Two Super -6's together!!!

[JonJay]

Originally Posted by Steve Barnes

There are 4 of these magnificent birds flying. mine The Barnes' Stormer, Bobs the Super Six, the original 4seat one in Las Vegas and a 3 seat one in Calgary. There is rumored to be a 5th one with TIO470 (I'm not familiar with that engine) somewhere in the South East, soon to fly.

I would be curious what airframe or flight control mods you made if any. Nice...

[brianwallis]

I believe there is one super 6 in Texas, the gentleman was finishing it up at KLZU here in GA and he moved to Texas to keep his job at the airline. Not sure what airline...
Best
Brian

[Mike S]

Originally Posted by JonJay

I would be curious what airframe or flight control mods you made if any. Nice...

Take a look at http://www.rocketsix.com/

[Kahuna]

Originally Posted by brianwallis

I believe there is one super 6 in Texas, the gentleman was finishing it up at KLZU here in GA and he moved to Texas to keep his job at the airline. Not sure what airline...
Best
Brian

That was a Super 7, Scott Solberg's. Im intimately familiar with that one. Some of my blood is in it. Its at 5C1 near San Antonio now.

As for the Super 6's, great to hear that 4 are flying. I had no idea. Thanks for posting that. That makes them VERY unique RV's and worthy of attention.
Cool.
THanks
Mike

[pierre smith]

.....from two weeks at Las Vegas/Northern California......yawwwwn!! jet lag 'n such.

Had a great time meeting Bob Mills, Steve Barnes and Mike Starkey at Chico.
Here are some pics of the ragtag bunch at Chico.

Left to right....Steve, Pierre, Bob and Mike
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Both airplanes side by side..

[IMG][/IMG]

Steve with Mt. Shasta in the background..

[IMG][/IMG]

Regards,

[rvmills]

Originally Posted by JonJay

I would be curious what airframe or flight control mods you made if any. Nice...

Getting to this thread a little late in the game, as I was traveling to Norfolk for an AOCS (Navy) classmate's 28 year retirement, and then straight out to an airline trip (cold and windy here in Dulles!).

It was really great to meet Pierre, Mike, and Steve, and do some fun flying!

It was also interesting to talk Super Six stuff with the gang. From the discussion, it appears that, as has been mentioned, the 4 Super Sixes we know of (in apparent order of build) are:

The Rocky Mountain Rocket, built and owned by Carl Brownd, now residing in Las Vegas.

The Hallendorf Super Six (Rocket Six), built by Tom Hallendorf, now owned by me (4th owner), now home plated at Reno-Stead.

The Barnes Stormer, built and owned by Steve Barnes, of Santa Rosa, CA.

The Canadian Super Six (don't know the builder's name or location). Steve just sent me a couple pix of it, and here they are:

First one is airborne, second is looking over the front seats to the baggage area, which has two rear-facing seats, and appears to have a mod that opens a little leg room for the back-seaters to stretch their legs out...interesting!





Steve may have more info on that airplane.


As for mods, the Barnes Stormer and Rocket Six have many similar mods, and some slight differences.

