Canadian aerobatic

[tiggermoth]

sell the 172 and get a single-seat Pitts! It will teach you an awful lot about stick & rudder flying.

Yeah, I am actually looking into selling the 172 right now. Get some other stuff paid off and then see what I can do about getting something a bit "sportier"

Actually, the biggest reason I was looking at citabria/decathlons (more decathlon) is that I have no tailgragger time at all, so I would like to be able to get my feet tuned a bit more before getting into something like a Pitts. Plus, I am one of those lucky guys who has a wife that enjoys flying, (not aerobatics though) so something with an extra seat to take her along on occasion would be a plus. Not totally neccesary though. I took a look at some single hole Pitts' on Barnstormers...pretty attractive!!

[Jerz]

Hey tiggermoth. Next time don't be a stranger and say hello. Yes, Dave is quite a talent, but more importantly, he has the desire, drive, and enthusiasm to pull all the stops and go for it. Only last June we were working on his Sportsman sequence, 3 month later he is flying Intermediate and bringing trophies home. He also got his 250ft airshow waver, including formation. All in one short season. I bet he will be on the next AWAC team.
You are correct about Doug Jardine. He is Canadian living in Cali, and flown for Canada several times, at both Advanced, and Unlimited level.
Hedely is making a good point - trade your spam can for a Pitts. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but it has been done before. Just get some good check out in a two holler . We have a couple low time private pilots who done that recently, and they are doing just fine. And there is more coming. We let some local PPL students fly our little contest in Primary with safety pilots (thanks to generosity of some two seaters owners), and at least two of them are buying S1s. We need more fresh blood in this sport in Canada. And even if you decide not to get too serious about the sport, you will be way better and safer pilot, then guys with thousands of hrs of strait and level driving. 100hrs in a Pitts may even get you your first flying job, if such would be your desire. At least you would demonstrate that you know what stick and rudder is for to your potential employer. It is amazing and scary how many fresh commercial pilots don’t have a clue what to do with those things.

[Hedley]

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[tiggermoth]

Don't spend the $$$$$$$$$ on a two-seat aerobatic aircraft - 99.9% of the time it will be empty! Trust me, wifey rarely enjoys the tumbles

Yeah, she doesn't even like steep turns!! She just likes to fly and enjoy the scenery from above. I just can't afford 2 airplanes, and there is nowhere in my area that rents out aircraft, so that is why I had been looking at 2 seaters.

That being said, I sure agree with what you guys are saying about the single hole Pitts!! There is some advertised for less than $30,000 for a decent S-1S with 180hp. Cheap to buy, wouldn't burn a whole lot more gas than the C-172, and lots of fun!! As a licensed AME, maintenace costs are down a whole lot for me as well. The insurance would probably be the biggest hurdle, and expense with the hours that I have right now. Knowing that there are guys who have done it recently though is great. Plus, I always have liked the look of a Pitts.

Hey tiggermoth. Next time don't be a stranger and say hello

Actually, we tried to get over to where you guys were, but the volunteers working security kind of objected when we walked over towards the hot ramp

By the way Murf...sorry I kind of hijacked your thread Well to get on topic, Murf, you get a Pitts and hook up with Hedley down there, and I will get me a Pitts and hook up with Jerz and the guys out here, and you and me can be on the AWAC team in a few years

[Hedley]

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[Murf]

yeah right! hope to see you in the national team!

[Murf]

hey guys Ive got a little question,

I saw a pitts S-1D on barnstormers.com and I want to know the difference between a S-1S, S-1A, S-1C, S-1D and the S-1T


Thanks a lot

Max

[Hedley]

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[tiggermoth]

S-1D - flat bottom wing, 3 aileron (rare)

Yeah, 3 ailerons would be rare Sorry Hedley, I couldn't resist!!

[Murf]

so the s-1t is the best and more expensive right ?

[looproll]

Damnit! Now I'm going to have to get out there and buy a Pitts...



when winter is nearly over

[cgzro]

so the s-1t is the best and more expensive right ?

Not sure thats correct. Its certainly the most expensive of the 4 cylinder models but it not as light as it could be due to the constant speed prop adding about 50 extra pounds and lots of gyroscopics which make certain 'dead stop' type manoeuvers very tricky to do. For example with a light weight prop you can fly straight up and just fly at 0MPH across a hammerhead or a push or pull humpty but with the metal prop you need to keep a bit of speed so that you can counteract the gyroscopics.

The T certainly is a great plane though .. but I'm pretty sure you can have almost as much fun for 1/2 the price in an experimental S-1S. .. anyway if I had it all to do again, I'd buy an S-1S with 200HP and MT 2 or 3 blade prop....

[Hedley]

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[Murf]

wow its a lot of information...thanks its will help in the seach of my pitts!!

[Hedley]

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[tiggermoth]

A pumped-up parallel valve S-1S with a composite 3-blade prop is quite an airplane with respect to cost/performance ratio

A couple questions for you...purely out of curiosity. Lets say a pumped up IO-360, putting out 210-220hp (fairly realistic number), how much better would a 3-blade MT perform over a 2-blade MT, both constant speed. Would the perfomance difference be worth the extra weight of 3 blades?? Also, Hedley, do you know anything about the Whirlwind props (eg; Rob Holland, Skip Stewart). They also have a 2 blade constant speed aerobatic prop. All I know about them is when Rob was here in 2009, he told me that his Whirlwind pulled harder that almost anything he had flown behind.

For completeness sake I should mention the rare six-cylinder Pitts S-1-11B which was a prototype single seat Pitts developed by Curtiss in the mid 1990's with the ailerons which made it into the S-2C. You will likely never see one, but I should mention it.

