Surrendering the Man Card?

Figured I would chime in here to clear up some of the assumptions that have been made.

courierguy said:

For you Cub guys, get real! Carrying it outside? Sure, I can see ways to do so, for short distances and if you're willing to put up with the drag and the performance loss.

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Drag and performance loss? My cub without the scooter cruises at 90mph@2500. With the scooter installed, it cruises at 90mph@2500. Performance loss? It will still get off in 100ft with or without (65ft without is possible, but that is just me refraining from being aggressive with the scooter installed) and land in 100ft. (shorter without, same reason ) The scooter goes to Sun n Fun (300 miles) each year, and has been to Oshkosh twice (1000 miles) along with whatever overnight campouts I attend. Beer is always cheaper off site, and my feet don't get dirty when I take a shower and pass you walking back the mile to the shower at Oshkosh.

courierguy said:

I carry my ebike inside, right on the CG, yeah I can't also carry a passenger but who cares, "sacrifices must be made." I have enough room for a 60 lb. capacity folding TRAVOY (folding trailer https://burley.com/product/travoy/) along one side, that easily hauls a couple gas bags if needed. That trailer also makes a pretty good hand cart, so when you tie down HERE but want to set up camp OVER THERE, you can haul your gear easily.

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I still have room for a passenger! The scooter as installed, located where it is, is on the CG, truth is, there is a .1" (had to provide copious amounts of data to get the scooter installation passed the DAR) change to the fwd with it in place. The bulk of the scooter is the engine, everything else is a bike frame structure and plastic.

courierguy said:

Under the bike, which is carried suspended off of the rear cargo deck, I have room for whatever, plus my main rear baggage, very similar in size to most SC's, is still there, plus I have a further aft baggage area for real light stuff. Point being, it's all inside so I can still get the same performance, meaning range, ROC, and cruise speed. So I can carry it often, and I do. I recently added a belly mounted (between the cabane) 6" aluminum tube with some cheap spinners on both ends, for external carrying of the batteries. Plus a 12 to 58 VDC converter so I can charge in flight of course.

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I also carry a 10x10 popup tent, 2 chairs, 2 camping tents, 2 sleeping bags, 2 thermorests, pillows, clothes for a week, a soft cooler that will hold 20 cans, and tie downs and a cute girl in the back seat. I have a crushed in water bottle under the seat of the Razz, when it gets low on gas, I fill it with 100LL from the sump and move on with at 35mph and 100mpg. No batteries to charge off the plane, or converters to carry.

courierguy said:

This entire dog and pony show gets underway after landing easily in quite a bit less then 10 minutes after landing, including the trailer with the fuel bags. The bike is unsecured and ready to ride in about 3, the trailer in 1, and the rest of the time tying stuff down and making sure I didn't forget anything. Several times last year I was flying along, saw an interesting canyon with an interesting looking trail, found a place to land in the bush, and then went for a quick ride. A couple times these quick rides took a couple hours, and got me above 10K. ELECTRIC MOTORS DON'T SUFFER FROM DENSITY ALTITUDE!! In that picture with the bike on the cliff edge, I landed in the valley below, near one of the green fields and rode up 2,000'. Later the same day, after a recharge in my motel room, I rode another bunch of mountain miles up into the opposite side of the valley pictured. Then I rode to a good bar with cold beer, these ebikes are real handy. I'm doing all this with a 4 hr GPH Rotax 912S and a RANS S-7S combo, if I flew a Maule, I'd really have a setup. I frankly can't quite believe the utility of the setup I currently have, including that I still have a 8 hour duration at 85 mph and can land about anywhere, and do. The plane helps me find interesting places to ride, then I have to find a place to land, then often on the ride, I find a higher up place to land, it makes for a pretty fun day.

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Seems we are right on track here with the conversion times, I can without assistance have the scooter either loaded or unloaded in 5 min or with a helper (which I can carry in the aircraft) less than 1 min. Now, it looks like 2 bears riding a tricycle on the scooter with 2 people, but it still works. The mounting brackets are held to the airframe with pit pins and attached to welded in hard points consisting of 2 bushings. The entire support structure is maybe 3 lbs? and can be removed in seconds.

