The cost of owning a VP1?

[TheGorrilla]

Wouldn't need repairing if I didn't take you up in it!!!

[tiggermoth]

Stiknruda - I very much enjoyed your description of your adventure of the VP1 ! (Surely, this is Jeremy Clarkson?)

I've only seen a VP1 in a hangar - and my wife said "I'm not going up in THAT!" - I replied well no, unless you're going piggy-back.

The VeeDub engine gives me mixed feelings about the craft. I was into VW Beetles some twelve years ago. At my 'peak' I owned four and a half beetles (Two to drive, one was bought for spares, one was a 'fix it one day' and the half was a half share).

I was in a VW Beetle club, and we met up very regulariy. We had amazing fun. We swapped engines some weekends if we were going somewhere (I had a race-spec engine until it blew) - 12 minutes to swap engines was our fastest.. Anyhow, in our club we saw different reliabilty problems between us. Contact breakers - ok, replace with electronic ones. Carb icing (yes - at sea level!) - fit electic-traced blankets. Spark plug fouling. Tuned exhausts causing valve burning. Loss of oil (over-fill the oil and it siphons out to no oil). We all had a lot of fun, and so did the AA and RAC.

We learnt a lot about engines and Beetles in general, and loved the little things.... I had to give up my last Beetle when my boss really thought that the excuse "Sorry, my car broke down" was a blatant lie - I then unfortunatley had to give in and get a reliable car with as much soul as a glass ashtray.

SO that's why I had mixed feelings when I saw a VP1 in the hangar. I really wanted to go over and hug the engine, but my maker was hugging me back.

T.

As an aside - PS. Owing a VW Beetle saves you a fortune in parking. Just park it where you like, put on the hazard lights (if it was manufactured after about 1962 or so) lock the car, and lift the boot lid (where the engine is). Go shopping. Come back, drop the boot lid, turn off the hazards and drive off (or get a push and drive off)...

[shortstripper]

Tiggermoth,

You do the Veedub engine a grave injustice! It is a bl@@dy marvelous little engine and very reliable. It's biggest problem is people's over estimation of how much power it can put out. Even the biggest VW aircooled engine is only good for about 45hp of sustained power You can increase capacity, but any extra power should be regarded as extra take off and climb power only. If you bear this in mind and choose to use the VW in a suitable aircraft, you'll have no problem. The reason is simply one of cooling The finned area of the cylinders (and more importantly) the heads is the same for a 2050cc as it is for a 1600, which in turn is little more than the original 1200! Unless you go for the watercooled heads then it's just a matter of physics that the engine WILL NOT be able to cool itself as power is increased. Therefore you find that you'll have to throttle back and back or risk overheating the heads and bu@@ering the valves They do like their valves adjusting regularly (between 30-50 hours) but it's a 20 minute job so no real problem. Carb ice is really only a problem with bottom slung carbs or poorly designed hot air systems. I've had lot worse troubles with carb ice in Continental's than VW's

In an aircraft such as a Jodel D9, Turb or my T31, the demand on power is low and the VW is well matched and proven to be reliable. The VP1 and worse the VP2 are very draggy so demand for power is high so the VW is at a disadvantage straight away. The VP1 should be able to fly happily on 45hp and does, but a little extra for take off is ideal. For that reason an 1834 is much better in a VP1 than a 1600, which is really underpowered for such a draggy airframe. The VW has also proven ok...ish in a few two seaters, such as the Falke and Jodel D18, but again these airframes are a bit more slick and usually have well designed pressure cowls.

The VW in my Slingsby T31m is the same engine that powered my VP2, but you'd think it was a totally different engine! In the VP2 it would get you off the ground ok, but as you climbed past 500 you could visibly see the CHT rising, by 1500 you were nearing the redline and had to ease off and cruise climb. On anything but the coldest days, 3000 feet was the highest you could go as any more power applied would cause the temps to climb quicker than the aircraft! In the T31 I get well in excess of 500fpm, haven't yet topped out (only been up to 5000' so far though) and the temperatures never seem to rise over the middle range.

To be fair, my old VP2 had a terribly baffled pressure cowl and it did fly safely and surprisingly quickly if you didn't push it. A bit like a speedboat, you could get it on "the step" with a shallow dive to 75knots and then it would stay there, but if you just tried in level flight the best you could accelerate it to was 70. A VP1 with a well baffled 1834 should be a good match and I'd have no worries about the reliability of the VW in it.

SS

[Sedbergh]

The VP1 is more draggy than a T31???

'kin 'ell

[Rod1]

I had one in a Nipper (1834cc). crank failed after 28 hours on a new engine at a rather inconvenient moment. Never really trusted them since, but they still represent the least cost option if you want to fly.

Rod1

[airborne_artist]

Does anyone this side of the pond have experience with Corvair engines? 100hp (120 in some cases) is readily available from a six-cylinder boxer.

