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Twin

flyingriki

Well Known Member
Is this old news?
Duo Deuce Experimental
June 6, 2016, Stafford, VA

At 1759 Eastern time, the airplane was substantially damaged during a collision with terrain after takeoff. The commercial pilot/owner/builder was seriously injured. Visual conditions prevailed.

Video revealed a shallow takeoff and initial climb. The climb stopped at what appeared to be treetop height, the wings rocked and the airplane continued to pitch up as it descended until ground contact. Both propellers appeared to be turning at the same speed during the takeoff roll and the entire flight until ground contact.

The two-seat, twin-engine, low-wing airplane was constructed from a Van?s RV-8 single-engine airplane kit. Instead of the nose-mounted, single-engine configuration for which the kit was designed, the airplane was equipped with two wing-mounted engines. Both wings and the tail section were substantially damaged in the accident.
 
The lady pilot/builder who is a self employed A&P is facing a long period of recovery. Medical bills are almost certainly an issue. There is a donation website for anyone who cares to contribute. I don't remember the donation details.
 
doing ok thanks

doing ok thanks, walking like a penguin, just bad luck the right engine failed on me
 
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So Bobbi, is the Duo done or is there a chance you'll be able to salvage it? We could then rename it the Twin Phoenix!
 
Welcome Ms. Bobbi

I too am sorry to hear of your accident, but I'm glad you survived. Quite an achievement, even considering the engine failure.
 
So glad you made it through this. I remember first seeing this years ago and everyone was trying to gather info on the TWIN RV, some did not believe it was real or not, I was intrigued and very interested also, that was quite an undertaking! do you care to share about the project, how did she fly up until the engine failure? Thanks in advance if you do care to share any details of your story. Bret
 
I hope you make a speedy and complete recovery. When I looked at the Facebook page with the engine run I thought the plane looked a bit like the beautiful F7F Tigercat.
 
I hadn't realized it but there's another RV-7A based twin project out there:

http://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?4241-Updated-photos-of-Twin-JAG

None of the twin-engine RV derivatives have included any additional vertical surface area aft of the CG as far as I have seen, which limits the ability to fly on a single engine at best and at worst can result in potential disaster.

Let's say an engine fails in cruise flight and the prop is now feathered/stopped. The standard RV fin/rudder may have enough authority at cruise speed to maintain directional control and indeed throughout an emergency landing at reduced power settings. How would such a design handle a single engine go around, an engine failure shortly after Vr or during a similar low-speed/high power setting situation?

To be clear, I'm not criticizing the builders or innovators and they are super interesting projects, but I'm wondering how those situations were considered during the design of the twin engine variants?
 
There are a number of things I wonder when I see these... Has the landing gear been upgraded for the extra weight? Is the fuel tank still in the same place? If not, is the fuel now farther outboard? Has the spar and/or center section been upgraded between the fuselage and the engine stations? Do the engines counter-rotate? Will dorsal- or ventral-fins be added for lateral stability?

As Brad says, not criticizing anyone, just wondering whether these were considered and how they were addressed...
 
None of the twin-engine RV derivatives have included any additional vertical surface area aft of the CG as far as I have seen, which limits the ability to fly on a single engine at best and at worst can result in potential disaster.

Let's say an engine fails in cruise flight and the prop is now feathered/stopped. The standard RV fin/rudder may have enough authority at cruise speed to maintain directional control and indeed throughout an emergency landing at reduced power settings. How would such a design handle a single engine go around, an engine failure shortly after Vr or during a similar low-speed/high power setting situation?

To be clear, I'm not criticizing the builders or innovators and they are super interesting projects, but I'm wondering how those situations were considered during the design of the twin engine variants?


Taken from the builders comments on the forum>>>>>

Having studied some twin conversions (I'm on the board if the organization that actually holds the TC on one of the twin Navion conversions), did you increase the size of the tail? Rudder trim?



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12-20-2014, 05:46 PM #25




jimdc8

jimdc8 is offline
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Join Date:Oct 2011Posts:61






Yes, the tail is aproximately 30% larger than the original tail. No rudder trim.


 
Some years ago I saw an abandoned homebuilt twin, engineless, with minimal clearance between the fuselage and nacelles. I suspect that caused huge interference drag. As for Corvair engines, I suspect you'd really need at least variable pitch props to get enough thrust for single engine flight without over speeding with two engines in cruise.
 
Do they use aerobatic style props that go to the course pitch stops when the engine stops and did this one, she mentioned an engine failure?
 
hi i am mush better thank you, i have the plane at home, but can not see to get motivated
to do any thing, i would redo the build again, I have the same as everyone no money,
all i can say is the short flight, pope into air at 800 ft, pitched it over and rocked the wing,
all go. every thing went to poo when i pushed, the throttles up wrong time for the right engine to quit, was runing but ?????? no air speed, remember thinking oh this is bad...
 
hi thank you, my baby popped in to the air straight, pitched baby over waged the wings all good, things went bad when i pushed the throttles up
 
The follow changes were installed on aircraft N808DD 8/19/2015
Stub wings built to attach engine nacelle removed from piper PA30, fire wall, engine mount,
Center section carry through bars four each were extended 15 inches on each side right & left, Top & bottom
Main gear from Piper PA28
Trim horizontal stab from Cessna 180
Original wings installed outboard of stub wings cut 23.5 inch from wing tip. ailerons were moved in 23,5 inches
Flaps were lengthened 23.5 inches
New Nose gear bar from Langair ( they make gear legs for Vans aircraft ) was extended 5 inches and was not tapered
Internal rudder bar installed in fuselage, attached for rudder trim bungee assembly From PA30. Push pull rods attached to rudder bar to the rudder.
Show Planes Fast back Conversion ( Canopy to the Side)

[email protected] 540-220-8138
 
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