I actually got to see Jon Melby perform in his S-1-11B this summer in Dawson Creek, and I gotta say, that is one hell of a Pitts. Of course he has 330hp and a "Claw" on the front end to provide ample motivation Definitely out of my league.

With a good ole' S-1C, you can also upgrade for not a lot of money as you progress as well. I have done some looking around just for fun at Raven wings, as well as Steve Wolf's stuff. Steve has some pretty neet tricks to put on if you have the money to spend. For my bucks right now, I would have to agree that an S-1C would be more than enough, even with an io-320. Don't need much more than that to get a guy started!!! Now to get some bills paid off and the C-172 sold. Need to sell the wife and dad on the single seat idea still though Working on it!!

[Hedley]

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[tiggermoth]

For reasons that I really don't understand, the 4 cyl Lyc has much bigger problems with crankshaft torsional resonances than the 6 cyl Lyc, which is counter-intuitive.

I wonder if it has to do with a counterweighted crankshaft If I remember correctly, most 540's have the floating counterweights on the crank, whereas I don't think the 360's do. Don't quote me on this though as it has been a long time since I have played with any 320's or 360's

I have seen a few pictures of that little MT 3 blade on Jaquie Warda's Pitts and Greg Koontz's Super D, and going by videos, I would say it performs quite well. I was just curious if there is much of a difference between that and the 2 blade, but as you point out, there is more to consider than weight vs. performance.

As far as the fixed pitch goes, it seems like the good ole' Sensenich aluminum props are the most popular, and the cheapest If I can somehow swing it, I am really thinking that an S-1C would be the best starting point for me, either with 150 or 180 horses. I still would like to get a bit of taildragging time in something else first if I can, but like you guys have pointed out, it can be done without.

Thanks Hedley and Jerz for all the tips.

[cgzro]

On a little 4-cyl single seat Pitts, I would look hard at what fixed-pitch props were available, before I spent the $$$ on a heavy constant-speed prop setup. The neighbors might hate you, but it doesn't hurt the 4 cyl Lyc to wind up to 3300 rpm on the downlines.

My main reason for getting a constant speed and hence an S-1T was noise.
I planned and actually do fly right over an airport (Gatineau) which has houses not too far on the south side. The single seat Pitts with fixed pitch props really do make lot of noise on the downlines and pulls so the constant speed S1's are far quieter. Now I still got some noise complaints but nothing like what I would have had with a fixed pitch. Its a fairly important consideration if you fly around people that may not like aerobatics .. which is pretty much 99% of the population .. Fortunately there is now an F86 and a Harvard doing acro at CYND so nobody complains about me anymore

Anyway something to think about. Even with the extra weight the T has far more performance than I will likely ever get used to in my lifetime.

Peter

[Murf]

I was looking to some mods for the pitts s-1...what you thinks is the "must have'' mods ...for all body,wings,engine o-360?

[cgzro]

I was looking to some mods for the pitts s-1...what you thinks is the "must have'' mods ...for all body,wings,engine o-360?

Wings - the curved cabane attach fittings. They are much stiffer and won't bend or let the wing flex fore/aft. They are stock now from Aviat but original S-1S's did not have them.

Fuse - upper cabane bar between front/rear fitting, that helps stiffen up the cabanes so they don't move fore/aft. Lower stab support braces. The original had just wires upper and lower. Break one and your stab could come off. The lower support braces stiffen things up considerably. Tail wheel attach bracket at bottom rudder post triangular gusset to make it stiffer and prevent separation and loss of directional control on runway (real important) .

Engine - there are a number of good B&C accessories like the starter, light weight alternator and an inverted oil system minor modification that improves inverted pressure drop.

Apart from that, don't have much to say. I suppose there are better wing/aileron kits, engine pump up etc. but frankly the above are the safety and convenience things that would matter most to me.

There are perhaps a few more but at the moment those are the ones that stand out to me.

[Jerz]

Here is my 2c as far as modifications. Mind you, I am a monoplane guy, but I have flown most Pitts models, including some highly modified ones. What's more important, I also watched them in competition alot.
To me, stock S1S is great up to Intermediate level. For Advanced or higher it has 3 shortcomings: small size, football shape, and relatively slow roll rate. Size - you can't do much about; shape - there were some attempts at improoving lines ie, shaved belly, squered and extended tail, - not very succesfull in my opinion; roll rate you can improve with different wing, ailerones, or both. Peter and Hedley will pipe in here, but IIRC stock S1S rolls about 180-200deg/sec. Not bad, but about half what you need for Advanced or Unlimited flying. Technically, the roll rate is not a judging criteria, but what happens is , you loose too much altitude on down lines with rolls.
I have watched some very good pilots fly AWAC in stock S1S, and they struggled with energy management. Guys with modified , higher roll rates Pittses were doing just fine. You have to understand, that if you struggling for altitude/energy, quality of your figures suffers badly. You will see an Unlimited guy in an Edge, Sukhoi, or whatever make a mistake, and end up at the bottom of the box, and suddenly he scores 60% on his figures, instead of usual 80+%.
I think it is very cool to show up at a contest in $30k Pitts and beat a guy in his fancy $300k monoplane. We have a couple guys in the West who do that on regular bases and I love to watch them fly. Just make sure you have the roll rate to do that.

[Hedley]

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[Murf]

alright so with a s-1s stock and good skill you can win in sportsman and intermerdiate and with some mods..like engine pumped up and wings and aileron you can be good placed in advanced? but in unlimited pitts can't win battle against monoplane its what I understand? thats really awesome thats a pitts at maybe 25k and add up another 20k of mods can beat 200k plane its really amazing ,curtiss made a beatuigul and a piece of history plane !


Max

[Hedley]

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