1999, Steve Mahoney
A friend of mine recently purchased a Lancair which has a converted Lyc 0290-G.
This is the original model designed for the smaller engine. He gave me a ride
in it...and man compared to my BD-4 the pitch stability at the slower speeds
was all over the place...it scarred me .. but my friend seems to have gotten
accustom to it's behavior and finds a bit squirrelly, but acceptable. Nice
visibility though, the cockpit was claustrophobic compared with the BD.
We then flew both aircraft side by side, through out the flight envelope.
I couldn't believe how closely matched the two aircraft where. My BD-4 Lyc
0360 fixed pitch prop 20 gallons fuel, one person on board, the Lancair Lyc
0290-G 15 gallons fuel, one person.
Here is what I observed:
The BD accelerates and gets off the runway in about 3/4 the distance of the Lancair. I could easily out climb the Lancair, I would guess that I had at least 200-300 fpm on him clear through 7,500 I could hold 1750 ftm (it was a cold day).
The slow flight, to stall was similar ...we kept reducing our airspeeds to see who would fall out of the sky first.....I think the BD had a sight edge here, about 2-3 mph slower.
Level at 7,000 ft with the BD pulling 21" of manifold the Lancair had
to do 22" to keep up. The RPMs where perfectly matched.
Full throttle at 7,500 we where exactly the same speed. We flew next to each
other for about 5 minutes and neither aircraft move ahead of the other. GPS
showed 193 knots ground speed (tail wind that day).
I believe that at higher altitudes, I would be faster than the Lancair, slower
at lower. At higher Altitudes, My electronic ignition helps a lot. The higher
parasitic drag (fixed gear and bigger cross section) of the BD would be less
in the thinner air.
This was test was allot of fun to do... with the airplanes so closely matched
I have a good bench mark in the future to compare new speed mods against.....
My only advice to you other BD flyers is unless you have an engine like Ray
Ward in your BD......... don't taken on any Lancair 360 s!
Steve M. N579SC