Made it back with the new plane!

Grum.Man

Grum.Man

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Grum.Man
As a follow up to my last thread about moving an airplane I am pleased to say we made the trip uneventful! First a little back story...

My dad started building this airplane when I was about 4 years old. Him and the owner worked for over 9 years perfecting the plane and making design change after design change until it was complete. The owner took the plane back to St. Louis after the the test phase was complete in 1997. We got to see the airplane one more time at Airventure 98 and hadn't seen it since.

After getting my pilots license dad and i reminisced about this airplane and every time we saw a Venture it took us back to all those years of building. I finally took the initiative to contact the owner in hopes of reuniting Dad with the owner and airplane. Turns out due to life circumstances the owner only flew the Venture 68 hours before parking it. She hasn't flown in over 17 years.

I am pleased to say that thanks to a bunch of great friends and help from many others it's resting comfortably in my garage awaiting it's new life and hopefully many more hours at my father and my hands.

How we found her.


Dad and the owner reunited and working to remove the elevator for transport.


All loaded up.


Me left, Owner and co-building center, my father right.


Ready for re-build!
 
Great story! Were wings included in the deal?
 
will it be ready to fly to the Pig this weekend? :)
 
Awesome story! It was nice that it all worked out where you could get the plane back. Keep us posted how the refurb goes.
 
Must be pretty sporty with the I0-550. Keep posting, it'll be fun to watch progress on such a neat little plane.
 
I bet that thing is a blast to fly. Performance looks almost identical to a Legacy
 
It is tic for tat with the glasair III and legacy with 25 less HP. The engine is de-rated to 285 hp at 2500rpm. Turn the govener up to the same 2700 rpm as the others and it's faster.
 
Did you end up getting a wide load permit because of the 10 1/2' wide horizontal stabilizer?
 
Brad Z said:
Did you end up getting a wide load permit because of the 10 1/2' wide horizontal stabilizer?
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Yes I did. Nothing to it really. Used a permit company to handle it all. Was less than $200.00 for all the permits.
 
Nice cat photo. Haha.

bc38528974d9d82f1ced3b6ab57ce24f.jpg
 
I've seen one of those eggs at Sun-n-Fun a few years back. I'm interested in a PIREP on how she flies.
 
One of the hangar neighbors has been building one for years.

Rumor has it that many end their careers with loss of directional control events due to the high landing speed and the very narrow gear stance and height, in crosswinds.

They don't know what the word "slow" means which is cool, but b careful. They seem to be great and then bite someone who gets at all complacent square in the butt.
 
denverpilot said:
One of the hangar neighbors has been building one for years.

Rumor has it that many end their careers with loss of directional control events due to the high landing speed and the very narrow gear stance and height, in crosswinds.

They don't know what the word "slow" means which is cool, but b careful. They seem to be great and then bite someone who gets at all complacent square in the butt.
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I wouldn't say many but yes some of the early ones have. The gear and speeds weren't the problem though, it was the steering setup. On the early ones the brakes and steering were interconnected. Press the break when you want to steer and you ended up with neither.

This one was built with a steering system that is more conventional.
 
Now that looks like a fun plane, fast, somewhat challenging, unique, very cool!


Enjoy
 
Great story and really nice looking plane! I've never seen one of those before.
 
What a wonderful story. Congratulations! !
 
Good story. :yes:

I transitioned from low, slow into a fast landing airplane (Aerostar), and you get used to the higher landing speeds very quickly. The Aerostar was a numbers plane and as long as you didn't get slow on base turns etc, you were never in any danger or of risk getting bit. You'll ease into it before you even know it. :thumbsup:
 
just googled for more images ... very "interesting" looking airplane! Gotta wonder what Silvain would turn out of you had him cartoon your plane? :)

Cool story - thanks for sharing, good luck on the project, and looking forward to following your progress!
 
stratobee said:
Good story. :yes:

I transitioned from low, slow into a fast landing airplane (Aerostar), and you get used to the higher landing speeds very quickly. The Aerostar was a numbers plane and as long as you didn't get slow on base turns etc, you were never in any danger or of risk getting bit. You'll ease into it before you even know it. :thumbsup:
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Pattern speeds of the Venture are very close to those I fly in my current airplane a Grumman AA1. Should be no issues transitioning as I will likely not even notice. The biggest change will be constant speed and retractable gear.
 
Grum.Man said:
Pattern speeds of the Venture are very close to those I fly in my current airplane a Grumman AA1. Should be no issues transitioning as I will likely not even notice. The biggest change will be constant speed and retractable gear.
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Congratulations on the "family" reunion! Did you end up buying this plane, or does the other guy still own it and you get to fly it?

About those pattern speeds, what are the speeds for the Venture? Most of these types of planes land pretty fast and use a lot of runway.
 
Dav8or said:
Congratulations on the "family" reunion! Did you end up buying this plane, or does the other guy still own it and you get to fly it?

About those pattern speeds, what are the speeds for the Venture? Most of these types of planes land pretty fast and use a lot of runway.
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Bought it. The Venture flies final at 90 mph and the Grumman at 80-85.
 
