Tom Rabourn
decided to make this takeoff himself. We
lined up on the centreline, with everything
pushed forward. Flaps were at zero. Then the
power went in and the big IO-520 up front
started bellowing. The airplane quickly
gathered energy and I glanced over; the
airspeed was building through 35 knots. Then
40. Then, without warning, Tom reached down
and forcibly yanked the flap lever almost
all the way up. Faster than I could follow
it with my eyes, the airplane literally
leaped straight up, clearing the mythical 50
foot obstacle in a single bound. The
airspeed needle stayed glued to 40 knots and
we continued clawing upwards, nose in the
sky, runway falling behind. Tom's
re-invention of Cessna's venerable aerial
pick-up truck, the 185 Skywagon really does
it's number.
Rabourn, a recently
retired airline pilot living in Carefree,
Arizona just north of Phoenix, views his 185
as an after-college present to himself. "I
had three kids in college at the same time
and as soon as they got out, I bought the
185."
![](../images3/19.jpg)
When he says, "...I
bought the 185," however, it doesn't mean he
actually bought a 185. What he bought was
more of a 185 "kit" as it was far from being
a complete airplane. In fact, all Rabourn
got was the basic airframe missing the
engine, interior and lots of parts. The
airplane had been a research and development
airplane for a well known turbine engine
manufacturer who had stripped it out and
replaced the original engine with one of
their turbines, then abandoned it.
When Rabourn stood back
and looked at the pile of parts, in his
mind's eye he saw a different airplane than
Cessna had originally designed. What he saw
was the basis on which he could build the
bush airplane he'd always wanted.
When Rabourn was finished
building, actually resurrecting or
reincarnating might be better terms, the
C-185, he had received an unbelievable 26
STC's for changes made to the airplane. All
of the changes had been made in the name of
expanding on the airplane's already
impressive utility envelope. The airplane
had become an aerial version of a 4 x 4
super-truck which, although already
impressively capable, was further modified
to gully-run the desert and ignore
topography.
Some of the mods are so
small as to be invisible. For instance,
Rabourn is a big, big guy. The in-seam on
his jeans is 36 inches! So he wanted the
seats to slide far enough aft to let him in
and out without having to fold himself up
like a pocket knife each time. The STC for
the extended seat rails includes a short
piece of seat belt, including the buckle,
that clips to the front edge of the pilot's
seat keeping it from doing the infamous
Cessna Slide, racing back down the tracks on
takeoff.
Other mods are more
obvious, like the upward hinged, float plane
doors which are also often fitted to jump
planes and make loading outsized cargo
easier.
![](../images3/20.jpg)
The back seat area is
more for carrying "stuff" than people. The
seats (also STC'd) are cute little fold-away
units that stow up against the fuselage
sides creating a huge cargo bay, but pop
into place when needed.
In the back of the cargo
compartment is a survival kit weighing 143
pounds which is figured in as part of the
airplane's empty weight because it is
permanently installed. It goes where the
airplane goes. Tom uses his airplane for
bouncing around in the bush, and is prepared
for any eventuality, but he also knows that
out in the west, if you're outside the city
limits and the engine quits, you're
instantly in a survival situation.
Since short, ugly runways
was where he was headed with the airplane,
one of the STC'd mods was the P. Ponk
Aviation STC, which replaces the gear mounts
with a special unit that guarantees the
gearbox will survive a ground loop or really
hard landing.
Getting in short, means
coming in slow, so Tom installed a Robinson
conversion kit which not only puts a cuff on
the leading edge of the wing, but couples
the ailerons to the flaps so when the flaps
go down, the ailerons droop with then, which
steals some of their effectiveness. Tom flew
the airplane for a while with just the
Robinson kit, then installed vortex
generators (VG's) along the top of the wing
to put energy back into otherwise lazy
airflow at slow speeds which made his
ailerons more effective when the flaps are
down.
The engine is the normal
Continental IO-520D, rated at 300 hp for
five minutes and 285 hp continuous. Tom,
however, restricts his horsepower for
increased engine longevity by keeping the
rpm down on take off via what he calls an
"Alaskan Prop Limiter"; that's a wooden
clothes pin clipped on the prop control
shaft that stops it at 2650 rpm, holding the
power to 285 hp. I didn't ask if the clothes
pin was STC'd.
![](../images3/21.jpg)
What makes the airplane
really work for him in Arizona and the high
density altitudes of the west, however, is
the addition of the Air Research
turbocharger by Turbo Tech. A manual waste
gate control turbo, it allows him to hold
75% power to 17,000 feet which also lets him
flight plan 150 knots at 10,000 feet while
only burning 15.5 gallons per hour. That's
at 27 inches of manifold pressure. Aren't
turbos wonderful?
Incidentally, the
airplane was so completely taken apart that
the FAA registration has it listed as a 1990
Skywagon, not a 1967.
The 185 was originally
born as Cessna's answer to those folks in
the 1960's who were saying, "Hey, we love
our 180's, but can't you make them a little
larger? Make them carry more." So Cessna
took what had been a winning design and made
just a little more of it. In 1961, when they
introduced the 185 Skywagon, it literally
was just a 180 on steroids. The empty
weights stayed about the same, 1525 pounds,
but the gross went up from 2,800 pounds to
3,300 pounds. Bingo, just like that, they
had another 500 pounds useful load to play
with. To help get that extra weight off the
ground, the 230 hp 0-470 Continental of the
C-180 was hopped up a little, turned a
little faster and given a rating of 260 hp
in the 185. In 1966, answering the same
folks who were probably saying "Okay, so now
the airframe will carry the weight, now give
us the power to get it off the ground
better." The answer was the 185E which
boasted the IO-520D rated at 300 hp.
