The “Rocket” was not specially built for high altitude
flight. It came into being when I decided to build myself a lightweight single
place powered parachute that I could fly more economically than my ELSA, the
“EZ Rider”.
The EZ Rider was equipped with a Rotax 583 (not 582)
engine, and a large 5 blade prop. The wing was an E-340. I had all of the main
components already, and I would have taken a substantial loss to sell them and
get replacements with smaller capacities for the single seater. So, I decided
to use them and create a super powerful single seat PPC.
This is what I ended up with when it was all said and
done.
I started with a Hyperlite USA 1B airframe from
Airframes Unlimited www.airframesunlimited.com
Then I swapped and traded around, and bought a few
replacement parts too, to lighten everything up as much as possible to remain
under the 254 pound weight limit restriction in F.A.R. 103.
When I was finished, the Rocket has the following;
Single plastic boat seat
Seat belt
Plastic wheels
5 gallon fuel supply
3 pint oil supply
Rotax 583 R.A.V.E. engine tuned to produce
approximately 70 hp
Rotax C drive gearbox with a 3.47:1 ratio
5 blade 68” Warp Drive propeller
Stratomaster EIS
Thunderbolt E-310 wing
That’s it! It is a very simple and plain PPC, but
don’t let the looks fool you. There is a good reason that I named it the
“Rocket”. In this configuration it makes well over 400 pounds of static thrust
and cruises at approximately 31 mph. The fuel burn at this low weight, even
with my 230 pound carcass in the seat is only 2.25 gph at cruise.
| 
| 
| 
|
| 
| 
| 
|
When I first started flying it I knew it had a ton of
power compared to any PPC that I have ever flown in my 2,000+ hour experience.
I took it very easy for several flights while I got to know how it would
perform. After about the 3rd flight, I finally opened the throttle
all the way in flight. It was then that I realized that it truly was a rocket.
I did all of the configuring of the Rocket in the hot
summer months of June and July and started flying it in about mid July.
In the hot air I learned to tolerate the extremes of
running full power. and even
got to where I could do some amazing maneuvers in it too. But once the colder
air arrived I found out that I can exceed its limitations with too much power
and collapse the wing.
It only took one time for that to happen though, and
it will not happen again. Now I take off at significantly less than full power
and bump it up in a few increments on the climb out.
With climb rates in the 1300 fpm sustained range in
the hot air, I knew I had a real climber on my hands. In discussions with my
peers in some of our groups, I decided to seriously go for some altitude
flights. When they went well, I decided to go for a world record. During a test
flight I saw the climb rates hit 1575 fpm, and that explains how it has so much
power that it can collapse a wing if not handled properly.
For a altitude breaking and setting PPC, I could not
do much better than this little “Rocket”!
© 2004 - 2005 AmericanSpiritPPC.com