The mini-twin was doomed to failure because, ironically, the aircraft was too expensive to operate profitably. It was economical as a multi-engine trainer, but that is where the Lancer’s advantage ended. A flight school cannot afford to buy a twin solely for training. The aircraft also needs to help pay its way as a rental or charter airplane. But no one in their right mind would rent or charter a Lancer when a Cessna 152 carries the same load at the same speed and flies as far in more comfort for half the operating cost.
The Lancer is a highly modified version of Champion’s Tri-Champ, an outgrowth of the pre-war Aeronca 7AC Champion and forerunner of the Citabria. It retained tandem seating, a 2-place cabin, and the characteristic swayback fuselage of the original Aeronca “Champ.” To this was added enlarged control surfaces and stabilizers, a streamlined nose section, and a beefed-up wing to which was attached a pair of 100-hp, Continental 0-200-A engines, the same dependable powerplant found in the Cessna 150. A trim tab for the rudder and mechanically operated flaps also were added.
When you first approach a Lancer, you get the impression that this homely-looking aircraft is a homebuilt, that it really could not or should not be a production airplane. Everything about the Lancer seems an afterthought.
The preflight requires nothing unusual except having to drain 6 fuel drains and determine that the numerous inspection plates are in place. Each engine has large augmenter exhaust systems that birds find ideal for nesting.
Each wing contains a 26-gallon fuel tank. The fuel caps can be checked for security by a tall man reaching up and over the leading edge of the wing, but looking inside the tanks requires a ladder. Although the engines are mounted relatively high off the ground, the oil can be checked without a ladder through access doors on the starboard sides of the nacelles.
Entry to the cabin is made a la Citabria by grabbing something sturdy and hauling yourself in. Once seated, you become a bit disoriented. You feel as though you are in a single-engine “Champ,” but the plethora of knobs, controls and instruments surrounding you give the impression that you are in a Douglas DC-6. Hanging from the left side of the ceiling is a pair of throttles and mixture controls for each pilot and a single pair of carburetor heat controls to be used by both. The ceiling-mounted controls take advantage of the short linkage to the engines and using them gives the feeling of being in a multi-engine seaplane, which usually has similarly mounted ceiling controls.
A pair of elevator and rudder trim-tab controls is next to each seat on the left sidewall of the cockpit, the same locations normally occupied by the front and rear throttles of a single-engine “Champ” or Citabria. Unfortunately, the location of these trim controls can easily be mistaken for throttles. It is alarming to visualize how a new Lancer pilot might execute a missed approach by reacting to single-engine habit and shoving forward on the trim controls instead of raising his hand to operate the ceiling-mounted throttles.
The Lancer would respond, not surprisingly, with a sudden dive to the right caused by the rapid application of nose-down and right-rudder trim.
The front cockpit has a wheel control, presumably to give the multi-engine student the feeling that he is in a “real” twin. A joystick is provided for the rear pilot. The mock gear-up and -down switch on the front instrument panel helps the student to develop habits needed in more complex twins that really do have retractable landing gear.
The heel-operated brakes are reminders of the Lancer’s heritage, the Aeronca “Champ.” Anyone who has ever flown the “Airknocker” has a dispassion for these medieval pedals, and the Lancer pilot finds them no less difficult to operate. One improvement, though, is that the brakes are hydraulic, not mechanical. Unfortunately, the instructor in the rear does not have any brakes at all. He must ensure that his student has coordinated heels with which to operate the front brakes before getting under way.
The single, 4-position flap handle is operated like a Volkswagen parking brake and is on the floor ahead and to the left of the front seat.
A maze of instruments, switches and controls literally surrounds the pilot, and there is no apparent method to the madness of whoever designed the cockpit layout. While flying the Lancer, a pilot must crane his neck and stretch his arms in almost every direction. For example, the magneto switches are above, left, and behind his pilot’s head. The mixture controls are easier to reach but can be mistaken for carburetor-heat controls. A wrong move and it gets awfully quiet. Crane your head up and right to see the ammeters and then do a 180-degree swivel to see a fuel gauge.