With that kind of power and displacement
increase, the airplane now was capable of
carrying what ever you could put into it. In
fact, even though the empty weight of the
bare airplanes went up, the advertised
useful load was 1840 pounds which included
65 gallons (84 gallons optional) of fuel.
The airplane was only five knots faster than
the C-180 and stalled four knots higher, but
it was also carrying nearly 600 pounds more
cargo/people/fuel. None of these performance
figures, of course, mean anything when put
against Rabourn's modified airplane.
As we climbed into the
airplane, it was obvious to me that
everything about the Skywagon makes it feel
like a much bigger airplane. One thing that
immediately made it seem so much longer,
even though it really isn't, was how far I
had to pull the seat forward to reach the
rudder pedals. In fact, between the upward
hinged door and the extended seat rails, it
has to be the easiest Cessna on Earth to get
into. These would be good mods for any
Cessna.
Tom orchestrated the
start (it was hot and we didn't need me
screwing it up) and we were on our way. The
heavy weight aspect of the airplane was
obvious from the very beginning. The amount
of power it took to get it moving and the
amount of rudder it required to make a turn
all hinted at inertia. It didn't want to be
moved and then, when it moved, it didn't
want to be stopped. This is all relative,
however, as after a few minutes the feeling
of inertia disappeared to be replaced by a
feeling of solidity.
![](../images3/22.jpg)
After a short
conversation on the taxiway about how I
could almost see over the nose, Tom
suggested we crank my seat up. Crank, crank,
crank. Now I could absolutely see over the
nose.
Out on the runway, I
purposely hunched down a little so the nose
would hide the very centre of the runway
which gave me a hard reference where the
edge of the runway intersected the cowling.
Power going in, I simply hugged the yoke to
my chest and stared at my reference until
the tail felt like it wanted to come up,
then I eased it forward (against some trim,
which I should have set a little further
forward). As soon as the tail came up I had
C-182 visibility. I've never been crazy
about spring gear and I could feel the main
gear legs sort of wobbling around. The
airplane wasn't doing anything, as it was
taking only a tap here and there to keep it
straight, but that soft feeling made it
difficult to know exactly what it was doing.
On the next takeoff, I raised the tail a tad
higher and pinned it on more securely which
loaded the legs and eliminated some of the
wobblies.
Once off the ground, Tom
immediately set the turbo control for max
continuous power and we wandered up hill at
900 fpm while holding 70 knots. It was about
90° out and we were at 2,500 MSL, so the DA
was about 5,000 ft.
![](../images3/23.jpg)
In the air, the airplane
actually feels big. I hadn't expected it to
feel much different than a C-182, but it
does. Its wing loading is a solid 2 pounds
per square foot heavier and you can tell it.
There wasn't much turbulence, but what
little there was, the airplane just chopped
through. In playing with the controls, the
ailerons were heavier than a 182's and the
airplane's response was a little slower, all
part of the big airplane feel.
Once at altitude I
immediately began playing with the stalls
and slow flight. The first stall was clean
and the yoke was against my chest at
something like 52 knots IAS. I held the yoke
back, just to see what it would do, which
was exactly nothing. The stall didn't break
and the airplane just mushed ahead. I added
some speed, grabbed the man-sized handle on
the floor between the seats and yanked it up
to give me full (40°) flaps and tried the
stall again. Same thing, except the stall
was down around 38-40 knots. The Robinson
kit must really work, because in the same
situation, the book says a stock Skywagon
would be stalling around 54 knots.
![](../images3/24.jpg)
Then, with the yoke still
against my chest and flaps down, I slowly
eased power in, bleeding off back pressure
as the nose tried to come up. I found I
could motor around with something like
13-15" and 35 knots all day long. The
ailerons were a little soft, but the
airplane was totally controllable and
pulling back to simulate an inadvertent
stall in that situation only generated a
slight bump and a little roll to the left.
Leaving everything alone and relaxing a hint
of back pressure put the airplane back
flying again at 35 knots.
On downwind, I got out
10° of flap which made the airplane very
manageable and speed-stable. I bled the
speed down to the 65 knots Tom recommended,
keeping a little power in to maintain
glideslope and to fly out around a noise
sensitive area. I opted to fly final with
only 30° flap, rather than hanging them all
out. All the way down, the end of the gravel
runway just sat in the windshield, until it
started moving towards us and I bled the
power off to let it down.
The first landing wasn't
pretty as I was still trying to figure out
where the ground was and planted it on a
little too firmly. We got a little bounce
and I just held the attitude waiting for it
to come down. Gravity always sorts these
kinds of situations out and it settled back
on to roll pretty much straight ahead even
though we had a slight crosswind. On the
next landing, I was able to ease it into
ground effect with a little more grace and
we touched down with no bounce. Tom had
warned me to make sure the trim was full aft
prior to touch down or it would do the
famous main gear to tailwheel and back
hippity hop 180/185s are famous for. I
didn't see a sign of that tendency.
On roll-out I could feel
the airplane try to initiate a slight turn,
but then I'd feel the gear legs twist
sideways, greatly softening that turn,
giving me all day to keep the nose straight.
That's one of the strong points of the
spring gear, designed and patented by old
time race pilot, Steve Wittman. At no time
on rollout were my feet doing anything more
than just tapping now and then. It was
really easy to control, although being on
the gravel probably helped that. We didn't
make any hard surface landings so I don't
know if it has the same manners there or
not. I doubt if it does.