New Xenos Flyer

[Trace A]

Just a post to the group to say hello.

I am the new Xenos owner/flyer in Southern Utah. Just this past summer I made the decision to move to the LSA catagory do to difficulty maintaining a current medical. It has alway been my dream to fly sailplanes since I was 14 years old. Unortunately by the time I was able afford the costs of flight training, I was too fatfor most of the conventional glider fleet. Xenos 327L "Dust Devil" was the solutions to both situation. The Xenos did not have the 242 lb max seat weight, and 327L was certified as an Airplane rather than a glider. The Jabiru 3300 powerplant makes this bird can really climb. Typical lunch break from the office, includes a quick trip to the airport. Within 10 minutes of lift off I can climb to 10,000 feet (6700 feet above field elevation), cut the engine and glide back to the field for a 45 minute therapy sesson. Glide ration in still air has been a consistent 26:1. Can't wait for the improved spring soaring condtions.

Wish I could claim that I built this fine bird.

Trace

Xenos 327L

[Steve Sliwa]

Congratulations and welcome to the TMGA.

[rayjb60]

That's great. Soaring is indeed very relaxing and fun.

Have you given any thought to flying out to the Minden, NV Motorglider flyin in July this year?

We'd love to see you there.

Ray

[Richard Pearl]

Trace

Thanks for getting involved so quickly. As Ray suggested you might consider coming to the Fly-In this summer. Another event is the Auxiliary-powered Sailplane Association's fly in, held annually at Parowan (in your neighborhood). They have a 10-day event early July this year. Several of us will most likely join them, as we have int he past, for a few days before heading out to our Fly-In. The thought this year is to be there July 9-11, flying back to Minden on the 11th. I suspect several of the people coming from the East coast will stop at Parowan before the hop to Nevada. There will be more on this as time goes by. Meanwhile, if you think you might come to the TMGA Fly-In please sign up (definite, possible, probable) in the Event section of the TMGA web site, then the 2012 Sign-up sub sheet.

Regards, and thanks for joining us. P.S.: Work on your buddies to join the TMGA. We've just passed 150 members...not too bad for only a few weeks since roll out.

Richard

[Richard Pearl]

Trace

I forgot to include in my last post - send in/upload some pictures of your ship.

Richard

[Ramrod25]

"Typical lunch break from the office, includes a quick trip to the airport. Within 10 minutes of lift off I can climb to 10,000 feet (6700 feet above field elevation), cut the engine and glide back to the field for a 45 minute therapy sesson."

That is just so totally...................................................................................cool!

Just trying to make the rest of us jealous!

Hope to start on my Xenos next year when I retire. Send me an

email at r_wren@wfec.com - sure would like to ask you some

questions about how yours flies.

Regards

Rodney

Edited June 1, 2012 by Ramrod25
grammer

[Ramrod25]

"Typical lunch break from the office, includes a quick trip to the airport. Within 10 minutes of lift off I can climb to 10,000 feet (6700 feet above field elevation), cut the engine and glide back to the field for a 45 minute therapy sesson."

That is just so totally...................................................................................cool!

Just trying to make the rest of us jealous!

Hope to start on my Xenos next year when I retire. Send me an

email at r_wren@wfec.com - sure would like to ask you some

questions about how yours flies.

Regards

Rodney

Edited June 1, 2012 by Ramrod25
grammer

[racaldwell]

Hi All,

This past weekend I just finished inventorying my Xenos Kit. I'll start on the tail in a few days. I am looking forward to building a plane again. The kit had much more work already completed on the parts than the RV-6 I built in the '90's. I'll be building in my hangar at MLB which is Melbourne, FL. I also plan to use the Jabiru 3300 engine. If I win the lottery or something by the time I get to the firewall forward stuff, I'd like to get the Airmaster electric prop. I'd like to hear more about your flights in your Xenos.

Rick Caldwell

[racaldwell]

Hi All,

This past weekend I just finished inventorying my Xenos Kit. I'll start on the tail in a few days. I am looking forward to building a plane again. The kit had much more work already completed on the parts than the RV-6 I built in the '90's. I'll be building in my hangar at MLB which is Melbourne, FL. I also plan to use the Jabiru 3300 engine. If I win the lottery or something by the time I get to the firewall forward stuff, I'd like to get the Airmaster electric prop. I'd like to hear more about your flights in your Xenos.