Steve's is a tip-up, and mine is a slider. Both have been lengthened in the baggage area...Steve's by 10", mine by 8". Steve added a baggage door in the side of the fuselage as well. Batteries are in the rear of the fuse, for W&B. The wings on both were clipped 3.5" on each side, much like the Rockets, which reduces the bending moment at the wing, and allows similar g-loading limits to other RV's at the higher GW, or so I have been briefed (my limits are 1900# max GW, 1550# aerobatic GW...it has a 1230# EW). The struts are HR titanium struts, which make them stand a little taller, providing clearance for the Hartzell 80" props. Thicker skin was used on the fuse, wing and ailerons (.032), and the second owner of my airplane re-skinned the tail at some point, also with .032, after seeing some cracks on the empennage. During my first condition inspection and during my panel upgrade (which had me upside down in almost every nook and cranny of the airplane), my A&P (who's helped build and re-build a couple RVs) noted some extra corner doublers on some of the underlying structure, and it appears that some beefed up members were also used (longerons and stringers, though I don't have good detail or confirmation on that). Vne discussions got my attention as I was buying the airplane, and the original steam airpeed installed in my airplane had a red-line of 260 mph. Of course, Vne is TAS, and the fastest I've seen level is 215 KIAS, 225ish KTAS at 8500 MSL (about 260 MPH). That was on the Dynon, but I was still calibrating it, so I'm a little suspiscious that it was reading fast back then). The day we flew with Pierre, we saw 209 KIAS/218KTAS at about 3500 MSL, which penciled out to 251 MPH TAS. The GPS showed 218 kts GS as well, with a direct X-wind, so it seemed like a pretty good airspeed. There were no "ill-effects" noted at all...smooth throughout. And that's plenty fast for me...no need to be a test pilot or push the flutter regime tests on my part! I normally fly at 55% (185 KTAS) to 65% (195 KTAS) power settings...sometimes just a bit higher to get 200 KTAS. Fuel flows at 9500 MSL are in the neighborhood of 10.5 gph at 55%, 12.5 gph at 65%, leaned 50 ROP at those lower power settings (I don't have GAMIs, so I've not gone to LOP ops on the ol' VM1000...want to baby the engine a bit!)

Hope that's not too verbose of a discussion! The airplane is really sweet to fly, and that day with the boyz was a real joy!

Kahuna, wish you could have been there, as I've looked at your site many times, and your airplane looks as good as they get! A future project of mine is prop-clocking, as discussed on your site, and I'd love to talk that over with you! Steve and I discussed this, and both of us feel we experience the same vibration issue you discuss so well and were able to alleviate with your hard work on your Hartzell set up on the IO-540. Maybe we can plan a meeting of all the "Supers" someday down the road!!

Thanks for the interest guys, and Pierre, Mike and Steve, it was truly a pleasure!! And thanks for posting and e-mailing the pix Pierre!

Cheers,
Bob

[pierre smith]

....since it appears to go at least a foot further back than mine.....I just looked. ....to make it easier to get in the back. Nice. I wonder if we can find him and get him to post, Bob.

Regards,

[Bob Axsom]

Originally Posted by tobinbasford

Not trying to start anything, I promise! But the RV-7 VNE is 230mph. The -6 is even less. Any negative characteristics at 240? I have to say that is amazing. My -7 wide open will only indicate 180kts (207mph)

I know a guy with a RV-6A what recently flew his short tail plane at 210 KIAS at low altitude but in smooth air and it was smooth as glass - careful to make a slow pull-up.

Bob Axsom

[rvmills]

Originally Posted by pierre smith

....since it appears to go at least a foot further back than mine.....I just looked. ....to make it easier to get in the back. Nice. I wonder if we can find him and get him to post, Bob.

Regards,

Pierre,

Good eyes and good catch on that. I looked at some pix of mine (I'm still on the road) and it goes back quite a bit farther than mine as well. In looking at the pix above, it looks like the canopy rails are mounted further inboard on the cockpit rails, and the phenolic blocks are mounted outside of the canopy rails and further aft. I wonder if he had to use a longer center rail down the back of the fuse as well. This set up would also make it really easy to load bags, like the slider/tip-up mod we talked about in Chico. I also wonder if he has noted any strength or movement issues with that set up. Pretty neat though!

Steve just sent me his name and he is in the VAF white pages. I'll give him a holler and see if he'll chime in.

Cheers,
Bob

[RV6-O540]

Working on a Super 6 I bought this summer. Airframe and engine mostly done.
Up to my neck in avionics, wires and panel parts. Hope to be flying in spring.
I've got a 2400' grass strip 7 miles south of DCY in south Indiana if you want to drop in. Glad to see some other Super 6 guys out there. I'll post some pics
when I can figure out how.

Bill