Daveroo
Members +
yay,,ive always loved the spartan!! bring her on..That looks very nice Ed; well done.
I have all the beta reports back and adjustments made, except for one. I hope to release the Spartan by Saturday.
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The Staff of SOH
Spartan Executive - FSX Native
- Thread starter Milton Shupe
- Start date
Spartan 7W Executive Released
Here ya go ...
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=105887
Here ya go ...
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=105887
blanston12
SOH-CM-2025
Thanks Milton! Really looking forward to this!
PhantomTweak
Members +
Woo-HOO!
Thank you very much Mr. Shupe!
The Beta has been a real joy to buzz around in. I just wish I had more time to do so.
I've got the release now, thoough, and will practice landings, especially short-field stuff. The STOL of this plane is just wonderful, and it will be a blast hopping around Washington and Oregon's tiny farm and local strips. I can't wait! May even see about some "mail rounds" in Alaska.
Time for FUN!!
Thank you so much for this, and all the other amazing planes you've worked so hard on over the years. So far, I haven't found a one I didn't thoroughly enjoy.
Pat☺
Thank you very much Mr. Shupe!
The Beta has been a real joy to buzz around in. I just wish I had more time to do so.
I've got the release now, thoough, and will practice landings, especially short-field stuff. The STOL of this plane is just wonderful, and it will be a blast hopping around Washington and Oregon's tiny farm and local strips. I can't wait! May even see about some "mail rounds" in Alaska.
Time for FUN!!
Thank you so much for this, and all the other amazing planes you've worked so hard on over the years. So far, I haven't found a one I didn't thoroughly enjoy.
Pat☺
simtech
SOH-CM-2025
Beautiful Airplane
Mr. Shupe, thank you for a grand, classic airplane. But, I am having a small issue. I'm probably inept, but I am having difficulty taxiing on narrow taxiways. I haven't found a tailwheel lock, I can't see the wheel castoring, nor can I find a rudder trim. I don't even know if the Spartan had one. I tried setting a little right rudder in another a/c and loading the Spartan, but alas, I still wind up in the weeds when the mains come off the ground. Any suggestions in improving my technique. I have flown your port-over for many years and it's one of my few go-to models. Your new model has a few subtle (?) performance differences, but it is all good. Thank you again for this beautiful gift and I am still holding my breath for that Beech 17. God bless you, sir.
Mr. Shupe, thank you for a grand, classic airplane. But, I am having a small issue. I'm probably inept, but I am having difficulty taxiing on narrow taxiways. I haven't found a tailwheel lock, I can't see the wheel castoring, nor can I find a rudder trim. I don't even know if the Spartan had one. I tried setting a little right rudder in another a/c and loading the Spartan, but alas, I still wind up in the weeds when the mains come off the ground. Any suggestions in improving my technique. I have flown your port-over for many years and it's one of my few go-to models. Your new model has a few subtle (?) performance differences, but it is all good. Thank you again for this beautiful gift and I am still holding my breath for that Beech 17. God bless you, sir.
Mr. Shupe, thank you for a grand, classic airplane. But, I am having a small issue. I'm probably inept, but I am having difficulty taxiing on narrow taxiways. I haven't found a tailwheel lock, I can't see the wheel castoring, nor can I find a rudder trim. I don't even know if the Spartan had one. I tried setting a little right rudder in another a/c and loading the Spartan, but alas, I still wind up in the weeds when the mains come off the ground. Any suggestions in improving my technique. I have flown your port-over for many years and it's one of my few go-to models. Your new model has a few subtle (?) performance differences, but it is all good. Thank you again for this beautiful gift and I am still holding my breath for that Beech 17. God bless you, sir.
simtech,
As I recall from the original project, there was no tail wheel lock and no rudder trim; that's why they are not modeled.
You must ease through the takeoff run starting on right side of RW (or left side pointing slightly right), give full right rudder and maybe a little right brake
However, I would suggest modifying the aircraft.cfg scalars since I seemed to overlook that:
p_factor_on_yaw = .5
torque_on_roll = .5
My apologies.
