dave66

We have a Jab 2200 powered Savannah VG and it has always had a tendency to overheat. The CHT was the main problem until I modified the cowl to make a better fit with the engine. The oil overheating is more difficult, and occurs on any long climb of say +3000' in the summer. The oil cooler is mounted just behind the exhaust silencer box. I attached 2 temperature sensors to the cooler inlet and outlet, and there was only a few degrees temp difference. The cooler seems to be doing almost nothing. We have a TOCA fitted. Also, something which seems unusual is an Airplast prop which is set very coarse for economy. It cruses at between 2000 and 2400rpm. Max rpm is about 2600. We are getting plenty air into the heads now. Just need more airflow over the oil cooler. I understand the 3300 in the Savannah has the cooler mounted in front of the sump. Anybody out there with a 2200 and oil cooler?With the TOCA and good airflow over the oil cooler, I feel that we could be in the enviable position of having a Jab 2200 which does not suffer overheating

We are a UK microlight on 450kg.

 

Thanks guys

The pads are still good but I will sand the surfaces to remove the glaze from the rusty discs and see where I go from there with a fluid change, apart from full power check they don't really get a lot of use which is most likely a big part of the problem, we find the Savannah generally stops quick enough with full flaps being they are the whole length of the wing we generally land on first stage then put it on full on touch down that seems to work well for us

i have never had an issue with the savannah brakes, they work really well, can easily hold back the 100Hp until they start to slide, still locked up at near full power. the only issue i ever have had with them, is the pads will fall out when about 75% worn, so i thought i still had some good use in them, while trying to land short (on a 1.5km runway) i hit the brakes hard, and the pad pushed out and dumped all the fluid over the wheel. so i only had 1 brake, and had to turn the ignition on and off to taxi at a safe speed. fix was to take the old worn pads to a brake reliner, and get them relined, was pretty cheap.if the stock brakes arn't up to par, then try bleeding them, i havnt not heard of stock savannah brakes being bad, and if they are, then mine would have been the worst, as the discs are not quite flat at one stage, they have been hit when the aircraft fell off a jack, and the disk was hammered back to a flat. they still work fine.

i have never had an issue with the savannah brakes, they work really well, can easily hold back the 100Hp until they start to slide, still locked up at near full power. the only issue i ever have had with them, is the pads will fall out when about 75% worn, so i thought i still had some good use in them, while trying to land short (on a 1.5km runway) i hit the brakes hard, and the pad pushed out and dumped all the fluid over the wheel. so i only had 1 brake, and had to turn the ignition on and off to taxi at a safe speed. fix was to take the old worn pads to a brake reliner, and get them relined, was pretty cheap.if the stock brakes arn't up to par, then try bleeding them, i havnt not heard of stock savannah brakes being bad, and if they are, then mine would have been the worst, as the discs are not quite flat at one stage, they have been hit when the aircraft fell off a jack, and the disk was hammered back to a flat. they still work fine.

Anybody know why ICP uses two VG'a side by side? The Cessnas, Pipers, etc I have seen with add-on VG's have single VG's spaced along the wing.

Quite a lot of these systems use a mineral oil. The rubber?parts have to be compatible. If it is OK there is much less corrosion. . Nev

I have just finished skimming my brake discs on a Savannah VG 2010, I found that the brakes were useless when doing full power check anything over 2000 RPM and off it went, I did not build this aircraft but I do have all the build manuals ect. I find the differential toe brakes less than satisfactory and also discovered it has hydraulic oil in the system not DOT 4 brake fluid. I am wondering if this oil is a bit thick for the fountain pen sized master cylinders and that could be the reason they don't hold ? Has anybody else had this problem ? I trained in a Jabiru with a single lever and a escort clutch master cylinder

I cured my fuel spillage on full tanks by simply making the vent pipes longer to allow a higher arch above the wings, locked them off with plastic ties no more watching the miles drip away under the wings.

I was reading -on another website based in the USA- that there appears to be a brittle Vortex Generator (VG) problem with aircraft over 300 hours. The VGs in question are ones supplied by the Savannah factory.Question 1: Has any Savvy owner of 300+ hours vintage experienced any problems with their VGs breaking off like the ones in the picture below? This seems to be an issue particularly where aircraft operate in temperatures below +5 degrees Celsius.

 

This leads to another question: has any Savannah builder decided to chuck out the ICP-supplied VGs and use the Stolspeed-made ones instead? (see stolspeed.com for comprehensive details on Australian made VGs)

 

[ATTACH=full]16820[/ATTACH]

Have a look at the nose wheel bungee in your Savannah.We've checked the bungees on four Savannahs in our group and found all of them with partially broken bungees, 'necking' down in several places. These aircraft have anything from 100 to 700 hrs. None have had hard impact nose wheel landings, but considerable taxiing over bumpy ground. The breakages are not at the ends where the bungee goes over the attachments as you'd expect, but are midway down. Have to remove that aluminium shroud, to get a look. Don't seem to break suddenly, but strands break progressively until all the stretching is happening at that weak point. Won't last long after that.....

We got the replacements from Aircraft Spruce USA. Aircraft Spruce part number 06-00829 "Shock Cord ring 9010HD". Cost US$18.50 each, with postage shared on four units, landed cost was about A$30 each. Arrived in one week. Less than half the ICP dealer price.......

 

To mount the bungee I've made a puller which makes it really easy. It's just made from some 20mm RHS and some flat steel. Photo attached. I can't figure how to add dimension lines to the photo.... but the distance from the yoke on the left that fits over the top engine mount to the pivot is 130mm, and the distance from the pivot to the end of the handle is 400mm. From the pivot down to the hook is 330mm. The design of that hook is fairly important. It's made from a stub of tubing welded to the RHS so that it can fit over the attach stub on the nose leg. This way you can just push the tight bungee across onto the stub. If the hook is smaller diameter than the stub, it's really difficult to get the tight bungee across onto the larger stub.

 

JG

 

stolspeed.com

We can only summize this but the plane was hangared for quite a number of years in northern NSW and it can get pretty wet and humid there in a hangar. Also the plane had only ever flown off bitumen so the bungee never got any real work as far as stretching goes you can see this with the indent marks . I think this new one will last Puk a long while as he gives his plane some good work outs

JG helped me make a bungee puller for my Savannah VGW/XL. It is very similar to the photo above. I attached some more photos. My bungee has 500 hours on it and it still looks good.Tony