First Flights of a Sports Panther

[woolleys]

This in response to Rick's question on where should the oil cooler be located for a 0320 mounted engine. Both Steve Pedano and Buddy Henson's Panthers have a firewall mounted oil cooler mounted on the left side of the fire wall and feed though scat tubing off the baffle. Steve's in mounted in the aft left cowl cheek and Buddy's is mounted on the bottom of the left firewall just above the exhaust pipes for # 2 & 4 cylinders. Both have 2 2" scat tubes feeding the cooler from the aft baffle area. Both mounting show excellent cooling and with temps running right at 180 degrees with only one 2 inch scat tube feeding the cooler. Steve's location is a good location if you have a conical mount engine and Buddy's for a dynafocal type. When you get to that section of the build, you might want to get in touch with Buddy or Steve and get some installation pictures.

My temperatures for oil are running about 190 and slightly hotter than the two firewall mounted locations. Oil temps see 210 to 215 during a heavy aerobatic period and after a 10 minute rat race period with Steve in his LSA Panther I will see those temps. At this point in time, I would recommend a firewall/baffle feed cooler installation. Things are tight aft of the engine and Buddy Henson did an excellent job of fitting his cooler into the limited space.

[Rpellicciotti]

Rick. I failed to really answer your question on cooler location. Let me defer on that question. Two of my fellow builders have chosen locations for their coolers that draw air from the back of the engine baffle. Those locations were recommended by Dan as possible good positions and did not require fiberglass work on the cowl. Test flying of those two airplanes should be in the next month or so and should provided some good feedback on the cooling efficiency of baffle feed firewall mounted oil coolers.

Thanks for the quick and detailed replies. I have not started on my Panther yet so there is plenty of time to sort all of that out. My Falco has the oil cooler mounted up front and takes the air off the cowling inlet. With the Panther cowling I can see where it would be easier to take if off the rear baffle.

Rick

[PlaneDan]

Looked and sounded like an absolutely "no issue" flight. Congratulations to Bob for making it back on the ground safely and to Steve for another awesome Panther.

I am looking forward to the write-up and in particular to what the differences Bob may have noticed. These two planes should be almost identical with the exception of the wing and am very interested, since mine is also the LSA version.

Thanks for the great video.

[woolleys]

Rick. I failed to really answer your question on cooler location. Let me defer on that question. Two of my fellow builders have chosen locations for their coolers that draw air from the back of the engine baffle. Those locations were recommended by Dan as possible good positions and did not require fiberglass work on the cowl. Test flying of those two airplanes should be in the next month or so and should provided some good feedback on the cooling efficiency of baffle feed firewall mounted oil coolers.

[woolleys]

Rick. Very observant on the prop change out and the slight addition to the oil cooler. If you remember back on some of the initial reports on my test flying, I indicated that it was working on getting the WW prop dialed in. It proved to be a challenge and it had a more than average RPM spread. The WW prop did provide satisfactory takeoff and climb as well as top speed. The WW prop had a tendency to load quickly during aerobatics and thus bleed off RPM quickly during vertical maneuvers and the opposite was true in that it accelerate quickly in RPM while increasing speed and thus had a tendency to overspeed quickly. After a discussion with Dan Weseman about props he contacted Sensenich props and arrange for him/me to secured a test prop from them. They provide test model of their new composite ground adjustable prop for testing. That is the prop you see on my Panther. I will say it is a outstanding prop and much more desirable than the WW. The two props match each other in the basics of climb and speed the Sensenich has a smaller RPM spread and has a much slower unload and load tendency. For aerobatics the Sensenich is far better as I am able to control RPM easily.

The location of the NACA duct feeding the oil cooler was located to far back on the right cheek of the cowl. It was size a bit small and all was done to be able to fit the cooler location and duct into the engine compartment. If the duct was move forward about 6 inches it would have been provided a cleaner airflow and thus cooled better. That was not possible due the cylinder location in the cowl. The addition of the scoop lowered the temps by 10 degrees and put the final cruise oil temps. in the low 190 range during 90 degree temps in the summer heat of Florida. This, of course, defeated the no drag penalty from the NACA duct. But cooling the oil was more important than the drag penalty.

[Lowrider]

Very good write-up...you're making me drool and it's a motivator to get my high wing short field LSA done. Nice to hear there are few if any issues with the design and kit.

[Rpellicciotti]

Bob,
You paint job looks great! I am anxious to get started with my Sport Panther. I noticed you changed props to a Sensenich. Would you comment on it vs the Whirlwind? Also, I noticed the oil cooler scoop has grown an attachment. Do you have a suggestion on a better location for the oil cooler?

Thanks,

Rick Pellicciotti

[woolleys]

Dan. I have not considered the Corvair college but it might a good cross country effort for the Panther. Give me chance to stretch out her legs and see what It's like taking her cross country. I will check with Dan/Rachel and Will to get the specifics.

Bob

[PlaneDan]

Bob,

Have you given any thought to bringing the sport Panther to Barnwell when Dan and Rachel come up for Corvair College next month?

It sure would be great to see it and meet you in person.

[woolleys]

Scott, no website; sorry. I have trouble turning on the computer much less setting up and maintaining a website. I did take almost two disc worth of pictures for the build documentation.