27-12-2018, 03:35 PM
Really! A Yak spraying?! That would be a rare thing. The first turbo-prop crop duster I ever saw working was out past St George spraying beside us (and up wind...) while we were picking cotton. They just sound wrong, but seemed to have better performance when pulling up and doing tight turns over a radial.
A guy (rich single guy who had his own plumbing business) from my former club had two Pilatus PC6 Porters. One had one of the first Saito petrol engines (which he gave up trying to tune... it was running lean, but all the oldies were convincing him it was rich...) which he was very disappointed with, so abandoned that and bought a bigger one and fitted one of the first Wren turbo-prop kero-start turbines to. He loved simply opening and closing the throttle stick twice and standing back waiting for it to start, spool up and stabilise. No tuning, no fussing and no mess. He was going to get me certified to fly it so he could use it to tow his 5 or 6 metre glider up, but I emigrated to Queensland before that happened. It would have needed re-fuelling every time it came down, as it used 3 litres every 6 minutes.
The Wren produced heaps of thrust, kind of like an eklectic motor. The bigger the prop, the more thrust it made, up until the large prop made too much static thrust at idle for it to land comfortably on a shortish strip. The propeller was driven by a fan, driven by the exiting exhaust gasses, negating the need for a complex reduction gearbox. The prop could be held still during the start-up process and subsequent idle.
Really cool to watch.
BUY ONE PETER T!!! (with your hidden harvested money-tree)
A guy (rich single guy who had his own plumbing business) from my former club had two Pilatus PC6 Porters. One had one of the first Saito petrol engines (which he gave up trying to tune... it was running lean, but all the oldies were convincing him it was rich...) which he was very disappointed with, so abandoned that and bought a bigger one and fitted one of the first Wren turbo-prop kero-start turbines to. He loved simply opening and closing the throttle stick twice and standing back waiting for it to start, spool up and stabilise. No tuning, no fussing and no mess. He was going to get me certified to fly it so he could use it to tow his 5 or 6 metre glider up, but I emigrated to Queensland before that happened. It would have needed re-fuelling every time it came down, as it used 3 litres every 6 minutes.
The Wren produced heaps of thrust, kind of like an eklectic motor. The bigger the prop, the more thrust it made, up until the large prop made too much static thrust at idle for it to land comfortably on a shortish strip. The propeller was driven by a fan, driven by the exiting exhaust gasses, negating the need for a complex reduction gearbox. The prop could be held still during the start-up process and subsequent idle.
Really cool to watch.
BUY ONE PETER T!!! (with your hidden harvested money-tree)