EDIT: Just tested those entries and .5 is plenty sufficient to hold her steady on a TO run.
With regard to performance, the only thing I changed from my last release was flaps drag.
EDIT2: The other option is to convert the tail wheel to steerable. See the contact point section of the aircraft.cfg for instructions.
simtech
SOH-CM-2025
Mr. Shupe, I tried your suggestion and it does, in fact, minimize the p-factor to the point I felt it mitigated it too much. So I compromised and used the value of ".75" on both variables rather than the "1.0" that caused me to run out of pavement before airborne.. This allows for a noticeable pull to the left while still maintaining a semblance of directional control by a judicious use of brake tapping and full rudder deflection. I was able to maintain the mains on the 60 foot hardtop if I started on the left angled towards the right. It works. I will also experiment with differential braking factor so that perhaps around a "2.+" might improve the control on slow taxi. Thank you for your expedient reply and for such a wonderful model.Updated post: I tried several values for diff. braking factor from 2.0 to 2.5 and find that 2.25 gives a good representation of tail wheel castoring and directional control at slow speed. YMMV.
Updated post: I tried several values for diff. braking factor from 2.0 to 2.5 and find that 2.25 gives a good representation of tail wheel castoring and directional control at slow speed. YMMV.
There are also two other factors we tend to forget. Everyone runs different FSX sensitivity settings (I have mine on Hard). I also use CH Yoke and Pedals and there are sensitivity settings there as well. So, I guess these things have to be adjusted for personal preferences and sensitivity settings.
simtech
SOH-CM-2025
Very true. Since I just have Logitech X3-D, the only sensitivity is the rudder. I found that manipulating the Differential_braking factor allows me to have more directional control on the ground. I've had to use this on heavier aircraft as well to facilitate reasonable ground control. If I turned up the sensitivity of braking, I find it seems like I have power assisted brakes. Never run across that in R/L. Great airplane, now where is that wine that was on the table in the back.
The table, Laptop, and wine are only available in-flight. (they come out when the gear go up.)
I cannot find the reference to the lack of need for a tail wheel lock but I did find this article (front part is clipped-not sure where that went) from an owner/caretaker that talks about flying the Spartan. It's a good read.
EDIT: Found the front part but think I am missing a little in the middle. I think I copied only the bottom part for the specs from a pilot's perspective.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First Part:
When rumbling along at 8,500 feet, it's sometimes difficult to describe how I feel as I look across the Spartan's wide cockpit at Sandy, my wife. The same thought inevitably crosses our minds at the same time: we feel as though we're living a dream. Looking past tier at that wonderfully shaped wing, I picture how we must look from the outside. We're in a high-speed, silver sculpture from another time when styling meant curves and grace and-most of all-class. On the one hand, it feels as if a tremendous privilege has been granted us; on the other hand, that privilege comes with huge responsibilities, and that thought never leaves us. Owning and flying a 1939 Spartan Executive isn't to be taken lightly. The machine is one of America's ultimate artifacts, and we view ourselves as its caretakers, which is an awesome responsibility.
The Spartan is one of those airplanes that has haunted me almost from the very beginning of my long love affair with flying. I have to admit, however, that it wasn't until Sandy started urging me to "live" my fantasy that I actually considered buying one. The Executive is my fourth "real" airplane (I don't count my first airplane, a Cessna 175 one of that total). I can't say when I became aware of my love of round motors and art-deco styling, but apparently it has always been there because even as a student pilot, I found myself wildly attracted to a derelict Cessna 195 on the held. Shortly after the C-175 "experience," which taught me a lot about the nuts and bolts (figuratively and literally) of airplane ownership, I launched into what became a familiar drill of looking for the best 195 available. That's when I bought what I consider to be my first real airplane. Then came a Luscombe 8E, a Republic Seabee and then our beautiful Lockheed 12A.