One of the pleasant surprises with the scooter mod, was the total LACK of flight characteristic changes felt during the testing phase. (120mph dive, stalls, steep turns) There is not a hint of roll, yaw or pitch change between scooter on or off. In fact, if you could not see a set of handle bars out the left window, you would forget it was there.

Just got real!........:lol:

tcraft128 I am happy to be corrected! I was somewhat trolling, figuring if someone was routinely doing something like you are, rather then a one time deal or a mock up,they'd correct me. Let's hear from anyone else doing similar, Maule and 180 pilots excluded, they are cheaters.That is really great, you made my day, we think alike, somewhat. I won't get into the difference of riding a small gas scooter versus a emountain bike, they are two different animals entirely. With me, besides the mundane transportation use from the airstrip to town or wherever, it's the off road, trail riding I do that is the icing on the cake. That and the total silence of the drive, the tires make more noise, and also not having to abide with traffic laws, pretty much, bike riders get away with running stop signs, red lights etc.. Common sense applies here of course! Parking in stores, as a for instance, when at a Wally World I park in the area where they keep the shopping carts and soda machines, safe there plus you are already almost IN the store. One other fun thing about a ebike that no one realizes has e assist, it makes you appear to be one hell of a fit bad ass old fart! It is great fun to be rolling along, uphill, at 20+ mph, while leisurely pedaling, with one hand on the handle bars and a cup of to go coffee in the other, real casual like! Plus the quick folding Montague is very handy for throwing in someone else car trunk or other impromptu transportation that may show up. I've carried mine in an airport courtesy car, to do some trail riding across town. This capability opens up a lot possibilities, as I have yet to see the car, even a Metro/Geo, that I can't fit the bike into, easily.

Back to the scooter:the lack of performance loss is very interesting, as is the lack of any difference in yaw, that shows there is no substitute for trying something versus over thinking it! I totally believe your cruise stays the same, and at the same RPM, but would be really surprised to hear that your manifold pressure and GPH stayed the same, and if so, how could that be? Maybe the air flow around the fuselage side is in some kind of dead zone? It sure appears to a draggy setup, and getting your feedback on it not being so is fascinating aerodynamically to me. BTW, this is coming from a guy who has dead stick ridge soared for an hour or so, with the bike and camping gear on board, so I think of drag and it's effect a lot.

My Rotax rotates clockwise, and my right door (I have two) is never used, almost never anyway. The way my hangar and strip is set up, my left door is my door of choice. I'm just thinking of the air flow I would have versus what you have. Worse come to worse, I could start using the right door if I had to, it'd just be inconvenient. Wouldn't it be something if, in bragging about my setup I got turned on to a better way to carry it?! Later today after work, I will spend some quality time in the hangar, with the folded bike hanging from the engine puller hoist, cogitating furiously. If it all falls into place (the thing about where I carry it now, it required no mods and almost no thinking, just the proper selection of ways to secure, straps etc., it was so easy it never occurred to me to "look elsewhere") I will owe you big time on exposing me to the concept and forcing me to give it some though, wow. One more pic from a place I've ridden to, one of the places where i spotted a trail from the air, landed below, rode up, found an LZ, rode back down, then flew back up.

Courierguy, Mountain bike vs Riva razz is considerably different in terrain capability, but there are very few mountains in SE Georgia! We have the left side door also on our cub and I dont think I have ever used it...Give it a try strapped outside and tell me what you think, it really was a surprise with the aero aspect not changing, we were figuring a removable rudder tab or something, but its just not needed. As for the gph or manifold changes, I dont have that equipment in my cub to test, I am sure it takes more of each, but it was not significant. I will work on posting a pic of the scooter in the bush, but there is little point to carry it into the marsh where I play.

Oh, what happened to those bomb shaped cargo pods you were working on? I really liked that idea and still would like to have a set!

You mean these? Send Joel Milloway a email, (dirtfly7@yahoo.com), besides everything else he has going on, yes he is building those on a as asked for basis. His composite work is top notch, and you can get them in 'glas or CF. When you start packing them, they hold a surprising amount of gear, about 5' long and 12" dia, not counting the taper. I don't have the big extended baggage you do (I went back through your build posts, hoping to see the scooter install) but it's big enough to hold all I need for just me on camping trips. I may get one of the pods as two would be overkill.

