Starduster Too?

[Chip Sylverne]

Anybody know anything about this bird? The goods, the bads, the uglies?

 

[Henning]

Anybody know anything about this bird? The goods, the bads, the uglies?

Well, like any homebuilt, they vary. By design, they handle well, are pretty benign on the tailwheel gotchas and are a whole lot of fun. I flew one a gal had that had an AEIO 360 200hp with a CS prop, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. They look a bit goofy, long in the noseish, it won't win a beauty contest, but it does fly alright and won't bite you on landings (I somewhat attribute that to the "long nose" look)

 

[gismo]

Anybody know anything about this bird? The goods, the bads, the uglies?

I owned one in a partnership for several years. Like Henning said, the quality varies but the design is OK. Unlike a Pitts or Christen Eagle they are typically not anywhere near fully aerobatic (tailslides, tumbling, and hammerheads not recommended). We did add inverted fuel and oil systems to ours making it a bit more capable than it was as originally built.

They are a lot of fun to fly and somewhat challenging to land. Stalling speed is about 60 mph so you would think that 80 mph would make a good approach speed but at that speed you need to carry a significant amount of power to keep the sink rate manageable and the result is that you cannot see either end of the runway on any part of the final from the back (solo) seat. Fortunately it's so draggy that approaching at something like 90 mph doesn't lead to excessively long floating touchdowns. The general visibility from the rear seat is pretty typical for a biplane, IOW it sucks. It was a lot of fun to fly straight an level as well as aerobatically although the cockpit isn't particularly comfortable and I'd hate to spend more than an hour and a half in it at one sitting.

Ours had a 180 HP O-360 with a fixed prop and a crappy radio. It certainly wasn't excessively powered, I'd have liked it a lot better with a 200 HP IO-360 and a CS prop. The fixed prop made it near impossible to follow a downline without overevving the engine a bit.

 

[gibbons]

I've flown two, one with a 200 HP Lyc, the other with a 300 HP lyc. That's the extent of my experience with the Starduster and, like Henning and Lance have said, there probably aren't two that fly the same way.

In short, I found that the Starduster has all the ground handling characteristics of a Pitts and all of the flight characteristics of a dump truck. Somewhere in a parallel universe I imagine there's a great flying easy to land airplane that was made from all the stuff they didn't use in the Starduster.

I would much, much, much rather fly a Pitts.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Chip Sylverne]

I've flown two, one with a 200 HP Lyc, the other with a 300 HP lyc. That's the extent of my experience with the Starduster and, like Henning and Lance have said, there probably aren't two that fly the same way.

In short, I found that the Starduster has all the ground handling characteristics of a Pitts and all of the flight characteristics of a dump truck. Somewhere in a parallel universe I imagine there's a great flying easy to land airplane that was made from all the stuff they didn't use in the Starduster.

I would much, much, much rather fly a Pitts.

Your mileage may vary.

No really, what's your honest opinion?

The one I'm kinda sorta thinking about is of the 180 hp O-360 with fixed pitch prop variety. Previously owned by an a&p, then by a friend who just bought the coveted Pitts.

Even under the best of circumstances I'm real leery of buying a homebuilt that I A. didn't build myself or B. don't personally know the builder.

 

[tonycondon]

Even under the best of circumstances I'm real leery of buying a homebuilt that I A. didn't build myself or B. don't personally know the builder.

oh its not that bad really. just make sure its well built, not hard to tell for someone familiar with the construction methods on a basic inspection

 

[Ken Ibold]

Even under the best of circumstances I'm real leery of buying a homebuilt that I A. didn't build myself or B. don't personally know the builder.

A Pitts guru I hired to examine the experimental Pitts I used to own said upon looking at it that it was much better built than anything that's ever come out of Afton.

Some homebuilders are putting together model airplanes. Others are true craftsmen. You simply can't paint them all with the same brush.