When Sandy talked me into buying the Executive, we looked for the "right" airplane in the same way as we had when looking for the other airplanes. We first tried to locate all the Executives in existence: six flying and six that might be restorable. Considering that only 34 had ever been built in the first place, and some of those went overseas when new, that's a pretty fair survival rate for what was then a 55-year-old airplane. When looking for airplanes, my tastes, skills and common sense dictate that I find the best airframe in the best possible condition because I don't want to do complete restorations. The Cessna 175 also taught me the value of an airplane with great log books that indicate a high level of continual maintenance. This is especially true of the bigger airplanes. It takes a major, bolt-by-bolt restoration to even begin to offset a half century of indifferent maintenance and repairs. A good, clean, well-cared-for airframe, on the other hand, is a pleasure to work on and doesn't require the special skills needed for a total restoration.
The first step was going out and physically laying our hands on as many Spartans as we could find, whether for sale or not. Through this process, we began to understand the airplane and what we were actually looking for. In short order, our airframe checklist became quite specific. Over a year and a half, one by one, we eliminated various airplanes either because they weren't available and couldn't be pried loose, or because their airframe and/or log books weren't clean.
Those who knew what we were looking for would continually say, "You need to find Malcolm Jacobs' old airplane." Jacobs was a well-known aircraft salesman/broker in St. Louis who, among other things, is reputed to have sold something like 300 Staggerwings, which obviously means he handled the same airplanes three or four times. He had owned the same Spartan Executive for 34 years, and it was rumored to have been nearly perfect to begin with, but Jacobs had spent 17 years restoring it and then flew it only a very few hours. We kept hearing the tales but didn't have a solid lead on the airplane's whereabouts. Then we got a call from two of our "Spartan acquaintances" in Texas and New Mexico who told us the Jacobs airplane was in the Lone Star Museum of Flight in Galveston, Texas.
We wasted no time in calling the museum. What we didn't know, however, was that during a meeting on the night before, the museum's board of directors had voted to sell the Spartan because it no longer fit their goals as a predominantly military museum.
We immediately sent them a deposit check, contingent on the airplane's fitting our criteria, and we prepared to fly to Texas. But there was still one detail: we had to hop on a jet to Chicago (it was January and not a very pleasant trip) to look at one other Spartan. We couldn't commit to buying the Galveston airplane until we had eliminated the Chicago Executive. Buying airplanes isn't as easy as just writing a check.
When we arrived at the museum, we found the airplane was everything we had been told, and it fit our goals exactly. Besides having spent 34 years in the loving hands of Malcolm Jacobs, the airplane bad always been cared for. Its first owner was Claude Drilling of Oklahoma, but it was soon pressed into WW 11 military service-RAF, to be exact. What the RAF used the airplane for is unknown, but it never left the States and was based at one of its training command bases. Most important, the airplane was never damaged at the hands of a low-time student.
Right after the war, the airplane became part of Texas Co.'s (now Texaco) fleet of five Executives and was based at its Chicago facility. I have all the maintenance records; they rival those of any major airline. Texas Co. spared no expense in keeping the airplane ready to go.
When we flew it home, we found it to be in excellent condition, but later, we eliminated many of Jacobs' 1970s modifications to make it more representative of the breed, or simply to make ourselves happy. The orange carpet and orange fuselage trim were among the latter. We redid the entire interior in leather with a wool headliner and had the fuselage stripes repainted in green, which is a Texaco color and one of Sandy's favorites. The three-blade prop-a very popular mod in the 1970s-was replaced with an original Hamilton-- Standard, and the landing gear was removed and replated. In total, the airplane was up on jacks for a year while we attended to dozens of necessary little details to make it "ours."
One detail we worked and worked to perfect was the control yoke: Jacobs installed a Beech Bonanza yoke, and no matter how hard we tried or how much tubing we bent and welded, we couldn't quite duplicate the Spartan yoke. Then one night, another Spartan owner called, "Your airplane needs an original yoke and I'm sending you one."
That was the best we could have hoped for, and we could hardly believe it!
