Flying the Beech 18

[Music] [Applause] hi this is mark from sky wagon university today we're doing a walk around and a chat and a flight in this 1954 beach 18 that jimmy dixon is very kindly brought in jimmy thanks for doing that you're right welcome so let's uh let's take her out for a flight and you can talk us through it let's go so so jimmy talk me through what everything does well uh for the engine start we had to uh prime it and then we hit a boost for shower sparks and you crank it two blades you get the engine up to speed and then you throw the mags on power while it's spinning while it's spinning and it just really aids in the starting uh we're supercharged so we got to watch the mixtures but i lean a little bit for taxi our cow flaps are open for cylinder head and these are the pratt nine eighties five ninety fives 450 horse each nice classical traffic twin beach three five three two bravo's taxing up four two three placerville so on takeoff we'll pull 36 inches 36.5 is the max and 2300 rpm okay the superchargers always running they are it's a direct drive 10 to 1 ratio and they're not very big but what they'll do is they'll give you uh 75 power 10 000 feet so that's where you can get your true air speed up you got plenty of horsepower in the thin air with this big airframe all right so the low teen seems to be your best tour speed fuel and power so she'll do about 165 knots burning 42 gallons an hour 42. but if you wanted it to it could burn a lot more couldn't it you can't yeah yeah so jimmy i see your feather buttons up there what's your uh engine failure procedures on this rig well i'll see a blue line there yeah it's a standard multi-engine late multi-engine uh procedure identify verify and feather but the difference is we'll feather with the buttons so we have hydraulic electric hydraulic feathering motors that's a dedicated pump and it uh it takes engine oil out of a standpipe in the in the oil tanks it's always there it has about a gallon and a half available at all times so you want to hit the right button that's right throttles in this quadrant are in the middle very good point uh standard beechcraft throttles in the middle yep and we have two main tanks and they're both on and looks like you only have one aux tank correct 200 total so it's 75 75 for 150 in the mains and then 25 each so you get three hours and an hour reserved with full fuel 200 gallons and how is it as a tail dragon well that's the beauty of this uh the fun of this aircraft is the multi-engine tail dragger and it's just a good combination of uh skill with uh this is very rewarding to do this right and to get it right in the crosswind is exceptionally challenging is it got a pretty authoritative writers those little rudders back there yes they're effective so allows the tails flying okay once you set the tail down you're down to braking differential braking and differential thrust so wheel landings are the preferred landing i like the dc-3 the wheel landing is the standard you just get too slow to do a three-pointer and then yep and then it gets a little wallowy and the ailerons get mushy yep so we'll come in at 90 knots we'll sort of split the two and on takeoff is it a big deal like the dc3 you want to get that tail up and the rudder is working yes we'll let the tail sort of fly itself and they'll come up about 40. so we're in knots on here incidentally all right this is the run-up bags [Music] okay i've cycled the props this morning already we've already flown once so our engines are up to temperature fuel's on flaps are set trim is set drop complete generator suction so once we line up on the runway we'll lock the tail wheel and that's uh really assist in keeping her straight down the runway and especially coming back in for the landing do you always lock it yes so we'll tax you with it uh free and it will lock it once we're lined up so the takeoff checklist is complete guys flasherville traffic twin beats 3532 bravo is departing 2-3 with a left downwind departure tailwheel's locked what we'll do is roll forward a little bit tap a break and make sure it's centered okay 36.5 [Music] fantastic sound here [Music] [Music] [Music] perfect day look at the sierras [Music] so our climate there looks like we saw 1500 feet per minute pretty common that sounds about right now i'll get our cylinder heads cooled off here yep [Music] cruise climb 120 knots that's 500 foot per minute 30 20. and where was that elevator trim indicator ah there you go [Music] that's the way to travel park you want to make a few turns i'll hold your camera i'll go back and make a couple of old fashions [Applause] what could possibly go wrong with an old-fashioned i'll have one since you're off i'll just push this button that says can i tell there a little bit anything you want oh my god look at that what do you think mark just uh finger tip it is so light on the controls made it feel solid but it's just it's light it's not like it's lumbering around 450 horsepower that's