Not too long
ago Luscombes shared a dubious honour with
the Taylorcraft. They were voted "The
Airplane Most Likely to be Abandoned on the
Back Tiedown Line." A ratty Luscombe was the
rule, not the exception. Although you'd
occasionally see fantastically polished,
beautifully detailed Luscombes, you were far
more likely to see airplanes with dull,
spotted skin, scaling paint and small weird
animals in residence in nooks and crannies.
From the beginning,
however, those who loved Luscombes, LOVED
Luscombes. They had gotten past the
old-wives' tales about it's supposedly "squirrely"
ground handling, found out the truth and
gloried in the fact that they were flying a
sporty little airplane at bargain basement
prices. Even today, when we are supposedly
much more enlightened, the Luscombe stands
somewhere near the back end of the classic
aircraft pack, when it comes to prices. They
are still a bargain. Much more important,
they aren't as hard to fly as the grape vine
would have them. More on that later.
Several things make the
Luscombe an ideal restoration project. For
one thing, they are tiny. Without the wings,
they'd fit into a garage (or upstairs
bedroom, if you don't tell mom) without even
being tight. Secondly, there are
approximately 2,500 flying with another
1,000 estimated to be in barns, attics and
workshops, and an unknown number
disassembled for parts. This is another way
of saying that finding assistance and parts
isn't difficult.
What makes the parts and
assistance aspect of supporting or
rebuilding a Luscombe much easier than other
airplanes is that technically the parts are
still in production. Although they didn't
mean to get into the parts business, the Don
Luscombe Aviation History Foundation, in
Chandler, Arizona, has all the drawings, the
Type Certificate and some of the original
tooling. See the separate side bar for what
services they provide, but suffice it to
say, they make owning a Luscombe easy.
Mechanical
Description
The Luscombe
Model 8, like the Phantom before it, was
well ahead of its time. Don Luscombe got the
first Model 8 going as part of a class
project in one of his aviation trade schools
and it went into production in 1938/39. It
is worth noting that the airplane was the
very first commercially successful
all-aluminium light aircraft, although
aircraft like the Buhl Pup had used the same
material much earlier. By the time the war
shut Luscombe down, the airplanes were
selling extremely well, a fact not lost on
Cessna, when they began post war production
of the 120/140.
The postwar airframes
differed in a myriad of tiny details from
the pre-war airplanes. Some of the changes
are significant, but most are merely
interesting. When the company was taken over
by the War Department (it was owned by a
Swiss foreign national at the time and you
KNOW how dangerous they can be in wartime)
to produce sub-components, it's engineering
staff never forgot the Model 8. In their off
hours, they continued up-dating the airframe
and, when they went back into production in
late 1946, the result was an airplane that
took advantage of what they'd learned during
the war.
Post war wing ribs, for
instance, are stampings in the rag-wings and
almost non-existent in the metal wings. The
metal wings use curved, hat-section
(actually derby shaped) stampings to hold
their shape with no webs. Pre-war ribs are
traditional aluminium truss units. The
spars, beginning to end, never changed.
Most of the airplane's
components were refined for easier
production. After the war they continued
this process and in 1947 introduced the
"square" tail. It took some months to use up
existing inventory plus, since the two
styles of tails are interchangeable it's not
unusual to see late tails on early airplanes
and vice versa.
There are two
basic wing designs, the double strut rag
wing and the single strut, stressed skin
aluminium post war wing. The rag wing was
offered as an option after the metal wing
was introduced until available stock ran out
sometime in late '46 or '47.
The original wings used
.016 aluminium leading edges which was
easily damaged, especially in the pre-war
wings which used a softer aluminium. The
metal wing was certificated with .016" but
immediately went to .020" because of
availability problems with the thinner
material. They later listed the heavier
skins as an option with the .016" being
standard. With the .020" skin an option,
it's possible to see metal wings with either
skin on it. The weight difference was about
7 pounds an airplane.
Just for the record: It's
often assumed the older rag wing airplanes
were lighter, but no one seemed to know
exactly how much. Doug Combs of the Luscombe
Foundation says the rag-wings save 56 pounds
an airplane. For such little birds, that's a
sizable amount.
The metal wings
originally had only a few inspection panels
, but corrosion concerns prompted a Service
Bulletin from the Foundation followed by an
AD to install two more inspection panels
mid-wing. Since you're looking at a ten foot
long closed aluminium box that's at least 50
years old, that seems like a sensible thing
to do.
Corrosion is, as with any
aluminium airplane, an area of constant
concern with the Luscombe. Luscombes
suffered more than most of its peer group
because there was at least a 25 year period
during which Luscombes were worth very
little and a hangared Luscombe was rare. The
vast majority of the population sat outside
for most of their life.