Airborne, the airplane is a lot of fun because it flies even better than it looks, and we love the way it looks! Because it is so Streamlined and tightly cowled, there aren't a lot of things to check during preflight, especially since it literally lives in our living room (we live in a hangar/apartment). If we leave it outside at an airshow or while going cross-country, however, I carefully check the fabric control surfaces for damage and peek down into the cowl to make sure we don't have something uninvited-rags, for example-in there. While I do the walkaround, I check that the mags are off, then pull the prop forward 18 blades to verify that there isn't any oil in the bottom cylinders that might cause a hydraulic lock.
Starting the P&W R-985 is super easy because of one of Malcolm Jacobs' modifications. Rather than having a wobble/priming pump situation, as with most R-985s, there is an electric priming pump that has a line to every cylinder, instead of to just two or three. A few seconds of prime, and I hit the starter with the mags already on "both," instead of switching them on after it has turned a few blades in the way it is usually done. The prop barely turns half a revolution before the engine starts. It starts unlike any other round engine I've known.
When the engine is running, I have to wait for the temperatures to come up, but with the Executive, that doesn't take long. It is so tightly cowled that the temps come up in less than half the time of most similar engines.
While taxiing, it's important to remember how little you can see straight ahead and to the right; I S-turn the airplane periodically. Even though the brakes are the primary steering mechanism, if I have any power on at all, the rudder still has enough authority to gently turn the airplane without help from the brakes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Second part:
As soon as we're off the ground, the gear comes up, and the prop and power come back to 30 inches of manifold pressure and 2,000rpm, which cuts the noise level in half. At 36/2 inches and 2,350rpm (full power), the prop tips are just short of supersonic and make a tremendous noise.
We usually climb at 130mph, which is the recommended rateof-climb speed; it keeps the engine cool and still gives us a solid 800 to 1,000 feet per minute and it will hold that well past 5,000 feet. It has a lot more climb available, but why use it, if it isn't needed. Our airplane just had its 60th birthday, so we try to be considerate.
In level flight, it's absolutely delightful. Because of its size, people expect it to be more like a transport aircraft than anything else. But it absolutely is not. The ailerons are not only light, but they are also powerful enough to make the airplane respond immediately. The same is true of the elevators and rudder; and they all flow together so well that it is hard to believe that the airplane was designed in 1934/35 because it handles at least as well as a modern Bonanza.
The airplane's comfort level is unmatched even in modern airplanes. This is especially true of the interior sound level; it is so quiet that it is almost spooky. The airplane was born during a time when names like Duesenberg and Packard meant something other than "big antique car." They were the ultimate in transportation comfort, and the Spartan Executive offered the same feel but in the third dimension. Here was an airplane that was designed with one class of trade in mind and only one. Its owner wouldn't be driving a Ford to the airport; he'd drive his Duesenberg, or something similar, and he'd expect the same luxury in his airplane.
The airplane is wider than most modern twin-engine airplanes but not quite as deep. The seats actually sit quite flat on the floor, sports-car style, and your feet are out in front of you. It is much more comfortable than it sounds, and it's probable that executives and sportsman pilots of the era made full use of the airplane's nearly five-hour nonstop range. Sandy and 1, however, prefer flights of about half as long. Besides, visiting other airports and just being somewhere else is part of the fun of traveling.
The old brochures tout that the airplane is capable of the 212mph cruise, but that's only at the expense of a lot of gasoline. At the lower settings we usually fly (caretakers, remember?), 190mph is more realistic, but that's still pretty fast for that much cabin space.
One area in which the Executive might not meet modern certification standards is in its stall. If you persist in holding the nose up while speed bleeds off, it will abruptly stop flying and its nose will drop; and if you don't release the backpressure, a wing will drop. The stall itself isn't particularly dangerous, but the abrupt manner in which it breaks without the slightest warning buffet is generally an eye-opener to modern pilots.
Big old taildraggers often have questionable reputations associated with their landings, but the Executive is as gentlemanly on landing as it is everywhere else. The gear speed is 160mph, so with a little planning to get rid of altitude, it isn't difficult at all to arrive at the airport slowly enough to get the gear out, at which point the airplane is quite stable. The flaps are in three sections with a big "belly board" running across the middle. Since the elevators get a little soft when flying slowly, I opted not to use the center-section flaps in case they blanket the elevator. Besides, since the main flaps go down 45 degrees, no more flap is needed.
