Tucson Shootout 2008

Monday morning and we decided to head to DA early to get our engine tached by the DA engineers! Before going to DA we called into HobbyBarn which is world famous pilot Bill Hempel father’s shop. It is a great store and we got lost in it for a good hour and gave the credit card a bit of a hammering! The staff were very friendly and we meet Bill’s mum and the president of the field were the Shootout is held, Mike Cummins, it’s always good to meet these people, makes it handy if/when you might need a favour!

We headed into DA after all that. My dad wanted to check the plane over in the comfort of a workshop rather than at the field, after all it’s a new engine and the most things on the plane got re-bolted on after shipping, so somethings may have worked loose! As it turns out everything was fine! When we had the cowl off, Brian Gilmore, DA’s chief engine builder and field engineer, decided to tach our engine! We ran it up and got 5950rpm on a 30×12 prop with MTW 110 Cans, the exact setup I have used on my 150 all season! Watching over this run up was Dave Johnson and Tony Russo, so we had the 3 best engine experts in the world working on our engine/setup! Dave and Tony both agreed that the MTW cans had been designed around the popular DA150 motor, as of yet MTW haven’t released an exhaust to suit the more powerful DA170. The engineers at KS exhaust have just released a new 95 serious exhaust with new baffles specially for the DA170. We all chatted and agreed that the MTW setup was ok and pulled my lightweight model through the schedule well, but they wreckened the KS system would give me more power and a better midrange as they were 170 exhausts not 150’s, well at least on their test bench. So within an hour, Brian and my dad had the MTWs out and a new set of KS cans installed! Luckily they fitted straight in with any mods to the airframe!

We did a test run again and with the tacho we got readings of, wait for it 6140 rpm, almost 200rpm more than my previous setup, 200rpm you might think isn’t much, but believe me on a 40% model it’s a lot!! DA think this its the best setup available for a 170 motor, I’m the only person running it at the shootout, Dave also noted that I will have a lot of questions about it once people start to catch on! It is better than pipes, the tuned pipes that are being used are designed again for 150cc motors and people are having tuning issues with them, my throttle responce is very linear, without any curve required, I’ve never had that before on my 2cylinder petrols! Increased performance coupled with a 35lbs model means, I’ve got the best chance to overcome the altitude and heat problems that kill your performance! The Extra has lost weight from back home, the engine is 6oz lighter than a 150 and the exhausts are overall just under 3oz lighter!

There aren’t many people get the opportunity to have Dave, Tony and Brian for a whole day working at their engine, so I’m very happy and grateful! If we had to pack up and go home today, the trip would have been worthwhile just for the learning experience we had today! There were so many techniques and technical issues we picked up and can now tweak our other DA’s back home to get the ultimate setup! A big thanks to DA for their time and help!

Whilst we were working at our model, Troy and Steve the Aussies finally tracked their plane down and collected that! They spent the day building the plane and at about 5pm we both headed to TRCC to get a bit of flying in before dark! Tony came with he as he wanted to see how our new 170 setup performed in the air. We fired her up, did a range check (we had everything unbolted so thought it was best to be sure, all checked out fine). Into the air we went, it was fairly windy but I could tell I had even more power, the figure N with a pos snap on the upline, it just sailed through it, unloading on the way up, brutal power! But if you’ve got it you’ll use it!! I did one unlimited known and landed to check things over, all was well. Troy put a few flights on his DA150 powered Comparf Super Xtra, it was going nicely as well. Also at TRCC was Bill Hempel, John Wondra and a few other guys I didn’t know! It was pitch black by 6.30 and we were the last to leave!

So all in all a brilliant day, we learnt so much and had great fun with the Aussies and all the people at DA! Tomorrow our plan is to hit TIMPA the shootout field and we believe the Kiwi’s are in town, so not doubt Frazer Briggs will keep us all on our toes.

Matt

Tags: imac, matthew poots, shootout, tucson

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 3:38 am and is filed under Tucson 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.