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Avid Catalina take off performance


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Posted

Here a little video showcasing the Catalina performance. The runway is 3600ft long and the catalina takes about 150ft. At the end of the runway I am at about 1200ft altitude when taking off at the half runway mark (1800 ft distance travelled).....do you think this is too much fun?

 

 

avid_takeoff.mp4

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Posted

That's awesome! Are you 912 powered? How do you think mine will do on a 582? A lot less engine weight, but a lot less HP. Haven't flown mine or any other Catalina yet.

I should be able to start on my Catalina when I get back from Europe. It shouldn't take too long to get it ready for flight.

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Posted

That's awesome! Are you 912 powered? How do you think mine will do on a 582? A lot less engine weight, but a lot less HP. Haven't flown mine or any other Catalina yet.

I should be able to start on my Catalina when I get back from Europe. It shouldn't take too long to get it ready for flight.

I started with a rotax 912 ul 80Hp and now I have upgraded my engine to to the 912 uls specs + special camshaft = 110Hp 912.

I really believe that performance comes with keeping it light. If your 582 catalina is lighter than my 912 catalina (750 Lbs empty) you can surely match my performance. The only thing I believe is hard to to, is increase speed.....I get my 90Mph cruise speed at 5200rpm (~90Hp / 79%) . When I go lower @ 4900rpm (59Hp) it only drops to 83Mph and full bore is about 100Mph max.....to resume, a lot more HP does not give much more speed......but it does get off the ground/water in a hurry and climbs great.

I found there are a few things you can do to make it lighter:

remove the water rudder, replace steel tailwheel spring with fibreglass, install lightweight battery, remove main tire tubes to run tubeless, Install lightweight tailwheel with air in the tire, replace all old mechanical instruments (Alt, Vsi, Vhf, compass, ELT,  etc...) with new lightweight solid state electric instruments, install plastic screws to hold rear windows (lighter and safer as the original steel wood screws can come loose and go through prop. Also allows you to break out rear window if upside down in water).

If you're crazy enough ( I am getting there) you can install some titanium screws in some locations, choose lighter nuts (all steel stop nuts vs nylocks) and on and on it does.

 

Hope that helps

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Posted

VERY COOL!   I am so sorry I sold my Catalina Kit ... one of my biggest regrets.  : (

GREAT video, thanks for sharing, keep them coming.  Water take off and landings, land operations, in cockpit video while flying etc.  : )  

 

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Posted (edited)

That is encouraging. I cant wait to get to work on mine. It does have steam gages but otherwise doesn't look like too much extra weight was added in the build. The builder told me 600 lb. I don't believe it and have not weighed it yet. 

My intent is to do as little as possible to get if flying first, unlike other projects where I dive in to make "improvements" before I even try the thing out in the first place :-)

I end up with a good result usually, but it is a lot more time consuming before I can enjoy. This time I intend to get it working ASAP and tinker slowly away at optimizing.

Oh...and 75 MPH will be fine with me. I bought this to be a TOY only. Just for pure local fun.

Edited by ChrisBolkan

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