This is great news for all the people still yearning to own a F1 Rocket! I checked the F1 website, however, and there don't appear to be any details.
Will this be slow-build, slow-build pre-punched or QB?
Is the wing still aluminum, or composite?
If $10,000 is the deposit, what's the full price?
Is the kit still designed to accomodate the IO-540, or the IO-550, or both?
Less important, but out of curiosity, where will the kit be produced?
Bp_
The point was that no one is willing to put up the money for an unseen kit, and the cost is prohibitive for Mark to start the process with out capital given upfront.
Fellas:
If you want to know about this project, you can ask me, and I will tell you. I've got nothing to hide regarding this project. The pre-airshow-season-thrash is upon us here, so allow me enough time to respond before you get to thinkin' I'm not listenin':<snip>
Are we talking tricycle or staying with the conventional gear?
A tricycle gear F-1? That's just too ugly to contemplate!
The fuselage will be basically the same. In my plane I can carry a total of 280 pounds of passenger and baggage. Big guy means not much luggage, with my wife in the back we can take quite a bit of baggage.
It will be offered with the conventional gear with an optional retract. Contact Mark Fredrick, Team Rocket, for details.
A tricycle gear F-1? That's just too ugly to contemplate!
IPersonally, I think that retractable gear is out of place on a recreational airplane, even a very fast recreational airplane like an RV. It adds a level of operational seriousness that I think is out of place in the RV, and doesn't increase performance or utility commensurately with its added expense, complexity, and risk.
My glider experience tells me that the critical region for laminar flow is over the top of the airfoil. It's particularly critical not to trip the flow over the forward portion of the top surface, but the lower surface is much less critical...
The laminar flow on the lower surface is normally thought to be less critical since it usually operates in a positive pressure gradient, and is therefore more robust and less prone to tripping over into turbulent. As I understand it, it also tends to trip straight to turbulent flow, without forming a draggy separation bubble. However, something as big as a gear door seam will trip it.
The surface condition on the wing upper surface is more critical, since it has a negative pressure gradient, and the laminar flow there is touchier and more prone to tripping and separating. But it's really only critical back to about the station of maximum depth; the flow usually goes turbulent around there regardless of surface condition.
Just because the laminar flow on the lower surface is more robust doesn't mean that it is any less important. Every square foot of laminar flow is a small but measurable reduction in drag over the same area of turbulent flow, regardless of whether it is on the top or the bottom of the wing. And as you're aware, on a well-designed and well-built sailplane wing, you can often hold laminar flow on the bottom wing surface all the way back to the control surface hinge line, and with good hinge line sealing you might hold laminar flow onto the control surface.
The counterintuitive thing is that loss of laminar flow on the lower surface can cause more loss of performance than it does on the upper surface. If you trip the flow on the upper surface at the 15% chord station, you lose laminar flow between there and about the 40% station, where it would have tripped anyway. So you'd lose about 25% of the chord's laminar flow. But if you trip the laminar flow on the lower surface at the 15% chord station, you lose laminar flow between there and about the 80% chord station where the control surface hinge is. And that's the loss of about 65% of the chord's laminar flow.
That counterintuitive bit is why it is a bit odd that some glider owners moan about the spar mirroring through on the upper surface, but don't seem to care much that it shows through on the lower surface. In fact, it matters relatively little on the top, since the spar is about where the flow would trip anyways, and it matters a bunch on the bottom, since that threatens the laminar flow between about the 40% chord line and the 80% chord line.
Thanks, Bob K.
...His makes my RV look slow! Then a Lancair Legacy (trigear) retract,...... that just set a coast to coast speed record, taxi's up. Now the F1 looks slow..!
That Lancair sure was good looking, as well as fast looking!...
Oh, I completely agree that retractable gear looks totally cool! And I completely agree that at those higher speeds the retracts make for a huge performance improvement.
It's just that for the typical RV, and even most atypical ones, I think that the expense, complexity, and risk of retracts is just not worth the improvement in performance and aesthetics. My belief is that the ongoing issues with A-model noseovers is nothing compared to the carnage we'd see if all RVs had retracts.
