Not knowing who to direct this to within Pilot thought I would try here.
It was very nice to see the article in the June issue about the Grumman Cheetah, pity it said AA5 because that should only apply to the earlier Traveler, the Cheetah being the AA5A, and yes there are differences particularly in the landing with the much smaller tailplane and elevator on the AA5.
The AA5’s series of aircraft are very easy to work on and refurbish. The wings and main spar are among the simplest to remove in the GA fleet. A couple of years ago I was involved to turning a 11000 hour AA5A into a pristine aircraft by fitting replacement of approx. 2000 hour wings and main spar, together with a strip, repaint, new interior and zero hour engine. You can check out the process at http://urlizer.com/00/2508/
As is often the case in such articles comments are made by writers who seem unfamiliar with type and I would just like to correct the following from the article.
The fuel is not carried in the tubular wing spar, that’s the case in the two seat AA1’s. All AA5’s have wet wings within two wing bays in the inboard panel.
The wing is not made of three easily removed sections, only two. Of what looks like three sections the two inboards are permanently bonded together leaving just the outboard third section removable.
When stepping into the plane there is no need to step on the seat cushion, just flip it up and step on the seat panel underneath.
What’s commonly called the 160 hp high compression STC is not a truly 160hp engine because it is derated to 150hp at a lower max rpm of 2650 instead of 2750. This of course still gives the extra power to improve the T/O and climb performance mentioned by Nick, which is the main purpose of the upgrade.
If you had an AA5 with 12000 hours airframe life you would not have a further 500hrs use out of the aircraft because the main wing spar only has a life of 12000 hrs that has to be changed before the wings. And here be careful as all these Grumman wing panels have s/n’s if you know where to look and a lot of high hour training aircraft could have had the panels swapped about during the last 30 odd years. So without checking you can’t always assume that say a 10000hrs A/F has wings of the same hours.
Nick states in the article that they used 15 degrees of flap on T/O, but the POH makes no reference to using flaps for T/O’s and this has been a much discussed topic on the Grumman flyers forum “Grumman Gang” over the years. All I will say, if you want to look up the pros and cons on this subject, go to the Gang archive site at www.grumman.net/archive/ and enter “T/O flaps”, that’s as long as you have at least a couple of hours to read all the entries.
Of course articles on any type of aircraft should include the details of any owners club, in this case the “American Yankee Association” www.aya.org which has approx 100 members within Europe.
And finally why is it that all flight reports on the AA5 series always make reference to the so-called unusual nose wheel steering. Yes in its time it was unique, but now we have the ever-popular Cirrus’s, Diamond’s and nearly all the new LSA’s with a similar system and no mention is usually made of it, funny world.
Ian Matterface
MatAir
European Grumman spares support
I fully support grumpyparts comments.
Whilst good to read the various flying attributes associated with the AA5A model and its perceived qualities and quirks, the whole article is spoiled with the glaring mistakes.
The fuel tank 'bloomer' (pun intended) is just one such example of glariness. It's unclear who was the PIC on the reported flight, but if Mr.Nick had checked the fuel tanks during the pre-flight checks - It would have been painfully obvious that what he was looking down into wasn't a tubular spar.
Additionally, the practice of taking off with flap is a dubious one, and, as grumpyparts described, has been long and frequently discussed in Grumman forums. The bottom line, as argued by the VERY experienced CFI's and experienced operators of these aircraft , is that since fllap deployement is not called for in the POH, insurances may blink if they found that the pilot had taken off not in accordance with the laid down operating procedures. The induced drag in so doing might get one out of the mud and into ground effect sooner, but the rate of climb will be reduced, the fiddling with flaps whilst in climb out will be distracting at low level and if the flaps are 'dumped' too abruptly can cause a loss of altitude. Having now been mentioned as, arguably, a recognised 'good thing to do', within the august pages of Pilot, may perhaps persuade less experienced pilots to use the same technique (I hope not though)
This article would appear to be based on scanty knowledge and poor research. It reminded me of the misreported, misinformed scribblings of tabloid newspapers following the plummeting and near missing of a school for infant nuns by a Cessna PA28 microlite after it's engine had stalled.
Alan Bramson would be turning in his grave.
Just my ever so humble opinion
G1
Oh it make’s me so cross when aviation is inaccurately reported in national media but there is no excuse for this rubbish. If Pilot were concerned about the accuracy of their reports / article, I would have thought they would have been eager to jump in and add something to this thread.
IMHO the values given for AA5’s are very pessimistic. With often only a small number of AA5’s on the market at any one time in Europe, the perceived market value is bound to be affected by a couple of aircraft priced to sell quickly. Does that really reflect the value of a well maintained, privately used, low hours aircraft in good condition with a low-time engine? IMHO No.
I would love to write a really long rant in the style of Grumpy One and Grumpyparts. Suffice it to say I agree with everything they said.
Oh, one more thing. If you had a Cirrus with 12,000 hours on it……..well, that’s it! 12,000 hour airframe life!. Expensive, No?
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