A 582 Outback 2-place

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I brought an otherwise flyable Air Creations Outback trike to MTA yesterday afternoon--in a snow storm.  See picture.  It has a newly  rebuilt Rotax 582 engine (liquid cooled 2-stroke) and new prop.  It can take up a passenger by someone with the proper training/endorsement.  It has the same exact wing as the Mallard ultralight has been using.  It looks exactly like the broken RedBack (except for engine) as near as I can tell.  It does have the steering damper.  I did take a ride in it at Holbrook before I decided to take it.  It needs a little TLC though the tac only shows 177 hours.  (I have gotten conflicting stories about the number of hours.) Others how were familiar with the machine commented on how different the engine looks.  Mainly, it came back from rebuild with the oil injection system, intake silencer and after muffler all removed.  There are a few minor things to do--replace the electrical system circuit breaker, fix the airspeed indicator tube connector, patch small holes in the wings, ?

The 600 mile round trip was more or less uneventful except Monday morning it was so cold I could not get my pickup to start until I left the hood open with the sun shinning on the engine for a couple hours and late Monday afternoon the last 20 miles to MTA was on packed and snow covered highway 60.  The last half mile got really interesting as I could not get traction with my 2-wheel drive pickup pulling a trailer with the trike on it and we ended up sideways and every other which way spinning our wheels to get up the rise to our place in Mountainair.

I was very impressed with the long-tongued torsion bar suspension trailer that Richard Hastings made for the Redback.  Pretty much ideal for an open ultralight hauler. (see image)  Empty weight less than 500.  Trailed perfectly at all speeds up to 80 and both empty and loaded.  No extra bouncing or skipping in either case.  Good selection of tie-down spots.

The impact of different configurations on driving was interesting.  With just the empty trailer going out, it did not feel like anything was there and I did not notice any speed or acceleration difference.  Mileage did drop from usual winter 24 mpg to 19 though.  Coming back with the trike on, it felt like there was a brake on or someone had thrown out an earth anchor.  I could not run more than 65 with the mast up (except when I could get in tight and draft behind a semi going the right speed)  and mileage dropped to 14 mpg.  Once I dropped the mast, I was able to get to 75 with generous use of 4th gear on slight inclines even-though the pull or drag felt nearly the same.  Bottom line is that my little old worn-out 1999 S-10 4-banger 5 speed is marginal for pulling a trike.

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This page contains a single entry by Cavlon News published on January 15, 2013 3:46 PM.

Chipping Away at the Bucket List... was the previous entry in this blog.

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