Rick Caldwell

[Thermalseeker]

I've been running a Jabiru 3300 in my Europa touring airplane since 2006. I'm not sure that would be my first choice for an engine for a motorglider unless you spring for the Rotec water cooled heads. I would also suggest attending Jabiru USA's engine school, too. The stock Jabiru 3300 engine as jetted from the factory will run very lean in something as clean as a motorglider due to the Bing CV carb they use. Shock cooling will be made even worse if you run too lean. The Bing is designed for motorcycles. It was never meant to have the type loading that an airplane and prop put on the engine. It's very sensitive to both airfame and prop loading. Both dramatically effect the fuel/air mixture and therefore EGT's and CHT's. The cleaner the leaner with the Bing. It's one of the things Jabiru doesn't tell customers about their engines as shipped, but something Jabiru USA goes over extensively if you attend their engine class. Jabiru engines come from the factory jetted for Jabiru airframes. When you stick a Jab in something that is aerodynamically cleaner, in the case of the Europa or a motorglider, much cleaner, the engine tends to run very lean (with high EGT's and correspondingly high CHT's) Shock cooling is a really big deal with a motorglider if you don't let the heads cool down sufficiently before shutdown. If you ignore it you will pay dearly. I was told by the President of Aeromot that they originally used the Limbach engine in the Ximango early on, but switched to the Rotax 9XX series with wet heads early in the production run because they were having serious shock cooling issues with the Limbach. Little stuff like cracked cranks, ingested valves and such. Wet heads allow them to cool down more slowly and evenly. You don't see shock cooling issues in the Rotax wet head engines. Even so, I still let my 912s in my Ximango cool down for at least 5 minutes, until the oil temp drops below 150F before I shut it down and feather the prop. I've been running the Rotec wet heads on my Jab for about 2 years now. They are superior to the factory heads in every way except weight. The engine runs much cooler with a tiny motorcycle radiator, temps from cylinder to cylinder are much more even and it breathes better so it produces more horsepower. I gained about 250fpm in climb after fitting the Rotec wet heads to my Jab.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Thermalseeker

[Thermalseeker]

I've been running a Jabiru 3300 in my Europa touring airplane since 2006. I'm not sure that would be my first choice for an engine for a motorglider unless you spring for the Rotec water cooled heads. I would also suggest attending Jabiru USA's engine school, too. The stock Jabiru 3300 engine as jetted from the factory will run very lean in something as clean as a motorglider due to the Bing CV carb they use. Shock cooling will be made even worse if you run too lean. The Bing is designed for motorcycles. It was never meant to have the type loading that an airplane and prop put on the engine. It's very sensitive to both airfame and prop loading. Both dramatically effect the fuel/air mixture and therefore EGT's and CHT's. The cleaner the leaner with the Bing. It's one of the things Jabiru doesn't tell customers about their engines as shipped, but something Jabiru USA goes over extensively if you attend their engine class. Jabiru engines come from the factory jetted for Jabiru airframes. When you stick a Jab in something that is aerodynamically cleaner, in the case of the Europa or a motorglider, much cleaner, the engine tends to run very lean (with high EGT's and correspondingly high CHT's) Shock cooling is a really big deal with a motorglider if you don't let the heads cool down sufficiently before shutdown. If you ignore it you will pay dearly. I was told by the President of Aeromot that they originally used the Limbach engine in the Ximango early on, but switched to the Rotax 9XX series with wet heads early in the production run because they were having serious shock cooling issues with the Limbach. Little stuff like cracked cranks, ingested valves and such. Wet heads allow them to cool down more slowly and evenly. You don't see shock cooling issues in the Rotax wet head engines. Even so, I still let my 912s in my Ximango cool down for at least 5 minutes, until the oil temp drops below 150F before I shut it down and feather the prop. I've been running the Rotec wet heads on my Jab for about 2 years now. They are superior to the factory heads in every way except weight. The engine runs much cooler with a tiny motorcycle radiator, temps from cylinder to cylinder are much more even and it breathes better so it produces more horsepower. I gained about 250fpm in climb after fitting the Rotec wet heads to my Jab.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Thermalseeker

[racaldwell]

Thanks for that info. I did attend the Jabiru engine class in Feb. when it was here in FL. Pete never mentioned shock cooling to me & I did tell him I'll be putting it in a motorglider. He said the wet heads would be good for a water bird which has long downwind taxis. How much weight did they add? The added climb rate & even temps is also nice to know.

I plan on using the Sonex Aerocarb instead of dealing with the Bing. The guys in the engine class who had Sonex aircraft said they are using the Aerocarb or Aeroinjector, if there is a difference.

Rick Caldwell

[racaldwell]

Thanks for that info. I did attend the Jabiru engine class in Feb. when it was here in FL. Pete never mentioned shock cooling to me & I did tell him I'll be putting it in a motorglider. He said the wet heads would be good for a water bird which has long downwind taxis. How much weight did they add? The added climb rate & even temps is also nice to know.