The concept of instantly (pull two pip pins) being able to drop them off is real attractive to me. While I was test flying them for about 20 hours, I could not see ANY difference in flight, ASI, RPM's, and my fuel flow meter. Even with just one on, and no yawing with just the one! The weirdest thing is they seemed to allow just a tad slower landings and just a bit shorter takeoffs. We didn't believe it either at first, but after doing back to back tests, keeping everything as similar as possible, they for sure didn't hurt but seemed to help, too crazy, right up there with your scooter results, but that's what we found!

I keep coming back to the "pickup aero drag test": if I held my folded bike up in the airflow above the bed of a pickup truck going 90 mph..... well first off I don't think I could, second off if I did manage to get up high enough to be in the undisturbed 90 mph airflow it would rip my arms off. Then if I put the bike inside the truck cab...... I would expect the truck to show the same speed and rpm's, but would expect one scenario to require more throttle to overcome that drag that wanted to rip my arms off. BUT, so close to the fuselage, maybe the scooter is in a bubble of already disturbed air caused by the fuselage, so the added drag is much less then actually being in undisturbed 90 mph air. A better pickup truck test would be to hold the bike out a side window alongside the cab. Only thing is my low geared 1 ton Dodge with 300K won't go that fast.:smile:

If you plan on flying this further you should attach a side brace from the pod to the wing strut to stabilize the loads on the attach points. Looking at the attach fitting it is easy to see a potential failure point.

That would be easy enough to do, as long as the quick attach/detach feature still worked, a third pip pin would do it, and a little strut coming off the bottom of the pod, to a bracket clamped onto the rear strut, it wouldn't be taking any load, just keeping it located side to side. That is a CF flanged bracket on the strut pod juncture, and AN-4 eyebolts, the eyebolts the standard RANS way to deal with the jury struts. A clamp style bracket, also formed out of CF, is an option for other style lift struts. Anything composite, Joel is all over it. Triangulation is for sure always nice, he was just keeping it simple as possible. If I get one, I'll see what I can do, I'm more thinking of my paint job for it, to compliment the plane's and make it look less bomb like. One critique I had was when you set it down on the ground, it would roll, so a couple fins on the rear would stabilize it, but add to the bomb look! In this post 911 world, I could just see some concerned citizen calling in a report of a small plane with bombs on board, seriously.:roll: I'd also add a mid point top hatch in addition to the removable front.

Another pod..... I moved my Swiss muffler over to one side and freed up the belly center between the faired cabane, and hung this 6" tube there. It will hold my two larger batteries, or my standard smaller one and other stuff, it has cabling for aerial recharging (I have an electrical system, I'm in awe of you guys that don't, that's really keeping it real). On epic rides I take all three batteries, and have yet to even come close to reaching their capacity, mine is reached first. Easily a 40 to 60 mile range, (should be able to find some mogas or a cold beer) just the small battery still 8 to 12 miles, I mix and match as required.

Back in the day at the Red River Redneck Hangout...

Maybe your the liability excuse Eric saw.


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Haven't figured out if I need to undress this one before hanging it on the cub.

All you guys with 150hp+ Supercubs just need to step up with the scooters. 229 lbs is a heavy RIO, but think of the places you can go on a Grom.




http://powersports.honda.com/2018/grom.aspx?linkId=37406761

Farmboy said:

All you guys with 150hp+ Supercubs just need to step up with the scooters. 229 lbs is a heavy RIO, but think of the places you can go on a Grom.

http://powersports.honda.com/2018/grom.aspx?linkId=37406761

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Maybe, but at 229# its going to take two men and a boy to load it!

OLDCROWE said:

Maybe, but at 229# its going to take two men and a boy to load it!

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And a case of beer as thanks!

Really looking for a back friendly option. Like all the ideas though, please keep them coming!

How hard would it be to put a 70 inside the Maule? 185?

Some new fuel lines and I should be good to go. Hadn't run in 2 years, put a couple drops of gas in spark plug hole and started first kick



Glenn

cubdriver2 said:

Some new fuel lines and I should be good to go. Hadn't run in 2 years, put a couple drops of gas in spark plug hole and started first kick



Glenn

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You are saying that one is available? or the Model A?