[shortstripper]

Very much so Sedburg!
I think it's something to do with the struts being above the wing that spoils lift much more than struts under the wing? I'm sure somebody with a bit more technical aerodynamics experience could explain it. The poor old T31 is very draggy for a glider, but not to bad for a powered aircraft of its vintage. It's no worse than say a Luton Minor when converted, and with that big wing the loading is light so the engine doesn't need huge amounts of power to keep it airbourne
SS

[scub180]

Super Cub 180

Volksplane VP1 or VP2 may not be the best looking but are definitely one of the cheapest to fly. I’m flying a VP2, (...and not only this), powered by a C85...and with 1 person is climbing 1200 ft/min, 2 persons 600 ft/min operate as said before on a 300 m grass strip and I’m going without any problem at 8000 ft in no time. It may be ugly but is not bad at all as a time builder, and as a bush plane.

SCub180

[Captain Lockheed]

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.

[Daifly]

15 years since I last saw a VP1 and I still feel sick at the thought....

A guy, I think he'll remain nameless, turned up and started flying the Warrior at the airfield where I used to work when I was a young oik. Gradually he started saying how he wanted to go back to PFA and tailwheel flying and, one rather shocking day, turns up with a trailer on which is a bright orange coffin with a fin and a couple of slabs of white cloth that resemble bedframes.

Over the course of the next six months he spent every waking moment doing something or other to this thing, which gradually began to resemble something that a 3-year old aircraft designer might draw.

I'm not sure why, but with hindsight the more time someone spends simply tinkering with something you just know it's going to end in disaster. So, one sunny day comes along with no wind (which from the previous posts isn't necessarily helpful!) and the airfield is packed for the first flight of "that f*cking deathtrap" as she was lovingly known. The fire crew, of which I was one, were all sitting around re-reading our course notes on firefighting and first aid, I'm sure that we all knew what was coming next.

So, G-"TFDT" taxis out with a tall man wearing an RAF bonedome on it (not in it) and lines up for departure. I can recall the exact question that was asked as the throttle advanced "When did he last fly a taildragger?".

From that point on, it was just a matter of time really. He dragged it off the ground in a Warrior-stylee, invisible-nosewheel first and was, from then on, sitting on the back of a very large and unforgiving drag curve. I suppose it was a combination of the sunshine and the large white ailerons that first gave us a hint something wasn't right - there was rather too many glints of light coming off them, as if he was trying to generate some forward motion by wafting the ailerons around - then, almost as quickly as it started, from about 150 feet it slowly rolled to the right, the nose dropped and it completed a couple of slow spins on its unrecovered descent into the field to the north of the runway.

By this time we were all already sprinting to the fire engine and the crash alarm was blaring out across the airfield. I admit, at this point, I chickened out. Fifteen firemen all sprinting to the two seats of the Range Rover weren't going to go, so I stopped and called the fire brigade and the ambulance instead. A decision which actually led to a shouting match with the airport MD who said that we shouldn't call them until we were sure there was a fire and an injury - something I'm glad to say the rest of the logical world didn't subscribe to and I'm pleased he's no longer running airfields! The successful sprinters were confronted by a VP1 stationary in the field, the right way up, wheels up through the wings and all of the various wires which held it together "twanged". On the cockpit was a slumped figure which a few moments before had been flapping around trying to find lift.

Then he moved. I think the response the firemen gave was "f*cking hell, he's not dead" - as they pulled up, one almightly lucky f*cker was starting to undo his straps and clamber out of his new project for the next 12 months.

To this day I can still visualise every single second of that morning. It is the slowest motion slow motion I have ever seen in my life and what probably lasted 30 seconds takes about an hour to play in my head. To my mind, there's no way he should have walked away from that - a last minute stick forward - stall break, stick back - "Sh*t! Ground!" moment saved him - combined with the low speed and soft Welsh earth cushioning it. I am not even sure if the AAIB got to hear of it...

I'm sure the report would have recommended:

1. Do do some recurrency on taildraggers.
2. Don't keep polishing the bloody thing, you're stacking up the odds in the "hindsight, always going to happen" stakes.
3. Just.
4. Don't.

I'm not sure whether it's fair to single out the VP1 as maybe any low powered taildragger would have resulted in the same ending, but it just seemed that the VP1 was just too risky. If you're going to do it, good luck, but you must be off your bloody rocker.

[Zulu Alpha]

Every VP1 is different.
The one that Stik talks so lovingly about was originally part owned by a 18 stoner.
He started flying it when he was 12 stone and by the time he reached 16 stone the VP1 would only support him or fuel in the tank, not both.
The best weight for the aircraft was less than 12 stone and one of the lighter owners used to regularly fly it across country from Suffolk to the PFA rally every year.

So its worth finding out what fuel and pilot it will carry and still climb reasonably.

Carb icing is a nightmare. ground run it with the cowls off and you will see frost forming in seconds on the inlet manifold, its worse with the throttles at idle so use carb heat on the ground but not for takeoff!!

