Posted Thursday, March 1, 2012 @ 09:14 PM
Hi Jorgen,
Yes, I've written the article, which appeared in Pilot about a month ago. Now that it's off the bookshelves, I've e-mailed a pdf to Collin and Steve, for them to make it available to all Fournicators.
The story detail:
The new Hercules prop increased WGN's sea-level climb rate from 620fpm to 770fpm, in identical conditions less than one hour later, which I make a 24 per cent improvement in climb rate. Both those numbers were taken in the first minute of climb from 300 feet amsl.
Climbing at full throttle for five minutes, the numbers were 580 to 712 fpm , which is a 22 per cent improvement. I believe that the lower figure for the longer climb was because the end altitude was significantly higher, and so the engine ws becoming much richer and therefore producing less power
at the higher altitude.
I specifically asked Rupert to maximise climb rate rather than improving speed, but it also increased top speed by one knot/mph and cruise speeds by two knots/mph.
They cost around 750 GBP (pounds Sterling) but they confer a significant performance improvement (for us, anyway).
See: www.hercprops.com for more info, but don't be impatient. Like the guy who built a better mousetrap, Rupert is currently swamped with orders!
Yours, Bob
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Flying and displaying Fournier RF4Ds VH-HDO and G-AWGN, building replica RF6B G-RFGB and custodian of RF6B prototype F-BPXV