Hi Guys / Gals

Thought it be a good idea sharing with you what I am busy with over here in deep dark Africa! (South Africa more specifically)

Being an aircraft nut and having owned a flown a couple of aeries myself (BE36TC, PA32, PA28 , 182, 210 , 172 Ravin 500,Alouette II, AtlasC4M Kudu, etc ) to mention a few, I decided some 4 years ago to design and build my own custom ,purpose built aerie.
The main reason being there was nothing out there that could do what I wanted it to do which I could afford.
How does the saying go " necessity is the mother of invention..." or so they say

Anyhow, being a businessman and with finance as my field of experience (auditor) I had to get together a team to do what I needed done because I could not do this type of development by myself.
Naturally everyone thought I was crazy (which I probably am) but after 4 years of extreme pain and countless nervous breakdowns and FLAT BROKE I am at the point where we hope to do the first test flight sometime during April / May this year.

According to the clever guys (Aero Engineers) we hope to achieve the following numbers. Because we are not yet finished this is prelim figures that will only be confirmed once we start actual flight testing.

Block speed of 250 KTS at FL 15 (this one will not be pressurized but will have O2 fitted )
Empty weight around +- 2900 lbs
Total fuel +- 210 gal
Payload with full fuel +- 1150 lbs
Range 1250 NM (Including 40 min reserve)

You can imagine to get these types of turbine performance figures you will need a fat cheque book to go out and buy the plane which is capable of delivering these numbers

But proof will be in the pudding so we will have to wait and see

Attached is a couple of pics of what she looks like currently


Enjoy
Abrie Muller

Nice try Aubrie. You can't get by with only two pictures with a post like that.

(That looks a lot like my friends Raven)

Agreed we need more pictures! And other details - engine (Walter?), total fuel, expected gross weight and payload, etc!

Looks great!

Good luck - I have always wanted to build my own airplane but just never found the time to do it and instead spent time updating g older airframes!

WTF - Are those pictures - or they're very poorly done 3D images

No EXIF metadata in the image.....

Hi There

A haa , there seems to be life on the other side of the round thing we call earth

Yes indeed Stuart! One of the guys that is on board my team is Jan Troskie which designed and built the Ravin 500 , among other guys. We have made substantial changes in the internal wing design for higher speeds, more fuel and gross weight increase. We also completely redesigned the fuselage to be more aerodynamic, bigger and designed the hull to be pressurized for future models.

This one have the walter engine installed but future ones will probably have the P&W fitted or the new H80 G&E but customers will probably dictate that.

One have to remember I designed and built this for myself because of the shortfalls other aircraft (in my affordable price range) have.

The old problems of :
fast but no payload or vice versa
lots of space but no range or vice versa

So my target was to have something that delivers in all areas without shooting yourself in the foot in another.
According to the clever guys we seem to be somewhere there

Next on our "to do" list we need to start fitting the floor, fit avionics, finish the door mechanism, emergency exit system and some other bits and bobs.
I need to order the avionics next week but with our crap Rand vs Dollar exchange rate I still need to find a buyer for my liver, kidney and one lung!!

I did not post more pictures of the interior yet because it is just wires, pulleys, control rods and all those stuff at the moment so it looks pretty crappy still.
It will however remain "bare" inside until such time the flight tests are complete.
Reason being I do not want everyone trampling over everything while we still in testing mode.

O yes,
we are installing full dual Garmin G3X system with Garmin radios.
A/C
aft Refreshment centre
optional aft potty for the ladies and kiddies (especially mine!!)
I will be fitting this one with exec sofa like you get in the jets as well (mommy likes to nap........)

Hope it puts more light on the subject for you.

Cheers

PS: Sold my Bonnie A36TC last year because of lack of range. When you operate in Africa range is pretty damn important !. Our powers to be over here can't organize a P*$$ up in a brewery!

here is some more 3D images Michael, hell I needed to work damn fast to draw these ones so quickly!

Engine installed but no exhaust?

Hi Frank

The stacks are not fitted on the engine at the moment.
The stock Walter stacks are not very good looking so I'm still looking at how to make them look a bit more "pretty".
I know you can buy the prat lookalikes but at the moment I do not want to spend any more $ on "nice to have" items.
My priority is to get the bird in the air!

cheers

I like it, Abrie, you keep going....yes, Sir!

Thanks Chris!!

I will post more pics for you guys when we make further progress.

Cheers

This is an amazing feet you are accomplishing Abrie, an "atta-boy" is in order, Congratulations !! Man that thing looks aerodynamic, wondering what kind of HP you think its gonna take to pull it through space at 250Kts, 450 hp ??

Well many questions run through my head, do you need some help coming up with a name for your new Beast ?? like... Sky-slicer 4000 Contango9900 or Hakuna-Matata3000+6 or the DownUnder Wonder

As details become available please keep us posted. Thanks for sharing your invention, oh btw what is the street value for lungs and livers ?? lol.

I give you an A+ for effort. That's a big project to undertake. Looks great !

Hi Kelly /Luke

Thanks again for the kind words guys!
Getting late here in ZA now so I'm off to sleep but before I go

It is a 700HP turbine with 606HP max continues

We think it is too much but time will tell ....(rather too much to start with and then scale things down a bit if necessary)
If I have to take a guess I think the sweet spot will be around 550HP

yeah , we sloped the windscreen to the max!!! if you go a millimetre further down distortion will start to set in so sharper than that you will struggle to get.

At the moment I call her the "PCAD 700TP" basically stands for Performance Composite Aircraft Designs 700HP Turbo Prop. I reasoned if you can get names like TBM700 or PAC 750 then my name should also work.

It is my passion for flying that made me do this and never was it my intention to make more and sell them but as I went on doing my thing people started taking notice of the NUT JOB trying to build his own "Cabin class turbine" and I started getting some good comments. People wanted to know when I will be finished because they are interested in the aircraft and would like to know more.
Having done all the hard work and sparing no expense in getting the best in business here in South Africa for design and manufacturing it probably makes sense to industrialize it if the demand is there.

Anyway, that is that for now.

Cheers
Abrie

PS: no idea what I can get for my organs but hopefully more than what the Rand is worth at the moment!!

Always liked the Raven. Saw development of this a few years ago, the last 10% seems to take 90% longer it seems. Keep at it!

It does resemble the Piper PA33