View Full Version : Falco F8L
Aerobatic Flyer
11th Jan 2004, 22:35
Has anyone flown one of these? Are they as good as their reputation?
Aerohack
12th Jan 2004, 03:58
Check out www.seqair.com. It's the website of Sequoia Aircraft, which markets Falco homebuild kits, but there's heaps of Falco lore on there including independent flight tests of factory-built and kitbuilt examples.
Hersham Boy
12th Jan 2004, 20:03
Dan Dorr - Pilot?
Surely this is a pen-name? :D
I have flown one, once. It was very good, with superb handling and it looks drop dead gorgeous, but it did have some problems.
It was very restricted on weight for aerobatics, not possible to take an instructor up for an aerobatic check out. It is not really intended for heavy aerobatics. The one I tried has no inverted systems, and if it had, it would have probably been too heavy to do anything!
It was fast, with 150k on 160hp, but again weight was a problem with very restricted baggage if you were flying two up, with touring fuel. The avionic fix was also very basic.
These problems may have been related just to the permit a/c I was looking at, but my other research seemed to indicate otherwise.
You are also looking at quite a complex machine with a lot more to maintain and some additional costs.
DubTrub
13th Jan 2004, 08:43
Rod, you are generally correct, other than they are perfectly capable for aerobatic instruction ( unless your instructor was on the [herr-upmh] large side)
They fly like the proverbial mud off a shovel, are a delight to fly, only betterred by competition machines (such as the CAP 10 etc) but at 50% the cost. Oh, I forgot, you need to build one, unless you are very fortunate to get one on the used market.
DT
p.s. The 50th anniversary of the Falco is next year, big party at Oshkosh '05.
I found the W&B for the one I flew. The useful load was 580lb with quite good c of g if you used the 17 g front and 16 g rear tanks to balance. Aerobatics was forbidden at this weight, but this must be a permit restriction, as the C of A machine mentioned above does not suffer from this. Fuel burn at 150k was said to be 7.5 – 8gph. I am 190lb so two up it was quite restrictive.
Rod1