Yoopers Rocketman's Lancair

[aviatoreb]

42 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

I think all airplanes are too slow after about 2 hours in cruise...

Not all planes have that problem.  The SR71 goes coast to coast in about an hour.

https://jalopnik.com/the-sr-71-blackbird-retired-by-flying-coast-to-coast-in-1689846454

I'll take mine in black.

[Jerry 5TJ]

38 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Not all planes have that problem.  The SR71 goes coast to coast in about an hour.....

 A former business associate of mine was a retired AF guy who had flown SR-71 out of Beale AFB.  He said cruise was busy but boring—take off, hit a tanker, fly to Alaska, hit another tanker, go to Okinawa, etc.  

He also said, “You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach Three.” 

[LANCECASPER]

2 hours ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

Too many guys with too much money that thought they were too good to need training.  The results on such a high performance bird, with that attitude, regrettably were predictable.

Pilot training was also the same problem with the original Piper PA-46. When I went through SimCom training for it in 2000 and the Meridian in 2003 they showed some of the details of the accidents and the results of the Special Certification Review. Mostly it was a lack of training and a lack of respect for the harsh environment in the flight levels and not a lack of capability or a design flaw.  People with more dollars than sense bought it and as you mentioned thought they were too good for training.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

He also said, “You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach Three.” 

I love that.

I was once at Udvar Hazy, the Smithsonian air museum at Dulles airport with my kids (high recommend to anyone who has never been!!!), on a day when there was a former flight instructor for the SR71. Nothing specific to say here...but he was very interesting to talk to.  My son who is an aeronautical engineering undergrad at Cornell drove the conversation and I mostly listened since I work hard not to step on his toes as he shines - they were talking about the pilot controlled cones in front of the jet engines that slow down the airspeed as it enters the engines so you don't get supersonic flow into the engines or that makes them flame out.  I was amazed that it was all lever controlled by the pilot instead of some fancy computer - but yeah - 1960's skunk works, there wouldn't be a computer would there.

[Yooper Rocketman]

I haven't posted for a while on the Lancair, well actually haven't posted much at all lately (been pretty busy).  I saw quite a few of you at Oshkosh, with some of you stopping by to look at my bird on display.  We had a real good show, got some attention and it was the first Oshkosh I attended from opening day until closing day.  I had painted the prop, as one of my last "to do" items before the show,  the day before we flew out.  When we landed on Sunday afternoon (I was lucky enough to be approved for the war bird approach, so didn't see the delays some of you had) and after getting out of the plane, found my two 2" white stripes on the tips of my three blades had ran right off the wing tip.  Clearly there was something wrong with the paint, as it had over 24 hours to dry before we launched.  It was a mad scramble to get that fixed before judging began.  I elected to just sand the crap off and paint it gray like the rest of the prop.

We set up a pop-up tent which made the sun so much easier to deal with, dropping it down and pulling the top cover off each night.  We also set up some signs describing the different aspects of the plane like the builder details, plane performance numbers, acknowledgements to those that helped me, and some detail on how the paint design was determined.  My wife even attended the show for 4 days and my daughter and family plus my oldest son attended on Saturday.

During my long build I had a hot rod friend invite me to a garage open house after he completed a restoration of an old 1950's Ford.  I thought it was pretty neat, getting to visit with old hot rod friends and told my wife when the plane was done, we were doing the same thing.  Two weeks ago we had a hangar open house.  We had sent out about 120 invites and were totally blown away when a good 150 friends and relatives stopped by to see the plane.  So many of MY friends had heard (ad nausea) about me building this over the last 19 years; it was time to show them I had actually finished it.  I was also concerned my wife's friends were being told she was flying in this "homebuilt/experimental airplane" to Florida, so I wanted to quell concerns about what I was "forcing" my poor wife to fly in.  Some of the comments were interesting.  It was not what they were expecting.

