Paul Salter's Panther N908XP

[ynkster]

Great build, Paul!! Where do you have your seat set? Good luck on the weather!!

Bill Mosher #46

[psalter]

Bob,

Stall speed is showing right around 51mph True, but that was to be expected as we had tested that on Dan's. And set the max gross weight to meet that LSA requirement.

Max speeds near level flight has been has been in upper 160's low 170's ground speed but, I haven't crunched all the numbers yet to get a definitive number, but that is again similar to Dan's.

We have not done sustained max rate of climb tests yet, but 1500 fpm has been demonstrated pretty easily on mine, Dan's we had seen near 1700fpm with the 3.0l.

As mentioned before, Dan's prototype (as originally tested) and mine are virtually identical with the exception of about 20lbs in weight. Mine is completely production representative, Dan's is about 95% production representative. Also, mine has the Ellison, and Dan has the MA3 carb. Of course, now that we moved the 3.0l to mine and he is testing the 3.3L on his, rate of climb numbers are sure to increase for him.

As to the rating, the instructor and I have been waiting out the weather, we have had low ceilings 700-900 ft and occasional rain/drizzle for the past 2.5 days, and it looks to be more of the same until possibly tomorrow afternoon.

[Lowrider]

What a sharp looking airplane!! Congrats Paul on this significant accomplishment! Now get that tailwheel signoff.

[bob_arthur]

Congratulations Paul!
Sounds like it is coming along nicely!

What are you getting for top speeds and stall speeds?
How about climb rate?

[blueisthenewblack]

Congrats, Paul!! Beautiful looking plane!!! Glad testing is progressing smoothly.

[psalter]

Attached are some pictures from the first 4 flights totaling about 1.5 hrs on my Panther.

It is a Long wing with a 3.0L Corvair, Ellison EFS-3A TBI, GRT Sport 8.4" display, GRT Autopilot Servo's, Trig Transponder (with ADSB Out), and Ilevil AW ADS-B in with backup gyros and pitot system. With the paint the empty weight is about 770 lbs.

Everything is going pretty well so far. Some minor rigging corrections to make it as hands off as possible, and slowly testing all the systems. The automatic data logging function of the GRT helps out immensely for checking airspeed and G-loads. It records 50 parameters every second to a spreadsheet CSV file. And if desired, you can have it record the flight as a Demo, and replay it on your display later.

The engine which was originally in the prototype and has nearly 200 hours on it is running great, and is very smooth with the Sensenich propeller. The Ellison has been providing fuel very well, we have not had to touch any of it's settings with the exception of idle RPM. Dan has had my Panther from nearly 0G to about 4.8G and the engine has just kept running. There is no inverted fuel or oil systems on my aircraft.

Saturday, the autopilot was turned on and operated for the first time. Everything worked well, the plane intercepted a new heading well and maintained altitude using the default GRT settings. I don't have the vertical command software, so it can't intercept a new altitude, only hold it. I believe this is the first time an autopilot has been used in a Panther.

Dan has also been doing some limited aerobatics in it, but as it is still very early in it's testing no spins yet.

Dan has been flying it so far because I currently do not have a tail wheel rating. Hopefully during the time between Christmas and New Years I will be working on my rating. Anyway Dan and Bob Woolley have so much experience in the Panther, and they have both volunteered to fly it and test it for me. Bob will probably make some flights in it shortly. That will mean Bob would of flown 6 of the 10 Panthers currently flying.

I tried to upload some videos, but the MP4 was not allowed, I will have to find some other way for those files.