Every now and then something comes along that makes you sit
up and take notice. The Double Ender is
one of those things. Created not by using
anything new but with great effort to pick and chose the methods and mechanisms
that would best achieve the desired outcome, it is a real looker. But, how does it perform?
From what I can tell, The Double Ender doesn’t perform any
better than the typical tricked out Alaskan Super Cub. Actually, some of the tricked out Cubs may be
slightly better in ultimate performance.
Yet, if that was all that mattered, wouldn’t everyone be flying
helicopters?
The Double Ender is not the first plane with this basic
layout. There have been several
others. One such plane is the Seeker. Being the first though isn’t important.
Adding the missing pieces is.
There are three things I see about The Double Ender that
make it different and better. Those are
the full wraparound clear canopy, the twin tandem engines, and something I’ve
fantasized about for years, the ability to dump fuel. The visibility out of The Double Ender, at
least the tandem seat model, would be second to none when it comes to piston
driven aircraft. And as for the engines,
although I would prefer something other than the Rotax, they have proven
themselves reliable (I just hate the sound).
Additionally I’m not sure there is anything else of that size and
horsepower being built. But the
important part of “two engines” is that you have two. When it comes to dumping fuel, wouldn’t that
be great?
Of course everything comes with a drawback. The canopy will most surely help the sun cook
you till you’re done. The engines could
tend to make the plane porpoise if it were on floats. And the gas dumping could be interesting so
I’m going to allow someone else to test fly that option as I’m not sure where
the airflow will take the dumped atomized fuel.
Continuing with the inner voice narration; on the other hand
there are see-through shades for canopies like that, the engines appear to have
been placed at an angle of attack to partially compensate for power application
pitch over tendencies, and I want to be on hand when they test the fuel dumping
option. Seriously, that could be one
impressively expensive Fourth of July. If
it isn’t then it’s everything I hoped for.
But back to the engines; let’s be real. Powerplants have always been the Achilles heel,
the leaky radiator as you enter the desert, and the empty wallet in Vegas when
it comes to aircraft success. From day
one it was the powerplant that made the aviation possible a reality or
not. The same goes for The Double
Ender. Yet from what I see, as long as
the rear engine cools properly and doesn’t experience prop issues due to
disturbed airflow, the setup is difficult to argue against. And I have to admit, when flying around in
the back country I would prefer to have two powerplants.
All that said though, there’s only one way I could ever be
sure about any of this. Do any of you
know how I could get some time in this thing?
No comments:
Post a Comment