three feet from me i like this there is no eyebrow yeah i mean otherwise you'd be looking down here i'll set you up with screw power leaner out now that we're cooled off [Music] i like this lower handle so right now we're burning up 45 an hour about 45 that's a good estimate [Music] 150 knots over the ground is about normal down here up at 10 000 that'll read 165 bonanza speeds that's about right so we got 18.50 yeah 1850 on the turns and uh 25 6 7 inches or so so you close in the cow flaps area we're looking for an oil temp of 60 so we're running about 55. you do have cow flaps on this right we do we'll close those up shortly down a little bit a little bit more in those cow pipes i don't see them up here they must be down on the bottom right here to my left i mean on the engines themselves yeah they're down down low and oh i see them right here oh here we go so now we're in a pretty good cruise [Music] configuration and we want to get the oil temp up to about 60. [Music] what a comfortable cruiser what do you think should we take it to our sky just low you're right to sleep back here that'd be a great trip and the gears electric it is here class both electric with manual backup daniel crank right here yep and you got electric uh controls on your whales see those cow plants are manual daniel yeah and uh the doors you're working on the oil coolers oil shutters shutters are they manual their manual a flap above the oil cooler okay and then carburetor heat manifold yeah carb heat much of a concern on the pratts it is it is i've seen it once going into lake tahoe but it's not like the jacob's engine where you got to run with some carb heat on to prevent them from burping i think so yeah it's not that bad no normally you cruise with the carpet closed or off [Music] willows traffic session jimmy did you restore this aircraft or you know fix it up right now i got it about 90 complete and we all know that last ten percent the hardest challenge yeah charlie uh i had to put the annual on it and comply with the ads you know all the hardcore and then the big one was the spar inspection we had to have it x-rayed so we're good for 1500 hours [Laughter] there's placerville airport downtown biggest is behind it [Laughter] [Music] jimmy talk us through the whole kind of downwind base final land okay we'll pull 20 inches on downwind and uh the gears beats 108 knots collapses 105 so getting her slowed down to uh the challenge 108 slow for goosebumps lasterville traffic twin beach 3532 1145 for two three down one green light yeah so as for the mains and the tail wheel very fast electric gear it is traffic for the tail rail three miles one half flaps and the cable comes up and it has clam shell doors right down one one and i don't think the lockheed electra had that so it's a that's a deluxe feature yeah so apply 90 knots all the way around the pattern okay and how do we know the tail wheel's locked it's part of the green light okay [Music] [Music] it's very similar speeds to like a cessna 182. it really is those are not national traffic twin beach three two bravo turning final two three [Music] road [Music] you do sit tall oh you made that look easy wheel down tails down well unlock the tail wheel open the cowl flaps we'll go right down the other end there jimmy that was excellent was that smoother than you thought it would be oh yeah it looks like it flies pretty rough doesn't it but it's uh i think beech got it right when he made this didn't he yeah yep aerodynamically well balanced and stable yeah the first plan i ever went in when i was 18 was a 206 in alaska and the second was a dc3 oh boy oh it was a beach 18. it was one of these your second airplane wasn't it that was the third one oh yeah that was when i came down from alaska because those guys hold mail and they were doing fish in the summer and the deep in the dc3 so i rode down from alaska to utah in it and then when i was staying with them and shooting chuckers and hanging out that was when i needed to get to salt lake city and they said well here have a ride in the beach 18 mail plane so i did a night run from pocatello to salt lake city to pick up my drive away car in my house and the back was just full of mail with my backpack on top talk about hitchhiking wait here's this one jimmy the 1954 in fact some uh information on this aircraft was delivered brand new to uh rj reynolds tobacco corporation brand new and winston sale in north carolina and it flew for them as best i can tell about four years jimmy that was great thanks a lot you're very welcome that was fantastic so this is mark at skywarden university and if you like this video subscribe on the link click on the bell and there's going to be a lot more like it hope you enjoyed it [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Skywagon University

Views: 21,296

Rating: 4.9575973 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: luu3Xb_YKTw

Length: 24min 23sec (1463 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021