Doug Combs says 10-20% of
the airplanes have some corrosion somewhere
and it is often a function of where they
spent most of their time. He says corrosion
spawns an oxide powder which, in a dry
climate, helps stop the corrosion. In a damp
climate, however, he says it collects
moisture and promotes even more corrosion.
For that reason, Luscombes in the damper
parts of the country are more suspect than
those from the drier western states.
The wings have the
standard corrosion problems and the spar
carry-throughs in the top of the fuselage
require close inspection.
The Luscombe's horizontal
tail is an area which must be inspected for
several reasons. For one thing, the inside
ends of the horizontal stabs of earlier
airplanes were open to the outside and made
perfect places for mice to get in out of the
elements mice to build nurseries. The
urinary habits of breeding mice are not
conducive to long-lived airplane components.
Not wanting to
rely on either memory or hearsay, I
contacted the Foundation to see about
getting several flights in Luscombes of
different models. I wanted not only to do
some comparisons, but to actually develop a
feel for the airplane.
First we went out in the
8A they had just finish restoring for Fred
Voltz of Copple, Texas. It was so fresh, it
even smelled new. The airplane was sans
electrical but incorporated most of the
Foundation mods including their fine- tuning
of the control system.
"All we actually do is
replace the older pulleys with modern ball
bearing ones and make sure fairleads are
lined up," Combs says. In other words, they
take it back to new configuration.
To anyone who remembers
Luscombes in their "dog days", the
difference in control feel approaches
astounding. The high-friction feeling of
sawing wood with the aileron cables is
replaced by a slick, syrupy feel that is
delightful before even firing up.
Although a Luscombe's
fuselage is narrow, for some reason the
cockpit isn't noticeably tight for "normal"
sized people. I'm FAA-normal. The floor is
flat, so your feet stick ahead of you to the
little rubber rudder pedals, that look like
old MG brake pedals. They are located just a
little off-centre and close together and I
had to keep my feet down to keep from
touching something above them with my toes.
But, then, I was wearing cowboy boots, so
that's hardly a criticism. The heel brakes
are back and more centred and, at first, you
have to think to keep your feet clear of
them. A few minutes in the cockpit, however,
and you don't notice anything unusual.
Although you're sitting
well back in the wing, you're sitting fairly
high in the fuselage, so your line of sight
is clear of the nose. Just a little
stretching drops the nose completely out of
your vision.
The ergonomic
relationship between the stick, throttle and
seat is much better than many airplanes of
the period which makes transitioning into
the airplane much easier because you're
comfortable and aren't reaching for
anything.
As we taxied out I messed
around with the rudders and I could
immediately see why the airplane has a
reputation for it's ground handling: The
airplane goes exactly where your feet ask it
to and some pilots aren't used to that. As I
was to later confirm on a bunch of takeoffs
and landings, the Luscombe isn't even close
to being directionally unstable. But a lot
of pilots are.
If you move your right
foot a little bit, the airplane turns right
a little. Move your foot a lot and it turns
a lot. Jab at it and the airplane jumps in
that direction.
Any complaint about the
airplane's directional control on the ground
would be the same as someone transitioning
from a Buick station wagon into a Miata or
similar sports car: There's nothing wrong
with the way the little cars handle, but the
driver has to get used to a car that isn't
lethargic.
The Luscombe responds
proportional to rudder inputs while
airplanes like Cubs and Champs don't. They
have a measurable lag and the Luscombe
doesn't. Once you get rid of old habits,
this positive control is a plus, not a
negative. Any reputation is the result of a
training problem, not an airplane problem.
On my first takeoff in
the 65 hp 8A I was pleased to see how easy
it was to hold both an attitude and
direction while running on the mains. The
gear is really stiff, so you can tell
exactly what the airplane is doing and
correct accordingly. The secret to
corrections, since it does exactly what's
ask of it, is "measured response." Don't
over do it and start chasing your feet.
Apparently that happens a lot with Luscombes.
With those long wings,
the airplane is eager to fly and there's no
doubt that it's flying on the wing, not the
engine. That's even more evident on
climb-out. We were two average people on an
80 degree day at 1500 ft MSL and 400-500 fpm
rate of climb was the best we were going to
get. The Luscombe's climb rate was about par
with it's similarly powered contemporaries.
I was not prepared to
like the airplane's handling as much as I
did. The slicked up controls really help,
especially in roll. In yaw, the rudders feel
light but that's because they have very
little centreing pressure. You have to rely
on your butt or the skid ball to see how
you're doing at first. The airplane has a
lot of adverse yaw, when measured by modern
standards, but it's about the same as a
Champ and easily handled with a little
rudder.