Grum.Man said:
Bought it. The Venture flies final at 90 mph and the Grumman at 80-85.
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90 for the Venture sounds about right. 80-85 for the AA-1? Does yours have the 320 conversion? That sounds screaming fast for a little plane like that.
 
Dav8or said:
90 for the Venture sounds about right. 80-85 for the AA-1? Does yours have the 320 conversion? That sounds screaming fast for a little plane like that.
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General rule of thumb is 1.3 times the stall speed. Stall speed of an AA1 is 66 mph. The engine has nothing to do with what speed you fly final unless the extra weight increases stall speed. But no mine is the stock O-235.
 
Grum.Man said:
It may be a little longer than that! Plus the insurance company is going to want some dual before they turn me loose!
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You bet, you're stepping into an awesome little hot rod for sure.:yesnod: That's a pretty cool deal
 
80-85 mph is final airspeed for an RV too, nothing scary about that. In fact it's the same airspeed on final as a Cherokee. What's different is the rate of descent and how quickly things happen during the flare. I'd expect the Questair Venture to land a lot like a small tail Lancair... as long as you're getting a checkout by a pilot experienced in type and have enough experience in a very high performance piston single everything should be OK. Personally, myself I'd be a bit apprehensive about flying a Venture myself, but my buddie's Lancair gave me the willies too.
 
Neal Howard said:
80-85 mph is final airspeed for an RV too, nothing scary about that. In fact it's the same airspeed on final as a Cherokee. What's different is the rate of descent and how quickly things happen during the flare. I'd expect the Questair Venture to land a lot like a small tail Lancair... as long as you're getting a checkout by a pilot experienced in type and have enough experience in a very high performance piston single everything should be OK. Personally, myself I'd be a bit apprehensive about flying a Venture myself, but my buddie's Lancair gave me the willies too.
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Why would you be apprehensive? The stall speed of the Questsir is only about 5 mph faster than the Grumman and I suspect similar sink rates. The Questair is a very stable aircraft that flies like a much larger one.
 
Neal Howard said:
80-85 mph is final airspeed for an RV too, nothing scary about that. In fact it's the same airspeed on final as a Cherokee. What's different is the rate of descent and how quickly things happen during the flare. I'd expect the Questair Venture to land a lot like a small tail Lancair... as long as you're getting a checkout by a pilot experienced in type and have enough experience in a very high performance piston single everything should be OK. Personally, myself I'd be a bit apprehensive about flying a Venture myself, but my buddie's Lancair gave me the willies too.
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Actually the Lancair probably handles better. Short couple tails have some nasty characteristics.
 
Henning said:
Actually the Lancair probably handles better. Short couple tails have some nasty characteristics.
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I would suggest doing some research before making statements like that. The venture is not short coupled at all due to the high aspect ratio wing and tail. Budd Davisson has a good pirep as well as sport aviation.
 
Grum.Man said:
Yes I did. Nothing to it really. Used a permit company to handle it all. Was less than $200.00 for all the permits.
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I was picking up a 195 and loading it on a trailer, had a helper and we were trying to beat the weather. We were loaded up but trying to get the H-Stab off still since it was 11'. We didn't have the manual and I wasn't seeing how to get F off when it started raining. I just said '**** it' and we left from Mississippi to N Tx with an 11' wide load. Got nervous a couple times when a cop passed, but they were more interested in the cool plane than how wide it was.:lol:
 
Grum.Man said:
Why would you be apprehensive? The stall speed of the Questsir is only about 5 mph faster than the Grumman and I suspect similar sink rates. The Questair is a very stable aircraft that flies like a much larger one.
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My buddy's Lancair was quite a handful for me... mostly because of the pitch instability.

I have no direct experience with the Questair at all outside of seeing them at Oshkosh. A dear friend of mine, now departed, once built and flew an SX300 and told me a lot about its flying qualities, which sounded a lot like the Lancair. I could only assume the SX300 and Questair must fly very similarly... maybe not though.
 
Neal Howard said:
My buddy's Lancair was quite a handful for me... mostly because of the pitch instability.

I have no direct experience with the Questair at all outside of seeing them at Oshkosh. A dear friend of mine, now departed, once built and flew an SX300 and told me a lot about its flying qualities, which sounded a lot like the Lancair. I could only assume the SX300 and Questair must fly very similarly... maybe not though.
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Budd Davisson compared it to a Cessna 210 in pitch stability. Never flown a Lancair but it can't be much worse than my Yankee.
 
Grum.Man said:
Never flown a Lancair but it can't be much worse than my Yankee.
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Yes it can. In the Lancair, the more you deviated up or down from level pitch, the more it wanted to acceleratedly further go more up or down.
When I first learned to fly the RVs, I thought they were pitch sensitive.... but my RV6 is a pitch stable truck compared to my buddy's small tail Lancair 360
 
Neal Howard said:
My buddy's Lancair was quite a handful for me... mostly because of the pitch instability.

I have no direct experience with the Questair at all outside of seeing them at Oshkosh. A dear friend of mine, now departed, once built and flew an SX300 and told me a lot about its flying qualities, which sounded a lot like the Lancair. I could only assume the SX300 and Questair must fly very similarly... maybe not though.
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If it looks like a Pollywagon, it flies like a Pollywagon. Also comparable to GeeBee issues.
 
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