The cockpit does have some niceties, however. The circuit breaker pertaining to each electrical device is located adjacent to the switch that controls that device. The circuit breakers are not grouped together and hidden in a remote corner to improve the decor of the instrument panel.
Instructors in most other tandem-seat aircraft have to stretch their necks to look over the student’s shoulder for a peek at the instruments on the main panel. Not so with the Lancer. A small console in the ceiling above the student’s head contains a grouping of three instruments solely for the instructor’s convenience: an altimeter, airspeed indicator, and a blank space to install whatever other instrument the owner would like to make available to the instructor.
Photo courtesy 1000aircraftphotos.com
Loading the Lancer presents no particular problems as long as you do not load it very much. The aircraft has a useful load of 660 pounds. Deducting 335 pounds for niceties such as fuel and oil leaves 325 pounds for both pilots and baggage (behind the rear seat).
Cockpit visibility is not bad; it is miserable. The instructor in the rear hole will want a collision-warning device installed in the overhead console, and the student gets an instant case of tunnel vision created by the engines projecting so far forward. It is a safe bet that whoever designed the Lancer used to design horse blinders. The sloping nose section, however, does provide excellent forward visibility for the student.
Preconceived notions begin to disappear when you begin to taxi. The engines sound deceptively powerful, throaty. The aircraft feels big and heavy. Nosewheel steering is only moderately effective after the almost-Herculean effort it takes to apply full rudder travel while taxiing. A little differential power makes steering easier, especially when rounding tight comers.
One joy that comes from flying the Lancer is observing the startled faces of those who watch you taxi by. Chances are they have never seen one before, and it is amusing to watch them scratch their heads in bewilderment. It is not so much fun, however, when an old pro waves at you with his Rosary beads.
The runup is conventional: Check the magnetos at 1,800 rpm; rudder and elevator trim—neutral; fuel pumps—on; flaps to the first notch (8 degrees); pilot courage “in the green.”
As soon as the takeoff roll begins a new Lancer pilot is ready to abort and head for the barn for a pair of noise-canceling headsets. The Lancer is loud. It does accelerate well, though, and is ready to fly at 73 mph after a 700-foot roll.
Once airborne, the Lancer continues to feel and fly like a heavy airplane, and there is an initial tendency to overcontrol laterally. This apparent instability disappears once you get used to the sensitivity of the large ailerons. And these ailerons demand substantial use of rudder to prevent slipping all over the sky. The Lancer is a stick-and-rudder airplane and anyone lacking in seat-of-the-pants coordination must have some basic flying skills before this aircraft can be flown smoothly.
The Lancer achieves its best rate-of-climb (about 600 fpm) at 75 mph with flaps up and the throttles fully forward. During one of my test flights in the Lancer, I attempted to coax the aircraft to 10,000 feet but gave up after spending almost 17 minutes trying to climb much above 9,000 feet.
During a full-power climb, propeller synchronization is perfect. But once power is reduced to cruise, you are reminded that the Lancer has fixed-pitch propellers. Every change in bank or pitch resul
ts in an “out-of-sync” condition. An instructor may wish for constant-speed propellers on this twin, but these are good lessons for the multi-engine student.
In straight-and-level flight, the Lancer does on two engines what the Cessna 150 does on one. At 5,000 feet and an ambient temperature of 20 degrees C, indicated airspeed is 108 mph and true airspeed is 119 mph. This Mach 0.18 flight results from using 65-percent power. Total fuel consumption at this power setting is 10 gallons per hour. Pushing the throttles to the firewall increases fuel flow but does little to improve forward speed, a result of the Lancer’s high-drag profile.
The Lancer has the same docile and forgiving stall characteristics as its single-engine counterpart, the “Champ.” It is difficult not to feel an impending stall, and recovery requires only the slightest release of back pressure. There is no tendency to drop a wing one way or the other. P-factor produced by the non-critical right engine, however, does produce a slight left yaw during power-on stalls.