I plan on using the Sonex Aerocarb instead of dealing with the Bing. The guys in the engine class who had Sonex aircraft said they are using the Aerocarb or Aeroinjector, if there is a difference.

Rick Caldwell

[Thermalseeker]

I don't think Pete has any experience with motorgliders. So, it doesn't surprise me he wouldn't mention shock cooling. He did mention "keeping a little power in" when descending when I went through the course, but I think he was referencing carb ice more than shock cooling. Given what other air cooled engines have shown when used in motorgliders, and even some Lycoming and Continentals in high performance singles, it's clear to me that it is an issue that need not be ignored. Of course, there's more than one way to skin a cat. You might be able to fabricate a cowl flap on the intake side that would seal off the engine after shutdown, too. I know of several older motorglider designs, like the Vivat, that use this type system, although I'm told the results are mixed.

I weighed my Europa before and after the install. The Rotec wet heads added 12 lbs total, including the radiator, coolant, heads, pump, and redesigned cooling air intake plenum. The fiberglass "dog house" intake plenums that are sold with the Jabiru are gone. I fabricated a sheet metal intake plenum that is very similar to what you would see on a Lycoming or Continental with aluminum air dams around the top of the engine that have rubber strips riveted to them along the top that form a seal with the top cowl. The air comes in the front intakes, over the top of the engine and flows down in between the cylinders. Very pleased thus far with it. On 95F days I don't see any CHT's above 290F, even in extended "hard" climbs. In cruise it's more like 230-240F. This is using a tiny motorcycle radiator with a cooling area of about 10"x12", about half the size of what Rotax uses. I was able to squeeze the radiator in along side the engine on the right side. I fabricated a NACA vent to feed air to the radiator and built some minor sheet metal deflectors to direct the air from the downwind side of the radiator out the lower cowl exit hole.

The Rotec kit is somewhat incomplete, though. You'll need to fabricate distribution and collection manifolds for the coolant. I did mine out of stainless using 1.25" tubing for the main body that collects the fluid and sends it to the pump and radiator, and .5" tubing for return and supply lines to the heads. The kit is short the radiator and radiator hoses needed to plumb the radiator, too. I was able to get Meyer's Radiator in Utah to fabricate a radiator out of a scrap motorcycle radiator. NAPA auto parts has the best selection I've found for radiator hoses. The local NAPA store was more than accommodating when I showed them what I was doing. They let me root around in their stock room until I found exactly what hoses I needed. NAPA also has a good catalog that has pictures of their molded radiator hoses. So, it was easy to get an idea of what I was looking for and note the part number before I actually went to the store.

The Rotec heads are cast and there were casting marks in the exhaust and intake portions of the head that I felt needed to be removed. I polished those out with lapping compound using various stones on a Dremel tool, then various grits of stainless brushes, then emery cloth, then polished them to a mirror finish using an aluminum polishing compound. It was a little time consuming, maybe 25 hours total to polish all six heads, but the difference was pretty dang amazing over the stock heads.

I don't have any experience with the Aerocarb, but I recall reading about them having a lot of trouble with it early on. The slider would stick and quite a few people had incidents as a result. I know of some Jab owners who are running Ellison Throttle Body Injectors and the Rotec folks also make an Ellison TBI knock off. I bought one from Rotec when they first released them, but couldn't make it work in the Europa without major surgery due to the way the firewall and foot wells are done. It would have also required a total redesign of my cabin heat system. I ended up sending it back to them. I was impressed with it, though. Their machine work is second to none. My experience has been the Bing works, but it really doesn't atomize the fuel very well, it's very sensitive to prop and airframe loading, and it's VERY sensitive to disturbed intake flow. Just by putting a simple vane (+) upstream of my carb in the intake hose I went from about a 200F spread in EGT's down to about 50F. I know without mixture control I'm pouring a lot of fuel through the engine that isn't necessary, particularly at altitude. I've been looking into the "HACman" mixture control by Green Sky. Pete might have mentioned it in the class when you took it.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Thermalseeker

[Thermalseeker]

I don't think Pete has any experience with motorgliders. So, it doesn't surprise me he wouldn't mention shock cooling. He did mention "keeping a little power in" when descending when I went through the course, but I think he was referencing carb ice more than shock cooling. Given what other air cooled engines have shown when used in motorgliders, and even some Lycoming and Continentals in high performance singles, it's clear to me that it is an issue that need not be ignored. Of course, there's more than one way to skin a cat. You might be able to fabricate a cowl flap on the intake side that would seal off the engine after shutdown, too. I know of several older motorglider designs, like the Vivat, that use this type system, although I'm told the results are mixed.

