Hello guys
As I told many months ago, I planned to get the 4 bladed MT prop fully reversible and fully feathered. Today it came finally together….
The reason it took so long is that it took some adaptions on the plane, a confused wire plan and off course the delay just getting the prop and the governor.
Today I had my first experiences and will report more once I can test it without any wind conditions to see how it really performs, but so far it did really well. The system has 2 switches, where 1 is to ‘arm’ the system, and the other to use it as the ‘beta’ switch.
Now my first fast taxi was very uneventful, as a matter of fact, I was kind of disappointed not seeing a huge effect right away. I taxied at about 30 knots and switched it on and ….almost nothing happened. This actually is a good thing (I found out later), as the system is actually very smooth going into beta without any ‘wiggling’ or any unease feeling of a plane suddenly going another way.
My first faster taxi (at 60 knots) was at least more eventful, when I switched it on, and had the prop was at about 700rpm, I just noticed that it had a little extra drag, but than giving it some throttle it started to give some nice braking action. But all very comfortable, nothing weird, just simple.
So I took it into the air, and landed with the system, and for sure with some good practice I can land the plane between 1500-1800ft. (going with 90knots over the numbers, today I was already within 2000ft). This is great when the gremlins are taking away some runway in the night going in to hot J
The system does have some safety features like it cannot go to reverse above 70knots or when the prop is higher as 1200rpm. The feather works the same as with the Hartzell (just pull the prop).
So far it was working fine, and when I have some more experiences with it (not doing crazy stuff) I can provide some real numbers of how much runway not it takes to land the 4p with this combination. I will not go extreme with going full throttle once activated, throwing is dust and dirt all over the plane LOL
The prop and installation is not cheap, but running of the runway is more expensive J
The installation was done by Matthew Collier from Fibercraft and Avionics Instalations, here in Spruce Creek, Florida (7FL6).
Ronald Stevens (400h LNC4p and some….) n45HL