One of my snowmobile buddies asked Beth and me to stand by the plane for a picture.  She hates getting her picture taken, but on the day of the hangar open house she was really enjoying herself.  The smile on her face was priceless (actually, mine wasn't too bad either).  We really enjoyed the day. @tigers2007 showed too.

Tom

[Yooper Rocketman]

The Lancair IV, IVP, and IVPT do not have the best safety record (ok...it sucks).  90% of the accidents happen in the first 100 hours, usually attributed to new owners NOT getting transition training.  Of course, being a very complex high performance plane, those accidents have a higher than normal fatality rate as well.  Knowing this, when my initial transition trainer said I was ready at 9 hours, I refused to fly alone until I was at 15 hours with him.  Then he said I needed to fly OFTEN, not let the plane be a hangar queen.  I racked up 190 hours in it the first 14 months (November 2016 to January 2018), with 3-4 of those months down for maintenance, upgrades and bodywork.  I also severely limited myself from doing any hard IFR, approaches to low minimums, and any night flying.

I lost 4 months from January to May this year for paint and interior, and got less than desired flight time going up to Air Adventure, rebuilding my complete A/C drive and prepping the plane for the show.  One of my goals for late summer or this fall was re-current flight training.  There are only two LOBO (Lancair Owner and Builder Organization) "Approved" flight instructors for the IVPT Prop-jet.  I met up with one of them about 10 days ago, Chris Rust, an A-10 pilot in the Air Force.  We did 4 hours of structured ground school (another hour during lunch) and then I flew with him the better part of 5 hours.  By the time I flew home, my brain was a wet noodle.  But.....the training was awesome.  I flew my first approach in a while in the Lancair, and after being taught a very structured approach sequence from Chris, it was comfortable (maybe even easy) and I nailed it like I was flying the plane on rails.  I will be doing 6 month re-current training with a local prop-jet ace and doing the annual training with Chris.  I'm well north of 200 hours in the plane now too.

Here's a couple flight tracks of the training.  Not looking forward to seeing my fuel bill for that (prop-jets drink fuel pretty seriously down low).

Tom

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N994PT/history/20180912/1757Z/KEZS/KPCZ

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N994PT/history/20180912/2215Z/KPCZ/L 45.67670 -88.16910

[MyNameIsNobody]

Great photo of you two.  Beth needs to thumbs up more photos.  She and your plane BOTH look beautiful.  You are definitely coming in 3rd Tom (THAT is what winning looks like).  Congrats on your successful Oshkosh and friends gathering with your plane.  Just an enormous accomplishment.  I was up bird hunting with my son this weekend.  Northern Wisconsin felt like summer sans bugs.  Trees an ground cover are still 100% green.  Made for tough gunning, but we had fun.  Wisconsin victory over Iowa was a plus.

[steingar]

I was one of the ones gawking at the aircraft, it is far better looking in person than in these pictures.  I hope it won a  good prize.

I am really glad to hear about he recurrent training.  These aircraft are like mini airliners, they fly airliner speeds at airliner altitudes.  I expect if you approach it like an airline pilot you'll fly it safely.  Approach it like a GA pilot and you'll have trouble.  What I'm really blow away by is Tom's persistence.  A nearly 20 year build!  Dang!

[peevee]

Tom,

 

it appears you have the thermawing film on your wings, I'm curious what your experience has been with it, if that's indeed what it is.

[Yooper Rocketman]

5 hours ago, peevee said:

Tom,

 

it appears you have the thermawing film on your wings, I'm curious what your experience has been with it, if that's indeed what it is.

No, it's TKS.  I love it and it works better than any of the 3 certified planes I've flown with TKS.

Tom

[Yooper Rocketman]

20 hours ago, MyNameIsNobody said:

Great photo of you two.  Beth needs to thumbs up more photos.  She and your plane BOTH look beautiful.  You are definitely coming in 3rd Tom (THAT is what winning looks like).  Congrats on your successful Oshkosh and friends gathering with your plane.  Just an enormous accomplishment.  I was up bird hunting with my son this weekend.  Northern Wisconsin felt like summer sans bugs.  Trees an ground cover are still 100% green.  Made for tough gunning, but we had fun.  Wisconsin victory over Iowa was a plus.

