Evans Volksplane, my comedy of errors.
I bought a Volksplane, and it's so far proved to be the most costly flying I have ever done. I made the mistake of not knowing anything about engines, and mine turned out to be in need of overhaul. The trouble with VW conversions is that each one is unique in some way, and that complicates the repair process enormously. Yes it's a VW engine, and they are "dead simple" to fix, but when it's YOUR neck on the line suddenly all those cheap bodges that work so well with the cars, do not really apply.
Here's what very few people know, and up till now has been kept very secret. Your VW heads need to be serviced every 120 hours. Your jugs will be good for about 300 hours. Your crank end float will be out of tolerance in around 800 hours 1000 is the best I have ever had reported to me..
I have had a few people tell me these figures aren't so, but a swift perusal of mine and a few other engine logs, plus polling the yahoo Volksplane group (Most excellent on occasion) has given me the confidence to make this public assertion.
Since I only fitted in 6 or so hours before I discovered that my crank end float was WAY out of tolerance, taking into account the hangar costs whilst I was getting a crash course in vw aero engines, and purchase cost of the original aeroplane I believe I could have got in 6 hours of JP or DC3 time...
It wouldn't have been so much fun though. (well maybe the jet time would have, in a different way.)
My volksplane, unlike the other one someone mentioned, used to climb at around 500FPM, (I am only about 10.5st) It was absolutely a joy to fly even for a klutz like me, and I found the few take offs and landings I managed remarkably easy, and "safe" feeling except for one.. It definitely liked grass, and I liked the extra retardation that grass gives.
Of course, when I bought my VP, the club where I got my PPL nagged me to bring it along (so as they could laugh I expect). They got their laugh all right. Now, when you land a VP, old hands will tell you that the process is a lot smoother and easier if you keep a trickle of power on, until the wheels are just about to kiss the ground. I was doing this, and my landings were proving really sweet. However, as I found myself nicely set up a few feet off the grass passing the numbers arriving at Wellesbourne, I reverted to flying the robin I'd trained in, and pulled off the power completely. My lovely Volksplane instantly took on the gliding ability of a breezeblock and down I went, quite steeply toward the runway. All I had time to do was crush my gonads with the stick in a largely successfull attempt to convert the incipient crash into a landing. There was a Bounce, which for some reason contained an element of turning towards the plowed field on the left (I've started perspiring as I recount this...) and on my second arrival I must have arrived with a bit of rudder left on from my attempt to avoid the field, for on the third arrival I found myself heading towards the tarmac.. Fortunately my waving my arms and legs whilst holding on to the stick I was able to ensure that my fourth arrival was my final one, and pretty much where it should be. That I did not damage the aeroplane has to be a testament to the controllability of a VP.
One approach, four arrivals, now that IS value for money aviating...
I also did some stalls in my VP, and noted two things. On my first stall it dropped the left wing rather quickly, and I lost a fair bit of height recovering it to straight and level. On my second stall I was able to drop it nice and straight by paying greater attention to the rudder, but on the way down I did notice a few small brown things about the size of houseflies flying up past my face and into the airstream. It took me a moment or two to realise that these were not flies, it were dirt off the floor...
My VP felt really responsive to the controls, in a way you can only dream of in a cessna, and I genuinely felt safer and more comfortable flying this aeroplane.
Yes there are a lot of VW engine out reports, but since there is no generally agreed maintainance schedule, and some people seem to have a REALLY optimistic outlook when it comes to these things, It's no so surprising. Also, the low purchase price appeals to people like me, who probably are not particularly high achievers, which might mean we start the learning process with a lower level of general aptitude than the average pilot.
I did also manage to fit in a precautionary landing during my six hours, when a navigational error on my part coincided with a rapid change in the weather. I found myself confronted with a rapidly approaching rain system just as I was trying to sort out where I was, (I knew I was within 10 NM of the airfield, on the return leg but the ground features weren't matching what they should be on the map!) and rather than have my course dictated for me by the approaching weather, I decided to first look for a landing place, then resume trying to make the map match the ground whilst the weather sorted itself out. The landing actually went very well, the VP is easy to put exactly where you want it (I may have mentioned before) and it was nice of someone to put their private strip exactly where I needed one..
The point of this rather rambling posting, is that the VP in my hands has proved to be neither cheap, nor dangerous. All my problems have been caused by shortcomings on my part, but like most VP pilots I have lived to learn the lessons. I selected this aeroplane precisely because of all the low cost "Class A" aircraft I looked at, this one seems most forgiving of the low experience pilot. Yes a lot of them have incidents, but they most often do not result in fatalities, which is quite different to, say, a Taylor monoplane or a KR2.. And of course, whilst people may like to rib you about it's boxiness, and plank like wing profile, when they go flying they will be burning consderably more than 2 GPH, whilst wallowing about inside a tin can, cut off from half of the flying experience.
Hope this is helpful, and a little entertaining. If you want more information, I suggest you ask the Yahoo VP group, they are a friendly bunch on the whole, and I also will be glad to answer any questions you may have about VP's if I can. Cheers. Steve C.