Off to EAA Airventure & Mentone !!!

GyrOZprey

Aussie in Kansas.
Joined
Aug 8, 2011
Messages
3,388
Location
Whitewater KS
Aircraft
Butterfly Aurora N5560Z / Titanium Explorer N456TE & N488TE/ - trained in MTOsport 446QT/488FB
Total Flight Time
1023
God willing ...(& my cranky old truck!!!???) ... all packed ready to roll.... after a wild 2 weeks getting new gyros out of container & one up to Newton! (My Aussie tourer) ... unfortunately ... have to take the faithful yellow one to OSH & Mentone ... tested the longer rotror off the red one ... smooth enough & a few extra inches ... gives fantastic LIFT ... help with flying passengers in the heat! ... will also play with the 6 bladed E-prop ...I stole off the white one ... supposed to give the 912 gyro ...take-off kick of the 914! After my Utah passenger flying experiences .... trying to get this 912 TE optimized ...as no time to A/W .. the red one!

\Pic from my presentation last Sat to our local EAA Chap88 ...about my 2017 "gyro-gypsy" adventures ...Florida,Australia & Utah!
 

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See you at Oshkosh Chris. I personally won't be at Mentone but Greg and Chris Murphy will be there
 
I have seen reference to 6 bladed E-prop's that Chris mentioned in her post on a couple of sites, but can never find a link that shows or describes the prop. Can anyone point to some information
on the prop?

Cheers,

Dave
 
Did some additional searching and found this link. I assume this is the prop Chris is referring too. Looks very interesting. Hope to hear some first hand reports on how this performs.

http://www.e-props.fr/16/exc6A.php
 
I have been flying a WarpDrive with 5 blades for years,they are very smooth,and have good performance.

Chris good luck @ the conventions.
 
We have already played with 6 bladed E-prop. Got it for almost 3 weeks. It really didn't perform better than our 3 bladed prop. Gave it back. A lot of hype about ESR but ...
The big thing with e-Prop that is good is that they have noticeably smaller moment of inertia which is good for the engine. However, these props have also not claimed ASTM compliance and I have a nagging suspicion they would not quite make it because of how lightly they are made. Of course if you use this prop compared to some badly designed props on some gyroplanes, it will seem like it performs better. Chris it absolutely, positively DOES NOT give a 912 the kick of the 914 engine trust me. Use a good 3 blade prop of good diameter (69 or 70 inch) and it will perform better than Excalibur. A lot of marketing and not enough performance IMO. No magic we saw.
 
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Thanks for your observations, Fara. Did you have any impression on the noise qualities of the Excalibur? Reduced noise level would be a plus, if the performace is equivalent to a three blade prop.

Dave
 
DaveJaksha;n1122608 said:
Thanks for your observations, Fara. Did you have any impression on the noise qualities of the Excalibur? Reduced noise level would be a plus, if the performace is equivalent to a three blade prop.

Dave

I did not measure noise with a meter, probably should have but I expected more quiet operation but when Greg was flying that prop on a 912ULS AR-1 to try it out and I was on the ground with another customer, we both thought it was louder than other AR-1's at pattern altitude. Larry my ex business partner is using these props on the Revo trikes and is really pushing them and I noticed his trike with 6 blade prop which he has just taken to Oshkosh as well was louder than other Revo's as well. Larry is really pushing these props but I think he likes their very low moment of inertia in a trike because that actually affects trike's handling in roll and I think he has been given a very special deal if he sells them.
I think their 3 or 4 blade prop is better than Excalibur for performance overall. However even those did not match performance of the prop we are using so there was no advantage to us. I think Duc Flash 2 designed by Michael are better but even that prop didn't quite give us the overall advantage to change as it was more expensive but similar results. Barry Maggio reports slightly lesser fuel burn in his Apollo AG-1 with 914UL engine with this 6 blade prop compared to another prop on his but his gyro was not using the same prop we are flying on AR-1s so that claim may be true but he also said that takeoff roll is actually slightly longer with Excalibur (meaning he has it pitched a bit much most likely). Have you tried Whirlwind from California?
Here is a video of how this prop installs by Larry (4 blade version). Notice it is held to the trike hub by 4 bolts not 6.
https://youtu.be/r0VLQv_ofUw
 
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Well .....our TAG aviation test pilot thought the E prop on the 912 got out of his short field as well as the 914's!

If there is thrust testing equipment at Mentone it may be interesting to do a comparison with the 3 props I have with me ... the Sensenich, Bolly& Eprop ... al-
biet the ground tethered static thrust test is of limited information value ... people still enjoy doing them!
 
GyrOZprey;n1122643 said:
Well .....our TAG aviation test pilot thought the E prop on the 912 got out of his short field as well as the 914's!

If there is thrust testing equipment at Mentone it may be interesting to do a comparison with the 3 props I have with me ... the Sensenich, Bolly& Eprop ... al-
biet the ground tethered static thrust test is of limited information value ... people still enjoy doing them!

Chris:
Testing static thrust really doesn't tell us the whole story. The best way to test a prop on a particular aircraft is to test fly the same aircraft with the same exact payload in the same conditions noting down Outside Air Temperature, density altitude, noting down takeoff distance, climb rate with a stopwatch and sensitive altimeter, top speed (Vh) that can be achieved etc. and comparing them. It is possible to get better takeoff distance with a prop but not get as good Vh or vice-versa. Trying to get the whole picture is best way to compare two propellers. One thing to really understand the results in testing props is a manifold pressure gauge. If manifold pressure and OAT are not noted, you really don't know what the power setting was. RPM isn't a reliable measure
 
Well ....the conditions at Mentone were just too variable to give a good scientific test on the E-prop ..... subjective notes .....ground observers were impressed at the quiteness ... the props blades are unequally spaced ... 58` - 66` 56`- makes it look odd from the rear ... on side-view it is weirdly coned forwards! It took 3 adjustments to find the sweet spot for the pitch ... but I enjoyed the smooth powerful TO push with passengers aboard! many thanks to Andreas ... our South African TAG agent who patiently worked on the pitching adjustments 4 times over!
When i get past the strange sound ...like one is being chased by a swarm of bees!:eek: ... I think I will like this prop ... as soon as my Red Aussietourer "Festey II" is A/W & in the skies ... I'll get a test on the 914 machine also!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/...073741860.100000177267362&type=1&l=59828546b1

the best of my Mentone 2017 pics are in this FB album ...available to any to view ...FB user or not! ...enjoy
 
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