That said, I sure would like to see an RV or a Rocket do something good in Sport or Super Sport pylon racing. And that is not happening without pick-em-up-the-feet. But that is a different kind of flying altogether.
Thanks, Bob K.
I don't know about that. Last weekend, I was standing by my RV. I think it's pretty good looking. Then a friend with his F1, three blade prop & pointed chrome spinner shows up. His makes my RV look slow! Then a Lancair Legacy (trigear) retract,...... that just set a coast to coast speed record, taxi's up. Now the F1 looks slow..!
That Lancair sure was good looking, as well as fast looking!
L.Adamson --- RV6A
.... I was flying in the airforce, we had a saying:
There's only two types of pilots flying RG-planes: those who have landed gear up, and those who will....
I'm just curious; what do you mean when you say "is nothing compared to the carnage we'd see if all RV's had retracts"?
I meant in the sense of mechanical carnage: A bunch of forgetting to put the gear down, having the gear not come down, or having it not lock down so that it collapses. Also, the design of retractable gear invites compromise such that it is often a less robust than its fixed counterparts, and there is likely to be greater incidence of damage in upsets that the fixed gear would have absorbed.
There might not be many of each of these types of incidents, but my thinking is that given how many RVs there are they'd add up fast. Insurance companies would take note, as might other officials.
Also, it's easy to sit back and think that if we all had good gear warning systems, we'd all always put the gear down and never put belly to tarmac. But the Air France accident shows that even with the very best intentions and the best automation money can buy, bad things still happen. Given conflicting information and a cacophony of aural alarms even a seasoned professional can become distracted and confused enough to do the wrong thing all the way to the deck.
Thanks, Bob K.
Hey Mark, My old Long-EZ had limit switches installed on the throttle and the gear leg. If you retarded the throttle and the gear was up, it triggered a warning light.
Of course, it didn't prevent me from landing once with the nose gear retracted. Fortunately, all it did was wear down the rubber nose bumper. Since that's my once "those that will" experiences, I should be golden for the F1 retract.
I'd like to see how those limit switches were set up, so I don't have to depend on a couple blocks of nylon...
My wife and I looked at each other; my runway is 2400 feet of grass.
They are a beautiful plane but based on race results only 25 to 30 mph faster then my dependable fixed gear and I would sure hate to give up the sunday morning grass fly-ins.
Rockets and RVs rule!
If I could get a retract on the EVO that would still allow me the same landing speeds that I have I would certainly consider it. This might get me close to Legacy speeds at the top end and still allow me to keep the plane at home. The best of both worlds.
Mark,
First, great news on the promise of going into production, again. Being a big fan of small business, I applaud your tenacity.
As far as VNE goes, Tom and Doug both bring up great points, my query is testing. Once completed, will you explore "the envelope" physically, mathematically, both? My old Rocket even with big tires, caked mud and peeling clearcoat would approach 250 True in the descent easily. Your Rocket NG, looks alot faster on paper. A 250 Knot airplane operating off a rough grass strip is exemplary. Test flight data might be a nice sales tool, as if you needed one
Needless to say, I want one.
Smokey
Hey Smokey:
1st, you and any other qualified pilots will be welcome to take 'er up for some 'testing', but you gonna have to come to Texas to do that. Fair 'nuf? The current airframe is good to 245KTAS, and getting 'er that fast was an accident, which only serves to affirm Doug's warnings about nose-down flight in one of these ships. Maybe looking into a composite rudder might be a good plan, as long as it can be made lighter. Hey -- why not a fabric rudder? Those are well tested on very fast moving prop driven planes over the past 70 years or so...and it certainly would be lighter!
I did hear the CLANG of the warning bell when I read the posts mentioning the need for speed brakes, so those are gonna be part of the design moving forward. I'm no big fan of the add-on type that slides up out of the wing at about mid-span/mid-chord - I'll take any suggestions as to alternate designs!
Also, I gotta add here that this production run is not yet a promise, but it sure is gaining momentum, and I am pleased to see the obvious interest in the design. I can only hope it doesn't run smooth over me.
Like Budd Davison said in his flight test report of my HR2 back in '97: "Not everyone needs a Rocket. Some folks, however, shouldn't live life without one. You know who you are."
Carry on!
Mark