Downwind at 120mph with partial flap, 100 on base with the rest of the flaps down and 90 on final, the airplane flies as if it is in a groove. Whatever power is needed to keep it on glide slope is used, but the prop isn't increased to full until on short final when it's obvious I have the runway made and won't need any more power increases. By doing this, prop noise is kept to a minimum.
I keep just a hint of power on as the airplane is pulled into flare where I set it up for a wheel landing. I rarely three-point the bigger airplanes because the possibilities of dropping them in is too high. Wheel landings just don't seem to beat them up as badly. Also, in wheel landings, the runway is in sight all the way to touchdown and during much of the rollout, and that makes everything so much simpler.
When the airplane is in ground effect, the little bit of power being carried holds it up for a few seconds while I feel for the runway with the main gear. My goal is to try to hold it off, and then it surprises me by softly touching down. At that point, a little forward yoke nails it on, and the rest of the rollout is spent keeping it straight, which is really quite easy, even in a crosswind. To burn off some of the speed, I get on the brakes when it is down and stable, because the slower it is, the easier it is to control. The yoke moves slowly forward as the speed bleeds off, holding the tail up until the very last second, when I gently ease it down. The brakes, by the way, are Goodyear disc brakes-an improvement on the original, grabby multiple-disc brakes, but they don't have enough power to pick up the tail and put the airplane on its nose.
In front of the hangar, when the engine is shut down, there is something magical about climbing through that big door onto the wing. There is something about the size, the smell, the overall ambiance of the machine that reeks of luxurious times we're not likely to see again. Like the big old wooden yachts and the oversize, over-powered sports cars of the era, the Spartan Executive speaks to the age of opulence. While we may never see that age again, isn't it nice that it left enough of its artifacts for Some Of US to visit it again, at least for a little while?
Copyright Air Age Publishing Feb 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
EDIT: Found the front part but think I am missing a little in the middle. I think I copied only the bottom part for the specs from a pilot's perspective.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
First Part:
When rumbling along at 8,500 feet, it's sometimes difficult to describe how I feel as I look across the Spartan's wide cockpit at Sandy, my wife. The same thought inevitably crosses our minds at the same time: we feel as though we're living a dream. Looking past tier at that wonderfully shaped wing, I picture how we must look from the outside. We're in a high-speed, silver sculpture from another time when styling meant curves and grace and-most of all-class. On the one hand, it feels as if a tremendous privilege has been granted us; on the other hand, that privilege comes with huge responsibilities, and that thought never leaves us. Owning and flying a 1939 Spartan Executive isn't to be taken lightly. The machine is one of America's ultimate artifacts, and we view ourselves as its caretakers, which is an awesome responsibility.
The Spartan is one of those airplanes that has haunted me almost from the very beginning of my long love affair with flying. I have to admit, however, that it wasn't until Sandy started urging me to "live" my fantasy that I actually considered buying one. The Executive is my fourth "real" airplane (I don't count my first airplane, a Cessna 175 one of that total). I can't say when I became aware of my love of round motors and art-deco styling, but apparently it has always been there because even as a student pilot, I found myself wildly attracted to a derelict Cessna 195 on the held. Shortly after the C-175 "experience," which taught me a lot about the nuts and bolts (figuratively and literally) of airplane ownership, I launched into what became a familiar drill of looking for the best 195 available. That's when I bought what I consider to be my first real airplane. Then came a Luscombe 8E, a Republic Seabee and then our beautiful Lockheed 12A.
When Sandy talked me into buying the Executive, we looked for the "right" airplane in the same way as we had when looking for the other airplanes. We first tried to locate all the Executives in existence: six flying and six that might be restorable. Considering that only 34 had ever been built in the first place, and some of those went overseas when new, that's a pretty fair survival rate for what was then a 55-year-old airplane. When looking for airplanes, my tastes, skills and common sense dictate that I find the best airframe in the best possible condition because I don't want to do complete restorations. The Cessna 175 also taught me the value of an airplane with great log books that indicate a high level of continual maintenance. This is especially true of the bigger airplanes. It takes a major, bolt-by-bolt restoration to even begin to offset a half century of indifferent maintenance and repairs. A good, clean, well-cared-for airframe, on the other hand, is a pleasure to work on and doesn't require the special skills needed for a total restoration.
