sucker. But there's nothing to be had.
Let's look at that lovely mozzarella the Piaggio Avanti II again. 405kts at 41000ft. How does it do it? Well, first of all it's slippery. Fine - we can do that. It also has a pretty narrow cross section and thin laminar flow wings. Aerostars share the same philosophy - get the cross section down and have thin, short wings and you'll get the speed. No problem, we can do that. The Avanti has 2x850shp PT6's. That's 1700shp for a 11500lbs ship, or 6.76lb/hp. Hmm, harder, but not impossible. But wait a minute, a TBM 850 has about 8.67lbs/hp (320kts) and an Aerostar 700 (260kts) has about 8.57lbs/hp. We can certainly do that with pistons. Don't think the TBM is much slipperier, but it does fly higher and has an engine that doesn't get asthmatic up high.
To be an alternative to jet airliners, we need an aircraft that does at least 300kts, ideally 350kts. From the above weight-to-power ratios, it's easy to see that we would need to get to somewhere around 7-8lbs/hp to be able to achieve that speed. I'm sure you've all heard of the Reno speed dragon, Relentless. It's a Sharp NXT kit build. From pilot Kevin Eldredge's website we can see that it's more than capable to do that - max speed is 380kts, high speed cruise is 350kts and economy cruise is 325kts. Jet speeds on avgas! As long as you minimise drag, you can get there. Take a look:
http://www.kevineldredge.com/Kevin_Eldredge/For_Sale/Entries/2009/8/14_2005_Nemesis_NXT.html
But here is finally my point - surely there must be a way, with todays technology, to build a very snug, small, narrow, reduced drag, 1 or maybe 2 seat slippery speed demon that could be an alternative to the airlines without breaking the bank? If Mike Arnold can go 185kts on 65hp, the Cassutt racers can go 200kts on 100hp, surely we should be able to get a single seater to +300kts on 200hp up high?
Wouldn't that be cool? Being able to beat the airlines door to door, for just about the same money (at least in fuel)? Tell me I'm not just a dreamer?
