similar to Aeronca Champ but no wood?

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Brad W

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Just daydreaming and "what-ifing"

What are some planes that would be similar to an Aeronca Champ, but no wood spars or structure... so that it's more suitable for tying down outside in Florida?
(no hangars to be had around here)
just daydreaming about a cheap to buy and cheap to operate fun flyer. Just daydreaming as I'd really rather have something suitable for an occasional cross country.... but that little Champ I flew a few times years ago was the most fun I've ever had flying!

Cessna's 120/140 come to mind...although I don't think they are quite the same.... I don't know if it's the side by side or what but they just weren't as much fun when I flew them years ago.... more like flying a Cessna 150 I suppose

I don't know much about Luscombe's, Taylorcraft?

Nor do I know much about the offspring of the Champ...except to know that like a lot of the newer cub variants they seem to get pretty pricey to buy.... (Aeronca vs Champion vs Ballanca vs American Champion??)
At what point if ever did these get away form the wood spars/wing structure or are they still wood?

What else is similar?
 
Champs and Chiefs have metal ribs and can have metal spars (there’s an AD against the wood spars, but I personally would prefer wood spars on them.)

They still have wood fuselage formers, but I don’t know that I’d consider it to be “structure.”
 
Maybe a Luscombe? Side-by-side, but with a stick instead of yoke. But, as everyone mentioned, corrosion can happen, even without wood spars.
 
I have a Champ with Milman metal spars. They are out there if you happen to stumble upon one. I’ll be selling mine some day.
 
Wood spars aren't an issue in Florida. As long as the wood was correctly varnished and the wing covering is intact, they will last nearly indefinitely, or until the first ground loop. That's the real issue with wood spars on the Aeronca/Champion/Bellanca series of aircraft and the reason for the AD. Hidden damage from unrecorded ground contact.

The steel frame is very much an issue. I would not keep an older T&F airframe outdoors in this climate. It is impossible to make everything watertight. Water will get into the fuselage, by leaks and by condensation, and it will collect on the bottom of the lower longerons. Eventually they will rust. It's a real eye opener the first time you cut the cover off a 40 year old plane with nice fabric and paint and look closely at the bottom of the steel frame.

Of course they are going to rust in the hangar too, because doors don't stop humidity. But it will take longer.

For what you want, I would look at the various experimental options. Kitfox, Rans, etc.
 
Half Fast said:
Have you considered an Ercoupe? It has the advantage of being low wing....
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interesting thought....but no. I like almost all planes in one way or another, even ugly ones...but for some reason those things have never appealed to me...actually the opposite. I don't know why...kinda like blue cheese. I used to say I'll eat almost anything....but blue cheese.
+ everytime I see one now, I'm reminded of a guy taht was working the unicom and fuel truck line when I was learning to fly. Young guy, had an ercoup. He and a friend, a young A&P at the airport, were up for an evening jaunt...apparently try to do a roll, and it didn't end well.

Ed Haywood said:
Wood spars aren't an issue in Florida. As long as the wood was correctly varnished and the wing covering is intact, they will last nearly indefinitely, or until the first ground loop. That's the real issue with wood spars on the Aeronca/Champion/Bellanca series of aircraft and the reason for the AD. Hidden damage from unrecorded ground contact.

The steel frame is very much an issue. I would not keep an older T&F airframe outdoors in this climate. It is impossible to make everything watertight. Water will get into the fuselage, by leaks and by condensation, and it will collect on the bottom of the lower longerons. Eventually they will rust. It's a real eye opener the first time you cut the cover off a 40 year old plane with nice fabric and paint and look closely at the bottom of the steel frame.

Of course they are going to rust in the hangar too, because doors don't stop humidity. But it will take longer.

For what you want, I would look at the various experimental options. Kitfox, Rans, etc.
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I've thought that way for a long time...that even though part of me would like to have one, I would never if I had to keep it outside...
but I keep reading that people do it, and have done it forever....apparently lots live outside in AK...and so lately I've been thinking probably not, but maybe..... I would really rather not keep any plane outside, but until I can talk the wife into moving someplace else...which probably will never happen... I won't have a hangar for a very long time if ever
 
Ed Haywood said:
Wood spars aren't an issue in Florida. As long as the wood was correctly varnished and the wing covering is intact, they will last nearly indefinitely, or until the first ground loop. That's the real issue with wood spars on the Aeronca/Champion/Bellanca series of aircraft and the reason for the AD. Hidden damage from unrecorded ground contact.
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It was a lot more than ground contact. The aluminum ribs are held to each spar by nails through a flange on the rib. Air loads on the rib would work the rib up and down some, loosening the nails, elongating the nail holes, and allowing the sharper lower edge of the aluminum rib to contact the wood and chew into it. The wood also shrank with age, across the grain, so that the spar became narrower in the vertical dimension, and those nails through the aluminum would force the grain apart and start cracking along the grain.

Longitudinal cracking was found emanating from the spar's root fitting holes. Vertical loading in flight would do this.

Then there was compression failure of the wood. There are plywood doublers on the spars where the strut attachments fit, to strengthen the spar where several holes are drilled through it. Lift forces will cause the spar to bend vertically a little, but at those doublers the spars are stiffer, so the bending forces pile up at either end of the doublers and the wood in the top of the spar compresses, and the grains bends and fold a little, weakening the spar. This compression wood is one of the things the AD calls out.

The spar root and strut fittings were steel and subject to rusting. Rust on wood will decay it rapidly. Steel bolts through wood will also rot it as they rust.

American Champion went to aluminum spars in around 1992. The fuselage still has plywood formers and spruce strips, to hide the triangular shape of the fuselage aft of the cabin. The two top longerons come together into one longeron.

The AD references the Service Letters that led to the AD:
https://www.americanchampionaircraft.com/_files/ugd/a61c16_71e1816acfb74a319562046c7028b7ab.pdf

https://www.americanchampionaircraft.com/_files/ugd/a61c16_f7fb95b8135549dfae073e64c3110316.pdf
 
Dan Thomas said:
.... American Champion went to aluminum spars in around 1992. The fuselage still has plywood formers and spruce strips, to hide the triangular shape of the fuselage aft of the cabin. The two top longerons come together into one longeron.
.......
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so then unless they were converted, all champs and its variants would have wood up through about 1992?
 
Brad W said:
so then unless they were converted, all champs and its variants would have wood up through about 1992?
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Something like that. It varies, as American Champion reintroduced various models in different years, with aluminum spars. I don't think they built any wood-spar airplanes. They took over the type certificate in 1989.

There are other problems. These airplanes got spring-steel main gear legs in the 1960s, and those legs are prone to breaking suddenly. We had one fail in the flight school. In about 2005 American Champion started using aluminum gear legs, saving about 7 pounds. One can retrofit those legs, but because they're thicker, the fabric loop at the gear leg fuselage exit has to be cut off and a larger one welded on. Finding used steel legs will be hard indeed, as most owners would want to save money by replacing what's already there. The earlier Champs used an oleo-type main gear, with the piston and cylinder as part of the outer gear leg. Very soft, and they allowed the airplane to lean badly in a crosswind landing. Hard to keep that upwind wing down.

Many of these airplanes have small useful loads. I wouldn't trust the original W&B stuff from the factory for some of those from the '70s, for instance. The empty weights might be way too low (I found one) and if the airplane has been upgraded to aluminum spars, it WILL weigh more and an aircraft reweigh is in order.
 
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