Looking!

[Jonathan Baron]

Randy:

What makes this even more remarkable is that Mark reported these speeds with a New Castle Delaware Bellanca Cruisemaster, the last of the GM Bellanca airplanes. It has an O-435 190hp Lycoming - not the O-470 230hp Continental employed by the Downer Aircraft Corporation on Cruisemasters manufactured in the late 1950s.

Hence my amazement as well :shock:

Jonathan

 

[trombair]

hi guys!
for what it's worth, my 1951 14-19 (N522A) regularly turns in 135-140 kts tas (155-160 mph) at "high cruise" i.e. 20-something inches (depends on altitude) and 2500 rpm. these are GPS averages. although it seems to be a bit heavy, (1632# empty) it is basically stock and straight.
cognizant that drag increases with the square of the velocity, it seems to me that 190 (kts or mph) is still a bit "optimistic". have we had a recent pitot/static check? what about the airspeed instrument? has this been verified via gps runs or timed runs between known geographic features?
even assuming MPH, 190 (163 ktas) is a remarkable performance in anyone's book! although i admire guiseppe's forward looking design, i think there may be a bit of "optimism" present in some of these numbers.
as a great flight test engineer said to me not long ago: "Do the Data!" let's see some test numbers on this!
blue skies,
vic & N522A

 

[Jonathan Baron]

My numbers are identical, Vic, in my 1950 14-19 (6561N) though I can squeeze 145kts out of her if I don't mind burning an obscene about of fuel.

Uh high and leaned I can get 135kts at just a tad over 10.5 gal/hr. I measure this by burning the aux tank and timing it. All 14 gallons are useable. When the little fuel pressure needle gets that wild wiggle, I mark the time and switch tanks. Damned good for an overbuilt and inefficient engine on an airplane that qualified for AARP nearly four years ago.

Plus my plane is not merely fat - it's OBESE. Due to all that microballooning resin and paint on top of paint and such, it sports a patriotic 1776 pounds. Part of this too is the Brittain wing leveler: not exactly a light duty unit. It works great though. After years of Luscombe time only, it feels like cheating. At other times it feels like the ghost in the machine. The ghost can fly!

Jonathan

 

[mark]

Jonathon are you serious about the 1700 pounds?Mine comes in at 1509 lbs.Are you using light weight starter/alternator?do you still have the heavy speaker/lighting/radios/interior/antennas/beacon/thick plexy windows?do you have ANY fill on the wings?This all adds up,one needs to shave every last pound when re-building these fine machines.Are you flying with fuel in the aux tank?why i rarely carry over 20 to 25 gallons.in this 10 degree air up here it climbs great!is your airframe trimmed exactly so no drag is created to "make"it fly straight?Do you priperly trim the aircraft so as to create no excessive drag?do you balance the at the absolute aft c.g.so as to create minimum down pressure on the horizontal?I could go on and on 22,000 hours of flying time gave me alot of time to think about things like this.I live with my plane,and spend many hours each day together.Hey nice picture you sent me,enjoy Mark

 

[Jonathan Baron]

Alas, Mark, my airplane came with all of the above. When the time comes to recover the airplane I will save a lot of weight but, for now, I love the way it looks and flies.

For me it's not a short hop machine. I use it for cross country flying with all the tanks full. The battery was moved from the tail to the area under the baggage compartment. Thus, were I alone with no baggage, I'd need the aux tank full to stay in CG. When I travel I load all my baggage aft so that I can burn the fuel in the aux tank.

The airplane is straight. After all I've gone through to get it into solid, airworthy condition after I bought it, I'll leave weight savings for the next decade

Thanks for the info, Mark. To press you a bit further, how did you determine your cruise speed numbers. I can understand that if you fly with a light airplane significantly under gross you'd get the kind of climb in cold air that you mention. Getting 30mph more than most stock 14-19s with O-435s is astonishing, however.

Jonathan