Owned wisely they are a lot of fun and owners are very loyal to them, but they are less forgiving than a PA28.

Read all about one here
http://www.pprune.org/private-flying...-sunset-2.html

ZA.

[Captain Lockheed]

Response to Daifly's posting, plus a bit more information.

It's an interesting paradox that an aeroplane so often described as a "deathtrap" seems to actually kill or injure less of it's pilots than many of the more "socially acceptable" aeroplanes.

When evaluating the safety record of this type it is only fair to take into account the fact that it is likely to be operated by the sort of low hours, impecunious pilots, who despite those disadvantages, still have the affrontery to try and join in this rich mans sport. Add to the previous factors the neccesity that the novice VP pilot has to fly right from the start unsupervised, and of course the aeroplane will generate more incidents than your average club aeroplane.

But that isn't the fault of the design.

In the rather sad story above, our man dropped it from 150 feet, and still survived!

I felt after qualifying as a PPL, that all I'd really achieved was a licence to continue learning, but without supervision. Since funds were tight, and I didn't feel it fair to join a group until I had obtained a level of competence that I was happy with, I chose to go the sole owner operator route in a small aeroplane. Of all the affordable aeroplanes I could find, the VP stood out head and shoulders as the most survivable, if I should make a gross flying error intose first few hundred hours which we all know, are the most risky..

I can't really see how Daifly's little story in anyway indicates a flaw in the aeroplane, it seems as with the events described in my posting, the pilot simply messed up the flying. I will admit I did take the time to get a tail wheel endorsement, join the VP group, and learn from others before I strapped on my little aeroplane. And it flew really nicely within it's limitations. Not scary at all. But there again, I knew that as soon as one gets a bit of air betwixt VP and runway, to lower the nose slightly and pick up a bit of margin with the speed before soaring away into the wide blue yonder. I also knew that since this was a very different proposition to the aeroplanes I'd been training in, I ought to go get some decent altitude, before exploring the flight envelope.

Sure, if I had more money, I'd have bought myself a T67 or a Bulldog, but at the price point, I couldn't find anything safer. Still haven't.

Finally, as for the "designed by a three year old" comments, I'd like to educate the reader a little. This aeroplane was designed by an professional commercial aeronautical engineer, and the boxy shape is the result of him trying to make the construction as easy as possible for the amateur homebuilder, rather than incorporating those lovely compound curves which look so nice but require more time and skill to produce. The clue is in the given name; "volksplane"..

Here's a link for those who would like to know a little more.
Evans VP-1 Volksplane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When I meet someone with a negative opinion of the aeroplane, so far it always turns out to be someone who hasn't actually flown one.. It's been my experience that when a VP owner sells his or her VP, it's because they want the extra seat, and/or the comfort of an enclosed cockpit, I have yet to hear an ex-owner say that it felt dangerous, or was unpleasant to fly.

To finish on a helpful note, for some reason which I don't profess to understand, the VW engine seems much more likely to ice up if the carb is mounted on top of the motor with the short inlet pipes rather than if, like mine, it is mounted underneath the engine with the long inlet pipes. My aeroplane's engine configuration requires careful priming, but definitely is less prone to freezing up than either of the other 2 VP's that I have been involved with.

Safe flying,
Steve C.

[hatzflyer]

I had one.Great fun .Flew much better than it looked!(beegee)
"The Plank" (well known red one) used to regularly go continental from Andrewsfield.
I believe the prototype did 32 consecutive loops.
As with any of the lower powered aircraft ( or I suppose ANY a/c) they are only as good as the engine installation but a good one will give excellent service and maximum bang for the buck.

[shortstripper]

I wrote a flight review for my old VP2 (see http://www.wingsforum.com/download.php?id=16 )

It was fun and easy to fly once the "correct" technique was adopted. That said, my Slingsby was 10X nicer to fly and just as much fun

SS

[Nipper2]

Based on the experience of the man who had one (briefly - now converted to kindling) at the strip I fly from, make sure you have a tighter than average curvature of the earth at any location you may wish to fly your VP from. They don't so much climb as fly along straight as the earth gently falls away under them.....

[stiknruda]

If all I had available to me was a VP1 - then yes I would fly it. Hell, I 'd fly the box it came in!

[VP8]

"here are some good VP1's about. I can think of one - G-BAPP which even had a bubble canopy. Very swish."

BAPP is on flea bay at the moment

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Evans-VP1_W0QQitemZ330314155465QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CPV_Aviation_ SM?hash=item330314155465&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3 A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

VEEPS

[Zulu Alpha]

BAPP is on flea bay at the moment

That can't be a real VP1, its got a hard top. Its cheating to have a canopy!!!

[BRL]

Stik', whatever happened to the one that Ed used to own?

[Zulu Alpha]

Its still registered in Eds name, but I know its not his any more.

ZA