Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Dudley Henriques wrote:
Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
john smith wrote in
:
Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
"F. Baum" wrote in
news:02bef7c5-1ee1-437d-a908-b9b6dcfcfdd9
@b1g2000pra.googlegroups.com:
On Dec 16, 8:18 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
I see a lot of Acrosport IIs on Barnstormers for not a lot of
money. A low performance bipe like that makes a good first
aerobatic trainer because it will be easy enough to do the
manuevers, yet difficult enough to do them well, and a well
built
one should be just about unbreakable.
Bertie- Hide quoted text -

How does it compare to the ACA Decathelon ?

Never flown an Acrosport, but I did display in a Decathlon years
ago.
the Decathlon is a good airplane, but for a beginner in
aerobatics it's probably not the best choice unless you're under
a steady
hand
during the initial, scary bits. The Decathlon is relatively
clean
an
the entry speeds for some
manuevers are fairly close to the redline. Biplanes are
inherently stronger ( unless the airplane is a piece of crap),
but th
eDecathlon
will do in a pinch! It's nto a kitplane or anything like one, of
course! Even a good second hand Decathlon wil set you back over
fifty
grand. The Citabria even more so, but having said that they are
both
fine airplanes, providing their spars haven't been damaged.
Bertie, you forgot to mention if one's first Decathlon should be
a fixed-pitch or constant speed prop.

Don't really think it matters. It's not that big a deal to use
one. Are there any fixed pitch prop Decathlons? I don't think I've
ever seen one. Anyhow, with some decent instruction using a CS
prop on an aerobatic airplane is definitely a plus for a lot of
reasons. Better perfromance and better braking if you screw it up!
Bertie
I don't remember ever seeing a Decathlon with anything but a
constant speed Hartzel on it.

Come to think of it, I do recall seeing something about Decathlons
being
available with fixed pitch props but never ran across one. Ours had
the
Hartzel.


Yeah, Might have been an option that nearly everyone took up. I think
you could get a Citabria with one IIRC. They're making them again now
and they're slightly different spec to the old ones, I think

Bertie
I know I've seen and flown several and never seemed to come across one
with the fixed pitch prop but I'm sure there must have been a few out
there. We leased one back from a guy on the field to use for basic
acro introduction. If I remember right, there was a hefty AD issued on
the wing that cost a damn fortune for the owners.
I liked the airplane for what we did with it.


Yeah, the wing spar ad is a bit of a problem allright. You can put the
wings fromthe new ones on the old airplanes and they're not too
expensive, and there are several fixes for the spars, but if they're OK
then it just means cutting a few extra inspection holes in the wing to
check them out annually.
The problem with the spars is really down to damage from ground loops
going uninvestigated and compression failures in the spruce causing
further problems during aerobatics!
Only one has come apart this way, AFAIK, (7KCAB) and it should be the
last time since the remainder of the fleet is scrutinised to the nth
degree now.

Bertie

The guy who owned the one we leased back got a double hit in one day.
He landed on the grass on a field down near the Susquehanna River, tried
to wheel it on and had it nailed until he went over the mound in the
middle of the runway that he didn't know about. The main gear legs
compressed and he caught the prop tips bending the hell out of it.
The next day he called and said he had received the AD on the wing.
He was ONE unhappy camper!!


--
Dudley Henriques