The first step was going out and physically laying our hands on as many Spartans as we could find, whether for sale or not. Through this process, we began to understand the airplane and what we were actually looking for. In short order, our airframe checklist became quite specific. Over a year and a half, one by one, we eliminated various airplanes either because they weren't available and couldn't be pried loose, or because their airframe and/or log books weren't clean.
Those who knew what we were looking for would continually say, "You need to find Malcolm Jacobs' old airplane." Jacobs was a well-known aircraft salesman/broker in St. Louis who, among other things, is reputed to have sold something like 300 Staggerwings, which obviously means he handled the same airplanes three or four times. He had owned the same Spartan Executive for 34 years, and it was rumored to have been nearly perfect to begin with, but Jacobs had spent 17 years restoring it and then flew it only a very few hours. We kept hearing the tales but didn't have a solid lead on the airplane's whereabouts. Then we got a call from two of our "Spartan acquaintances" in Texas and New Mexico who told us the Jacobs airplane was in the Lone Star Museum of Flight in Galveston, Texas.
We wasted no time in calling the museum. What we didn't know, however, was that during a meeting on the night before, the museum's board of directors had voted to sell the Spartan because it no longer fit their goals as a predominantly military museum.
We immediately sent them a deposit check, contingent on the airplane's fitting our criteria, and we prepared to fly to Texas. But there was still one detail: we had to hop on a jet to Chicago (it was January and not a very pleasant trip) to look at one other Spartan. We couldn't commit to buying the Galveston airplane until we had eliminated the Chicago Executive. Buying airplanes isn't as easy as just writing a check.
When we arrived at the museum, we found the airplane was everything we had been told, and it fit our goals exactly. Besides having spent 34 years in the loving hands of Malcolm Jacobs, the airplane bad always been cared for. Its first owner was Claude Drilling of Oklahoma, but it was soon pressed into WW 11 military service-RAF, to be exact. What the RAF used the airplane for is unknown, but it never left the States and was based at one of its training command bases. Most important, the airplane was never damaged at the hands of a low-time student.
Right after the war, the airplane became part of Texas Co.'s (now Texaco) fleet of five Executives and was based at its Chicago facility. I have all the maintenance records; they rival those of any major airline. Texas Co. spared no expense in keeping the airplane ready to go.
When we flew it home, we found it to be in excellent condition, but later, we eliminated many of Jacobs' 1970s modifications to make it more representative of the breed, or simply to make ourselves happy. The orange carpet and orange fuselage trim were among the latter. We redid the entire interior in leather with a wool headliner and had the fuselage stripes repainted in green, which is a Texaco color and one of Sandy's favorites. The three-blade prop-a very popular mod in the 1970s-was replaced with an original Hamilton-- Standard, and the landing gear was removed and replated. In total, the airplane was up on jacks for a year while we attended to dozens of necessary little details to make it "ours."
One detail we worked and worked to perfect was the control yoke: Jacobs installed a Beech Bonanza yoke, and no matter how hard we tried or how much tubing we bent and welded, we couldn't quite duplicate the Spartan yoke. Then one night, another Spartan owner called, "Your airplane needs an original yoke and I'm sending you one."
That was the best we could have hoped for, and we could hardly believe it!
Airborne, the airplane is a lot of fun because it flies even better than it looks, and we love the way it looks! Because it is so Streamlined and tightly cowled, there aren't a lot of things to check during preflight, especially since it literally lives in our living room (we live in a hangar/apartment). If we leave it outside at an airshow or while going cross-country, however, I carefully check the fabric control surfaces for damage and peek down into the cowl to make sure we don't have something uninvited-rags, for example-in there. While I do the walkaround, I check that the mags are off, then pull the prop forward 18 blades to verify that there isn't any oil in the bottom cylinders that might cause a hydraulic lock.
