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 Posted Sunday, March 25, 2018 @ 11:49 PM
In my post about the RF6B I mentioned that although 45 of them were built, presumably because only three were registered in England and none in the USA, this superb aeroplane doesn't get much coverage on our forum. Here is another Fournier type that I think deserves more recognition.
[Edit by Bob Grimstead on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 @ 09:36 PM]
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Posted Monday, March 26, 2018 @ 00:20 AM
Last October, while doing some proofreading for the English translation of his memoirs, I inadvertently stumbled across the side-by-side two-seat, VW-powered, fully aerobatic RF47. This was derived, as its designation suggests, from combining the best aspects of the RF4 and the seriously aerobatic RF7.
[Edit by Bob Grimstead on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 @ 09:38 PM]
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Posted Monday, March 26, 2018 @ 00:22 AM
In reality it is a slightly smaller RF6B; the aeroplane René actually wanted when he designed that earlier model, but he had an American engine forced upon him by commercial pressures.
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Posted Tuesday, March 27, 2018 @ 09:42 PM
So, in 1993 René embarked on his last big project, the aeroplane he had always wanted to make — that's this slightly smaller version of the RF6B with a Volkswagen engine.
The RF47 has a ten metre span (slightly shorter than the RF6B's 10.5m and much less unwieldy than the RF5's 13.75m) and weighs just under 680 kg all-up compared with the RF6B's 750 kg and the RF5's 650 kg. Best of all the prototype has a 92 hp Sauer 2,500cc VW engine providing almost as much power as the RF6B's much heavier 95hp Continental O-200.
Like most of René's designs, this was intended to be a multipurpose type: trainer, tourer and private aerobatic aeroplane. Unfortunately, while the prototype was being built, EASA brought in new regulations for JAR-VLA types, limiting their maximum takeoff weight to 600 kg.
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Posted Tuesday, March 27, 2018 @ 09:52 PM
Because certification under these new rules promised to be vastly simpler, René discarded his excellent all-wood prototype for a much lighter wood-and-carbon-fibre structure to achieve this new weight limit.
Unfortunately this meant that the production RF47s had to be non-aerobatic. Not surprisingly, the consequent long gestation resulted in the production company, Arc Atlantic Aviation, going broke before they could sell enough aeroplanes to stay solvent. I believe the final tally was five of the semi-composite version and just the one fully aerobatic all-wood prototype.
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Posted Tuesday, March 27, 2018 @ 09:59 PM
What a gorgeous aircraft!
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Posted Saturday, March 31, 2018 @ 04:33 AM
Thank you Steve,
I agree, although I think it would probably have had better aesthetics with the original RF4D colour scheme.
So I've taken the liberty of colouring in a side elevation.
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Posted Monday, April 9, 2018 @ 10:50 AM
I just realised that today is the 25th anniversary of the RF47 prototype's first flight, so we sipped a little French Champagne to celebrate and I did a bit more doodling.
This is how I think it would look with the optional tailwheel undercarriage / landing gear plus the traditional RF4 colour scheme.
I think it looks even better with a tailwheel, although I'm not sure that I have drawn the main legs quite long enough.
Still, I think the idea is great.
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Posted Monday, April 16, 2018 @ 02:57 AM
Peter Underhill roundly praised this versatile little aeroplane when he flew it for Pilot magazine, although he got some of his facts muddled. For instance he said they were not aerobatic. Well, the production ones weren't but the prototype he flew was:
http://www.cfiamerica.com/images/PilotMay1995RF47.pdf
However René's test pilot Bernard Chauvreau announced positively to René, immediately after his first flight in it, "This time you've really got it right! It's a little bit like the RF6B and RF7 rolled into one. The control harmonisation, forces and response are just about perfect."
And so here's another of René's RF4-derived designs, which is barely known of outside continental Europe, and yet which seems to have been the best of the lot!
[Edit by Bob Grimstead on Monday, April 16, 2018 @ 03:32 AM]
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Posted Thursday, May 3, 2018 @ 05:33 PM
Idly googling in a moment of spare time, I have just found this delightful photo of René with the prototype are RF47 in January 1993, three months before its first flight.
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Posted Thursday, May 3, 2018 @ 05:36 PM
Sadly, this is the latest photograph I was able to find on the web of the RF47 prototype F-PNDF. Google translation of the accompanying article says that the aeroplane force landed in the field and turned over after having suffered an engine failure.
[Edit by Bob Grimstead on Friday, August 17, 2018 @ 05:33 PM]
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Posted Thursday, August 16, 2018 @ 08:19 AM
Well, I couldn't bear to think of this superb little aeroplane being trashed, so I bought it and had it trucked to England:
The undamaged wing went into my hangar for long-term storage:
...and I built a long, flat, level, sturdy steel bench for the fuselage in my garage.
[Edit by Bob Grimstead on Wednesday, August 22, 2018 @ 04:13 AM]
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Posted Thursday, August 16, 2018 @ 08:29 AM
Infinitely regrettably but the engine and the instrument panel had roughly been hacked out with bolt croppers and wire cutters, rather than simply undoing the many quick-disconnect terminal blocks.
Stage one was to strip the firewall, carefully marking everything and reassembling all the components on to a full-sized mock firewall. (Unlike some nameless, so-called 'professionals' who simply chucked all the components unmarked and unbagged into an old cardboard box!)
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Posted Thursday, August 16, 2018 @ 08:34 AM
Then it was time to strip off the fabric, carefully rolling it up and storing it for reference in the future re-covering process.
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Posted Thursday, August 16, 2018 @ 08:41 AM
Goodness only knows what they did to cause this awful fuselage damage during recovery!
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Posted Wednesday, August 22, 2018 @ 04:33 AM
All the avionics had been removed and they had just hacked out the instrument panel with wire cutters rather than undoing the many marked terminal blocks. This left me with dozens of identical white wires to rejoin.
I eventually accepted that repairing the fuselage was beyond my skills, so I arranged for it to go to a trustworthy local aircraft restorer.
Meanwhile I set about trying to identify all the wires so that I could reconnect them, and then designing a new instrument panel without any fitted radios (to spare that expense) but with space for a large iPad for my navigation and a smaller one for the passenger.
My good friend Pete Taylor punched out all the big holes in his metalworking factory while I fitted in the smaller holes for lights, switches etc when I got the panel back to my workshop.
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Posted Friday, September 28, 2018 @ 11:26 AM
But then another Fournier came up for sale at a better price...
http://sbeaver.com/cgi-bin/fournier/cutecast.pl?session=19UunWG8krkf3P8scrqbNks9j6&forum=15&thread=1196
So I bought that instead and sold on the RF47 to somebody much better qualified to repair it.
I can confidently state that this prototype RF47 will be flying again in a few years, because it has been bought by a very knowledgeable and experienced rebuilder who has all the necessary facilities and resources to do the job properly.
We delivered the fuselage, engine and most of the other bits a month ago...
and the wing last week...
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