After flying the Lancer for a few hours, I had the impression that the flaps had the same function as the landing gear switch, that they did not do anything. Although the flaps do not reduce stall speed, they do steepen the descent profile.
Photo courtesy 1000aircraftphotos.com
It is difficult to speak of the Lancer’s single-engine performance with a straight face because the Lancer does not have single-engine performance. According to the flight manual, the Lancer descends 250 fpm (at sea level) with one engine shut down and the other developing maximum power at maximum-allowable gross weight.
The single-engine performance improves slightly at lighter weights, but I cannot conceive of a condition that would enable the Lancer to maintain altitude—any altitude—with “one turning and one burning.” (Perish the thought of an engine fire in a fabric-covered airplane.) It is simply too much to expect of a 100-hp engine.
Although the following procedure is not exactly kosher, there is one way to maintain altitude in the Lancer, provided the engine failure occurs at altitude.
First, go through the engine shutdown procedure: mixture control to idle cutoff, fuel-selector valve off, throttle closed; ignition and generator off.
The next steps are not in the book: Retard the throttle of the operative engine, establish an 80-mph glide, and slowly raise the nose. There is no problem in reducing airspeed to below the Lancer’s minimum-controllable airspeed of 73 mph (VMC) because the operating engine is not developing power and cannot create directional-control difficulties.
As airspeed decreases, the rpm of the windmilling, dead engine will decrease. Continue decreasing airspeed until the Lancer stalls. By this time, the windmilling propeller will have stopped and the drag created by windmilling will have been eliminated.
Next, lower the nose and accelerate to more than 73 mph. Power from the operative engine can then be applied because sufficient rudder effectiveness exists above this speed to keep the airplane pointed straight ahead.
Using this procedure raises the single-engine ceiling from below sea level to more than 2,000 feet msl.
Although the Lancer cannot maintain altitude with a windmilling propeller, this deficiency does not prevent the aircraft from being a decent trainer. A student can still be taught the principles of controlling direction with an engine out, the significance of VMC, and the problems associated with reduced performance following an engine failure.
Perhaps the most important thing that a multi-engine student can learn when flying a Lancer is not to fly one again.
There is no way that a photograph of an Antonov AN–2 Colt can prepare you for an in-person encounter. It is a behemoth, presumably the world’s largest single-engine biplane, and it dwarfs every other single in its vicinity. A massive caricature of an airplane, it has the appearance of something intended for the flintstones.
The “Ant” was designed by Oleg Antonov to serve a variety of utilitarian roles. It made its maiden flight in the Soviet Union on August 31, 1947, and its small ASh-2 750-horsepower radial engine was quickly replaced with the more substantial 1,000-hp Shvetsov engine driving a huge four-blade, constant-speed propeller. (The Shvetsov is a licensed copy of the dependable Wright R-1820 Cyclone that powered many DC-3s.)
Its appearance suggests that Antonov was more interested in rugged simplicity than graceful lines. The airplane was intended to operate under harsh conditions in remote locations. Although there is nothing beautiful or fragile about the Colt—some call it ugly—Russian pilots holding the big biplane in high esteem affectionately refer to it as Anushka (Annie).
The Soviets built more than 5,000 Colts, but production was moved to Poland in 1960 where PZL-Mielec built some 12,000 units. China also produced many (called Y-5s) beginning in 1957. The production run spanned an incredible 50 years (1947 to 1997), during which 20,000 to 24,000 units took to wing.
Although the introduction of a biplane in the postwar era might seem anachronistic, the extra wing area was an excellent way for Antonov to provide the prodigious quantities of lift needed to operate a 12,125-pound machine out of unimproved strips less than 1,000 feet long. The extra span also allowed him to hang an assortment of high-lift devices on the narrow-chord wings. It was a matter of form following function.