Starting the P&W R-985 is super easy because of one of Malcolm Jacobs' modifications. Rather than having a wobble/priming pump situation, as with most R-985s, there is an electric priming pump that has a line to every cylinder, instead of to just two or three. A few seconds of prime, and I hit the starter with the mags already on "both," instead of switching them on after it has turned a few blades in the way it is usually done. The prop barely turns half a revolution before the engine starts. It starts unlike any other round engine I've known.
When the engine is running, I have to wait for the temperatures to come up, but with the Executive, that doesn't take long. It is so tightly cowled that the temps come up in less than half the time of most similar engines.
While taxiing, it's important to remember how little you can see straight ahead and to the right; I S-turn the airplane periodically. Even though the brakes are the primary steering mechanism, if I have any power on at all, the rudder still has enough authority to gently turn the airplane without help from the brakes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Second part:
As soon as we're off the ground, the gear comes up, and the prop and power come back to 30 inches of manifold pressure and 2,000rpm, which cuts the noise level in half. At 36/2 inches and 2,350rpm (full power), the prop tips are just short of supersonic and make a tremendous noise.
We usually climb at 130mph, which is the recommended rateof-climb speed; it keeps the engine cool and still gives us a solid 800 to 1,000 feet per minute and it will hold that well past 5,000 feet. It has a lot more climb available, but why use it, if it isn't needed. Our airplane just had its 60th birthday, so we try to be considerate.
In level flight, it's absolutely delightful. Because of its size, people expect it to be more like a transport aircraft than anything else. But it absolutely is not. The ailerons are not only light, but they are also powerful enough to make the airplane respond immediately. The same is true of the elevators and rudder; and they all flow together so well that it is hard to believe that the airplane was designed in 1934/35 because it handles at least as well as a modern Bonanza.
The airplane's comfort level is unmatched even in modern airplanes. This is especially true of the interior sound level; it is so quiet that it is almost spooky. The airplane was born during a time when names like Duesenberg and Packard meant something other than "big antique car." They were the ultimate in transportation comfort, and the Spartan Executive offered the same feel but in the third dimension. Here was an airplane that was designed with one class of trade in mind and only one. Its owner wouldn't be driving a Ford to the airport; he'd drive his Duesenberg, or something similar, and he'd expect the same luxury in his airplane.
The airplane is wider than most modern twin-engine airplanes but not quite as deep. The seats actually sit quite flat on the floor, sports-car style, and your feet are out in front of you. It is much more comfortable than it sounds, and it's probable that executives and sportsman pilots of the era made full use of the airplane's nearly five-hour nonstop range. Sandy and 1, however, prefer flights of about half as long. Besides, visiting other airports and just being somewhere else is part of the fun of traveling.
The old brochures tout that the airplane is capable of the 212mph cruise, but that's only at the expense of a lot of gasoline. At the lower settings we usually fly (caretakers, remember?), 190mph is more realistic, but that's still pretty fast for that much cabin space.
One area in which the Executive might not meet modern certification standards is in its stall. If you persist in holding the nose up while speed bleeds off, it will abruptly stop flying and its nose will drop; and if you don't release the backpressure, a wing will drop. The stall itself isn't particularly dangerous, but the abrupt manner in which it breaks without the slightest warning buffet is generally an eye-opener to modern pilots.
Big old taildraggers often have questionable reputations associated with their landings, but the Executive is as gentlemanly on landing as it is everywhere else. The gear speed is 160mph, so with a little planning to get rid of altitude, it isn't difficult at all to arrive at the airport slowly enough to get the gear out, at which point the airplane is quite stable. The flaps are in three sections with a big "belly board" running across the middle. Since the elevators get a little soft when flying slowly, I opted not to use the center-section flaps in case they blanket the elevator. Besides, since the main flaps go down 45 degrees, no more flap is needed.
Downwind at 120mph with partial flap, 100 on base with the rest of the flaps down and 90 on final, the airplane flies as if it is in a groove. Whatever power is needed to keep it on glide slope is used, but the prop isn't increased to full until on short final when it's obvious I have the runway made and won't need any more power increases. By doing this, prop noise is kept to a minimum.
