The fuselage looks similar to a conventional tail dragger
aircraft, with large tundra tires, and uses a standard conventional
aircraft elevator style control system.
The airframe will feature aluminum pop rivet together
construction, with all of the tubing pre-cut and pre-drilled for ease of
construction.
The tractor configuration provides increased efficiency
as it is working in clean air, and allows for larger diameter props to be
used. An optional pre-rotator will aid in faster take-offs.
According to Jeron Smith of Raven Redrives the unit will
be use Suzuki/Geo 80 HP 3 cylinder turbo engine.
Raven has just completed the development of the Turbo
conversion for both the three and four cylinder Suzuki/Geo engines. This
gives a power increase of 25% while only adding five founds of weight.
Reliability is not affected with the addition of the turbo as the only time
it is used is during take-off and climb out. Once flying very little boost
is used. In field testing has also shown that the fuel burn with the turbo
installed is actually less than a stock engine.
For the over 200 owners of Raven Redrive units in the
field the turbo unit is a bolt on upgrade with no change in wiring
harness, computer, etc. needed.
These packages are equivalent in horsepower to the Rotax
912, 80 horsepower engine and Rotax 914, 115 horsepower engine.
Raven offers these conversions in kit form where the
customer can pick up his own engine for a recycling yard, or as ready to
fly units. Raven also offers firewall forward packages for a number of
popular aircraft designs, including the Rans S6, Zenair 601, Zenair 701,
and will work closely with a customer on a mount for mounts that they have
not done yet.
Cost on most completed
conversions is approximately half that of a Rotax 912.
For more information contact: |
