Aaron Brook at Advanced Aviation in Bend
http://advancedaviationinc.com/

Very impressive, Dave.

Congrats!

Jim

Working at the build shop. Instead of big, obvious tasks like closing the wings we're now in the stage of little jobs whose purpose will become clear later. The manual says add a layup here, drill a hole there, make a fuel or hydraulic line that looks like this, etc. Some of this stuff I'd be pretty nervous about if I didn't have guys here who've done this before and know how everything fits together.

I'm digging this

Living the dream......

Wow, definitely following this thread! Something I've always wanted to do was a builder assisted program! Love the carbon fiber everywhere! Please keep us updated with lots of pics!

This is so cool to follow. Thanks...

If there was only an easier way to build with CF.

Some Biomed engineer needs to figure out how to get an organic structure similar to bird bones to grow into the shape of an airplane!

I got my IR behind a G1000 with the GFC700. My current plane has the original G3X (non-touch) with a TruTrak GX Pilot 2-axis autopilot with autotrim and a GTN650. This setup does everything the G1000/GFC700 can do (albeit with a bit more button pushing) with 2 exceptions: no FD without the A/P on and FLC. If I were to add a Garmin GMC 307 A/P controller then I would have the FD and FLC plus the addition of a LVL mode button which automatically recovers from steep or unusual attitudes.

A lot of time has gone into going back and forth iterating on a paint job. I think we've looked at internet pictures of every Evo in the world, multiple times, noting what we liked and didn't. Lots of little things to learn. I didn't know a PT6 right exhaust is higher than the left, which means a symmetrical paint job won't match.

While some builders fly in primer, then take everything apart again to paint, my shop prefers to paint while it's still apart. Requires care not to scratch the paint during build but saves taking it apart again. But it also means we'd like to get painting now, 6 weeks into the build. Homebuilders often spend more than a year deciding on a paint scheme! This is building on internet time.

They're working on 3D-printing CF. But I wonder how we'll meet the 51% rule when all we do is push "Start"!

51% of the TASKS.
If the start button is the only task, you can claim 100%

Great thread Dave, I enjoy reading the reasons for your choices. Thanks for the link to Austin Meyer's experiences which were also very interesting.

I'm interested in your choice of the turbine over the piston. I understand all except for your desire to be in the flight-levels. More speed is better if all things are equal and even when the inequality isn't too great. Higher altitude allows more speed and it can get above the weather, but I don't see needing higher altitude as a reason for a turbine. Higher altitudes make loss of pressurization more serious.

The piston Evolution can get as high as the turbine if needed for weather or if there's a screaming tailwind up high. The improved efficiency down low might make staying low going into the wind practicable when it isn't in a turbine.

Again, I see that the reliability of the turbine is known and efficiency doesn't necessarily translate into cheaper fuel costs. Availability of fuel is also an issue that mostly favors turbines over the piston.

Ashley

Cost aside for the moment, it seems pretty clear to me that the turbine is the better airplane for almost anyone's mission. Faster, climbs faster, shorter takeoff and landing, etc. I suppose if you really needed or wanted to do nonstop legs between 1400-1600 nm (6-8 hours) the piston's range would be an advantage but I never have. Pilots with way more experience than me, whose opinions I respect, who've flown both, like Doug R, are unanimous: The choice is clear, cost aside.That's 'cuz you live in Southern California.

The point of higher altitude is to go over weather rather than through it. For quite a while now I've been shadowing my trip planning, asking how I would do this trip differently with a different airplane and what would that airplane have to do to make this trip significantly easier. The key desire for me that appeared from this shadow-planning exercise is rate of climb. In theory, my current TN36 could top almost all the weather I see in my planning but in practice it has to be a pretty long trip to make that practical. It just takes too long, time and distance, to get up there. A fast enough climb would be a game changer. The piston Evo won't do it; with 50 more horses but also more weight than the TN36 it'll climb somewhat better but not hugely so, especially since cruise climbing to keep CHTs down appears in every flight report of the piston Evo, the cooling is clearly still a limitation. But the turbine, with two-and-a-half times the horsepower -- yeah, that oughta do it.Actually, I don't think that's true. A turbine certainly can be flown low, look at Caravans and crop dusters. It just burns more fuel. But so what? I go low now sometimes for weather or winds but only for a couple of hundred miles, I'm not going to put up with that for hours. If it's a long trip, I'll take the headwind for smooth air now, a turbine won't change that.

Since I started shadow planning I've done several "I Follow Roads" flights under weather. In each case, flying over instead of under would have been the better option with more airplane but if it weren't, even with a fuel-sucking turbine I'd still have been able and willing to do the flight just as I did. The extra fuel burn won't kill me on a short flight and any flight long enough that it would matter I won't fly low in any case.

Again, that's all cost aside. That leaves only whether the turbine is enough better to be worth the extra cost. I'll spare you the number crunching but for me, the answer was yes. As someone once said, if you're only going to build one airplane in your life, make it a good one. YMMV, YOLO, and all that.

Thanks very much for a full and cogent answer. I'll come back to it if I ever decide to build.

Ashley