I don't know what prop
was on this airplane, but it settled down to
about 100 mph indicated at 2450 rpm, and I
knew we were burning about 4-4.5 gallons per
hour. How's that for fuel economy?
Stalls with that much
wing happen around 40 mph and are
anticlimactic, but I could see where it
wouldn't take much rudder to kick it into a
nice spin. Incidentally, a lot of people
think the Luscombe would be a great
aerobatic trainer, and, in fact many people
do use the airplane for aerobatics. It may
be time, however, for us to re-evaluate that
kind of thinking. Yes, it will do loop, roll
and spin type of manoeuvres, but we're
talking about airplanes that are 50-60 years
old. Most have never been completely gone
through and the airplane has a lot of
boxed-in areas that can't be easily
inspected for corrosion. Personally, I'd
never aerobat a Luscombe that hasn't had
both the wings and the tail completely
opened up and inspected.
One thing I was concerned
about on the landing was getting it to come
down. I expect it to be a real glider. The
Luscombe surprised me, however, because
although it glided like crazy, it was still
coming down faster than something like the
Cessna 140. This is a welcomed
characteristic.
What I liked much more
was the way the airplane slipped. At first I
just nibbled at the slip, but soon was
perfectly happy to bottom the rudder and lay
the aileron over to watch the numbers coming
up at us. The nose has only a slight
tendency to come up in the slip and the
entire thing was not only easily controlled,
but a real hoot to do. Eventually, I got to
where I was comfortable slipping hard and
then bleeding out the slip a little at a
time until flaring. For a long winged
airplane, the Luscombe knows how to come
down, when you want it to.
Understandably, the
airplane likes to float, but not much worse
than a Cub and no where nearly as bad as a
Taylorcraft. In the same situation, it
floats only slightly more than a flaps-up
C-150. This gives you all day to work at
finding the runway and getting the attitude
right.
Feeling for the runway in
ground effect is another place where
"measured response" is called for. The
airplane moves when you asked it to, so it
helps to visually fixate on the edges of the
runway and use small, quick inputs to keep
it straight, not drifting and in the
three-point attitude. On at least several of
those first landings we had a little
crosswind and the airplane handled it easily
as long as I did my part.
I could see where heavy
turbulence and gusts would keep you working
because of the light wing loading, but the
airplane has the control authority to handle
it, if the pilot has the same authority and
confidence.
Wheel landings with that
rigid gear were a simple matter of flying it
down and pinning it on, although I did get
at least one ugly one. The trick is not to
anticipate the touch down. Work at
decreasing the wheel-to-runway distance
gradually and let the touch down surprise
you. Once pinned, even on one wheel, it was
easy to control.
Visibility throughout the
approach is excellent. At no time, including
during flare, does the runway hide behind
the nose. In fact, the nose is just
noticeable enough to act as a reference in
setting up the three-point attitude.
Later I flew with Doug in
the 85 hp, 8E the Foundation was raffling
off. This would be their fourth raffle
airplane. This airplane had complete
electrical, paint and about half tanks. On
my first takeoff it was only seconds before
I could feel the difference 85 hp makes.
Where the 65 hp was happy to get off and
slow to climb, the 85 was anxious to get off
and showed us a solid 800 fpm at 75-80 mph.
It had much better performance than the 8A,
although it was less than 5 mph faster.
Again, I don't know what the prop pitch was
but the bigger engine really made an
airplane out of it.
Doug showed me how he
usually has transitioning students raise the
tail to at least level or higher attitude on
take off, which makes the airplane extremely
stable on the mains. He says many accidents
involve over-controlling on takeoff and
getting the tail that high helps stabilize
the airplane.
On approach we were using
a de-accelerating approach starting at 80
mph and working down to 70 over the numbers.
I'm certain that given a little more time, I
would have used 65 mph or so at the end to
kill some of the float. On final I was
surprised to see how quickly the airplane
picked up speed if I let the nose slide down
even a little.
One thing I did not fall
in love with in the pattern is the trim
system. It's a horizontal crank facing
forwards at the front edge of the seat
between the two occupants' hips. First, I
could never remember which way to trim it
and I could never actually trim out the
pressures on final. Most of the time, I just
ignored the trim, set it neutral and over
powered the pressures.
Is the Luscombe a
difficult airplane to fly? Absolutely not.
In reality, because it reacts so positively
and has so much control authority, it is
probably safer and eventually easier than
many of its peer group. That however demands
the pilot learn to control himself first and
then the airplane.
Based on my experiences
years ago with less-than-wonderful Luscombes,
I was prepared to be unimpressed. Just the
opposite was true. I loved it. A great
combination would be a rag wing Luscombe
with both wing tanks, a C-90 and no
electrical. Low weight, lots of power, good
controls...what could be better?