I weighed my Europa before and after the install. The Rotec wet heads added 12 lbs total, including the radiator, coolant, heads, pump, and redesigned cooling air intake plenum. The fiberglass "dog house" intake plenums that are sold with the Jabiru are gone. I fabricated a sheet metal intake plenum that is very similar to what you would see on a Lycoming or Continental with aluminum air dams around the top of the engine that have rubber strips riveted to them along the top that form a seal with the top cowl. The air comes in the front intakes, over the top of the engine and flows down in between the cylinders. Very pleased thus far with it. On 95F days I don't see any CHT's above 290F, even in extended "hard" climbs. In cruise it's more like 230-240F. This is using a tiny motorcycle radiator with a cooling area of about 10"x12", about half the size of what Rotax uses. I was able to squeeze the radiator in along side the engine on the right side. I fabricated a NACA vent to feed air to the radiator and built some minor sheet metal deflectors to direct the air from the downwind side of the radiator out the lower cowl exit hole.

The Rotec kit is somewhat incomplete, though. You'll need to fabricate distribution and collection manifolds for the coolant. I did mine out of stainless using 1.25" tubing for the main body that collects the fluid and sends it to the pump and radiator, and .5" tubing for return and supply lines to the heads. The kit is short the radiator and radiator hoses needed to plumb the radiator, too. I was able to get Meyer's Radiator in Utah to fabricate a radiator out of a scrap motorcycle radiator. NAPA auto parts has the best selection I've found for radiator hoses. The local NAPA store was more than accommodating when I showed them what I was doing. They let me root around in their stock room until I found exactly what hoses I needed. NAPA also has a good catalog that has pictures of their molded radiator hoses. So, it was easy to get an idea of what I was looking for and note the part number before I actually went to the store.

The Rotec heads are cast and there were casting marks in the exhaust and intake portions of the head that I felt needed to be removed. I polished those out with lapping compound using various stones on a Dremel tool, then various grits of stainless brushes, then emery cloth, then polished them to a mirror finish using an aluminum polishing compound. It was a little time consuming, maybe 25 hours total to polish all six heads, but the difference was pretty dang amazing over the stock heads.

I don't have any experience with the Aerocarb, but I recall reading about them having a lot of trouble with it early on. The slider would stick and quite a few people had incidents as a result. I know of some Jab owners who are running Ellison Throttle Body Injectors and the Rotec folks also make an Ellison TBI knock off. I bought one from Rotec when they first released them, but couldn't make it work in the Europa without major surgery due to the way the firewall and foot wells are done. It would have also required a total redesign of my cabin heat system. I ended up sending it back to them. I was impressed with it, though. Their machine work is second to none. My experience has been the Bing works, but it really doesn't atomize the fuel very well, it's very sensitive to prop and airframe loading, and it's VERY sensitive to disturbed intake flow. Just by putting a simple vane (+) upstream of my carb in the intake hose I went from about a 200F spread in EGT's down to about 50F. I know without mixture control I'm pouring a lot of fuel through the engine that isn't necessary, particularly at altitude. I've been looking into the "HACman" mixture control by Green Sky. Pete might have mentioned it in the class when you took it.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Thermalseeker

[racaldwell]

I have been thinking of a flap to block cooling air. I was thinking for drag reduction, but reducing shock cooling is another good reason for it. Maybe blocking the cowl exit will be an easier task than blocking the inlets. I have a long ways to go before I get there. I have just finished the tail and last weekend started cutting parts for the wings.

Rick

[racaldwell]

I have been thinking of a flap to block cooling air. I was thinking for drag reduction, but reducing shock cooling is another good reason for it. Maybe blocking the cowl exit will be an easier task than blocking the inlets. I have a long ways to go before I get there. I have just finished the tail and last weekend started cutting parts for the wings.

Rick

[Thermalseeker]

I would think blocking the intake would be more effective. The front cylinders will still be exposed to cold air if you block the exit only.

Keep whittling away at it and you'll get there. It only took me 2500 hours to built my Europa (which is advertised as a 600 hour kit). And, as an old EAA'er once told me "Son, take care of the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves". Post some pictures when you get a chance.

[Thermalseeker]

I would think blocking the intake would be more effective. The front cylinders will still be exposed to cold air if you block the exit only.

Keep whittling away at it and you'll get there. It only took me 2500 hours to built my Europa (which is advertised as a 600 hour kit). And, as an old EAA'er once told me "Son, take care of the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves". Post some pictures when you get a chance.