I keep just a hint of power on as the airplane is pulled into flare where I set it up for a wheel landing. I rarely three-point the bigger airplanes because the possibilities of dropping them in is too high. Wheel landings just don't seem to beat them up as badly. Also, in wheel landings, the runway is in sight all the way to touchdown and during much of the rollout, and that makes everything so much simpler.
When the airplane is in ground effect, the little bit of power being carried holds it up for a few seconds while I feel for the runway with the main gear. My goal is to try to hold it off, and then it surprises me by softly touching down. At that point, a little forward yoke nails it on, and the rest of the rollout is spent keeping it straight, which is really quite easy, even in a crosswind. To burn off some of the speed, I get on the brakes when it is down and stable, because the slower it is, the easier it is to control. The yoke moves slowly forward as the speed bleeds off, holding the tail up until the very last second, when I gently ease it down. The brakes, by the way, are Goodyear disc brakes-an improvement on the original, grabby multiple-disc brakes, but they don't have enough power to pick up the tail and put the airplane on its nose.
In front of the hangar, when the engine is shut down, there is something magical about climbing through that big door onto the wing. There is something about the size, the smell, the overall ambiance of the machine that reeks of luxurious times we're not likely to see again. Like the big old wooden yachts and the oversize, over-powered sports cars of the era, the Spartan Executive speaks to the age of opulence. While we may never see that age again, isn't it nice that it left enough of its artifacts for Some Of US to visit it again, at least for a little while?
Copyright Air Age Publishing Feb 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
Decisions, decisions. As a pilot no drink, to drink no fly. Hmm. Think I'll skip the imbibition and go fly this wonderful airplane. Although that table animation is slicker than snot on a door knob. Great job!!
PhantomTweak
Members +
I am sure glad that there are a lot more virtual Spartan Executives than were made IRL!
I enjoy this bird no end. I haven't stalled it yet, but that on the "menu" for whenever.
I did notice, and this is a very minor detail, that the brakes are more than adequate to drop it on it's nose, even when moving slowly on all 3 wheels. This is contrary to the great article you posted, but it's adjustable.
I am very grateful for the flaps info in the article. It gives me what I need to know to know how it should behave.
I did try some slow flight at 5000', and it was perfectly controllable down to 55 MPH, full flaps. Very enjoyable if I get a little slow on landing. I can keep it right where it needs to be with no more effort than at 180 MPH.
I can't think of all the little details of it's performance right now I noticed, but it sire was a joy to try out.
Thank you so much for including me in the beta testing, even if I didn't contribute all that much. It went faster through beta than I expected
Have fun, all!
Pat☺
I enjoy this bird no end. I haven't stalled it yet, but that on the "menu" for whenever.
I did notice, and this is a very minor detail, that the brakes are more than adequate to drop it on it's nose, even when moving slowly on all 3 wheels. This is contrary to the great article you posted, but it's adjustable.
I am very grateful for the flaps info in the article. It gives me what I need to know to know how it should behave.
I did try some slow flight at 5000', and it was perfectly controllable down to 55 MPH, full flaps. Very enjoyable if I get a little slow on landing. I can keep it right where it needs to be with no more effort than at 180 MPH.
I can't think of all the little details of it's performance right now I noticed, but it sire was a joy to try out.
Thank you so much for including me in the beta testing, even if I didn't contribute all that much. It went faster through beta than I expected
Have fun, all!
Pat☺
I've ran into some issues with the fuselage textures not wanting to match up with the rest of it and I'm not sure why. Everything else is a nice aluminum color in the sim, but the fuselage is a whole lot brighter. Could be a while on getting anything out.
Right now, I'm doing what I always do when I'm about out of ideas and need to think about it for a bit. Painting a Gee Bee. LOL
Right now, I'm doing what I always do when I'm about out of ideas and need to think about it for a bit. Painting a Gee Bee. LOL
gaab
SOH-CM-2023
I would love to put it into that nice bird.
Gérard