The entire leading edge of each upper wing is cuffed with corrugated slats that open automatically at large angles of attack and close as the angle of attack is reduced (a result of the center of lift’s movement). Bungee cords hold the slats closed when the aircraft is on the ground. The upper wings also are equipped with electrically operated, slotted flaps and ailerons that droop 16 degrees when the flaps are deployed. In effect, the upper wings have full-span flaps. The lower wings do not have ailerons but are configured with full-span flaps that operate in conjunction with the upper-wing flaps.
The Colt is all-metal except for the fabric-covered horizontal stabilizer, control surfaces, and those portions of the wings aft of the forward spars.
The AN–2 featured in this chapter is owned by Robert Haley, a line-maintenance planner for United Airlines who became interested in eastern European aircraft after purchasing a Yak 18T several years ago. He then founded Red Sky Aviation in Livermore, California, which specializes in importing and selling these exotic aircraft.
N707WA rolled off the Polish assembly line on November 4, 1968, and bears the paint scheme of the Soviet airline, Aeroflot. (Aeroflot was once regarded as the world’s largest airline because it included in its fleet thousands of AN–2s used as crop dusters, utility transports, and cargo haulers in the Siberian hinterlands and other remote areas.)
Preflighting a Colt includes some unusual items. One is the engine-driven air compressor that is used to operate the pneumatic brakes and to pressurize a 490-cubic-inch air bottle installed in the fuselage. The 710-psi bottle is used to inflate tires and oleo struts (depending on gross weight and type of runway surface).
There are three fuel tanks in each upper wing with a total usable capacity of 310 gallons. Access to the filler caps without a very tall ladder requires climbing up the side of the fuselage using four kick-in steps and walking along a catwalk on top of the fuselage. If the Colt cannot be refueled from above the wing with a conventional hose, a ground-fueling valve accessible through the left side of the cowling allows fuel to be pumped into the tanks from barrels on the ground using the ship’s electrical power.
The entry door on the left side of the fuselage is actually a section of a much larger cargo door that is 4.4 feet wide and 5 feet tall and can be opened when loading outsized items. A door in the aft bulkhead of the cabin leads to the long, voluminous tail cone. Although this area may not be used for cargo, it can accommodate light loads such as live chickens and ducks. The wide, spacious cockpit is separated from the cavernous, 12-seat cabin with an accordion-style door. The entire roof of the cockpit can be quickly unlatched, removed, and used as an emergency exit.
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bsp; Soviet engineers did not have much regard for ergonomics. Switches and controls are scattered helter-skelter and do not accommodate a normal scan pattern. Flying on instruments in the Colt would be a challenge, especially for an American pilot unable to interpret the Cyrillic markings and adapt to the numerous metric indications. The instrument panel in Haley’s airplane is completely original except for the added Bendix-King transponder. Standard equipment includes a humongous ADF, a radio altimeter, and a heated clock (don’t ask).
The ventilation system includes a small, rubber-bladed fan on each side of the cockpit. These are quite handy when sitting in this greenhouse of a cockpit. The windows consist of 28 glass panes, and the side windows bulge outward a foot so that either pilot can see straight down with the wings level. Looking aft, a pilot can see almost straight back.
The propeller is almost 12 feet in diameter and should be pulled through by hand if the engine has been idle for more than an hour or so. Although Arnold Schwarzenegger could do it alone, it is much easier for a crew of three to attack and keep the prop moving through 20 blades.
Starting the Shvetsov (or Wright, if you prefer) is complicated and best accomplished by a pilot with three hands. Confusing matters is a “mixture-corrector lever” that moves aft to enrich and forward to “make weaker.” The carburetor-heat control also operates “backwards.”
A spring-loaded toggle switch is positioned up to energize the inertia-wheel starter. You can tell that the wheel has reached maximum rpm when the distinctive whining sound reaches a constant pitch and no longer draws electrical power. (A fully charged battery permits only three or four start attempts.) You then release the toggle and push up on another to engage the starter. After four blades pass before your eyes, turn on the ignition, operate the electrical primer, and hope that the engine starts before the inertia wheel poops out (in which case the procedure is begun anew).
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