My wife says she likes you already, even though she's never met you!  Especially when you put me in my place :>)

Tom

[aviatoreb]

43 minutes ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

No, it's TKS.  I love it and it works better than any of the 3 certified planes I've flown with TKS.

Tom

Why do you think this install works better?

[Yooper Rocketman]

1 hour ago, aviatoreb said:

Why do you think this install works better?

Shorter wing.  Same pump and flow rate as a Mooney or Bonanza.  

[Yooper Rocketman]

12 hours ago, steingar said:

I was one of the ones gawking at the aircraft, it is far better looking in person than in these pictures.  I hope it won a  good prize.

Ok.  I guess it’s time to fess up.  I built the plane for speed and to incorporate the type of mods only an experimental could get away with.   You don’t win an award at Oshkosh, at least at the highest levels, without purpose building for an Oshkosh award.  So, I took a 200+ hour bird down there, threw it into a judging category (kit built home built), competing against guys looking purely for an award with barely over 25 hours on them, and got a Bronze Lindy.

I submitted an article to Sport Aviation ( at their request) last week, so it will likely get some press there in the next few months.  

Thanks Steiger and other Mooniacs for stopping by and looking at my project.  I really enjoyed sharing it with my awesome Mooney friends!

Tom

[Raptor05121]

Congrats, Tom

[Bob_Belville]

I too made my way at AV to the flight line to see your Lancair. Wow.

[steingar]

Congrats on the trophy Tom.  To be honest, that is really quite the accomplishment.  I know what you mean about show planes, no one builds a Lanceair like yours to win an award, they build it to go places.  And I am glad to hear you're taking the training seriously.  I think if you put the kind of perseverance into training as you did building your project, I think you will be the safest lancer pilot there's ever been.

[mike_elliott]

On 5/28/2018 at 1:25 PM, Yooper Rocketman said:

Unfortunately, the safety record has a lot more to do with owners resistant to training, and recurrent training than the actual air frame.  Too many guys with too much money that thought they were too good to need training.

Tom, this is so true for all makes. We, the pilots, are typically the weak link in the accident chain. We spend multi AMU's on gizmos, but are much more tight fisted on keeping our skillset and toolbox tuned up, electing currency over competency.

[Yetti]

Things you learn from smarter flyers with navy experience.   The A4 will drink as much taxiing and sitting on the runway as it does up high doing real flight stuff.

[flyboy0681]

Speaking of Lancair's, has anybody been privy to what may have happened to N2536T this past weekend? A friend of mine is (was) a very close friend of the pilot and his wife and is just devastated. What makes this matter worse is that my friend likes to fly with me in the Mooney and said he is reassessing the wisdom of that.

 

 

[Jerry 5TJ]

At 18Z on 15 Sept 2018 the METAR weather wasn’t great:

KBOS 016 OVC & 3 miles

KBED Same ceiling & 10 miles

 

Ref: METARS 15 Sept 2018 18Z

 

 

[flyboy0681]

2 minutes ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

At 18Z on 15 Sept 2018 the METAR weather wasn’t great:

KBOS 016 OVC & 3 miles

KBED Same ceiling & 10 miles

 

Ref: METARS 15 Sept 2018 18Z

 

 

Wasn't great, but not terrible either for an experienced instrument pilot like himself.

[Jerry 5TJ]

Perhaps weather was a factor in an unfortunate chain of small contributions.  

...old saying is one alligator rarely gets you, but enough geese can nibble you to death.  

[Yetti]

The witness report in the Kathryns report may shed light.

[gsxrpilot]

13 hours ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

So, I took a 200+ hour bird down there, threw it into a judging category (kit built home built), competing against guys looking purely for an award with barely over 25 hours on them, and got a Bronze Lindy.

You got robbed! 

In my vast  experience with homebuilt aircraft, I've never seen a better one.