The Murphy Builders Site

Hi guys: I am interested in opinions in regards to float planes. A friend of
mine recently received the information package from Murphy Air. He will
order either a Rebel or an Elite. Murphy's literature leans more to the
Elite as a float plane, probably due to the O360 capabilities. I do not have
the experience in this area to advise one way or the other. What are your
personal opinions based on experience. Thanks. - Bob Johnson (formerly Rebel
652, currently assisting on Rebel 725 - future "who knows"




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Well, this is certainly open to opinion here, and I'm sure many
would differ with me. But you asked, so here is mine.

I would choose a Rebel over an Elite for a floatplane. The main
reason is weight. The lighter your machine, the more performance
you will have, and more useful load. True, the Elite has 150
pounds more gross weight than the Rebel, but all the Elites I
know also weigh at least 100 pounds more than a similarly
equipped Rebel. So you really have not gained much useful load if
any, and your performance will be less. And the Elite costs a lot
more.

For maximum performance, I would also put the 0360 in the Rebel.
Probably not required unless you live in the mountains. In my
case, I might even consider the new turbo TMX-360. Then you can
enhance that performance further if you like, with the new MAM
wingtips (or Fife tips), and maybe VG's if they are proven to
enhance float performance. Some might go for the leading edge
STOL kit. Personally, I would not, because of the extra weight,
as I would have used that extra 20 pounds on the 0360 over the
0320.

Anyway, that's my opinion, for what it's worth.

We finally got out of the deep freeze here in the Vancouver area.
Last week we struggled to get above freezing a couple days, and
had snow. Now this week we got deluged with rain, and today the
temps got up to +18C (about 65F) out here in the valley. The
skiers definitely aren't happy. But I like it, beats freezing my
fingertips when trying to do some work in my hangar.

Walter

-----Original Message-----
From: mike.davis@dcsol.com
[mailto:mike.davis@dcsol.com]On Behalf Of
Robert and Olga Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 4:24 PM
To: rebel-builders@dcsol.com
Subject: Float Plane opinion


Hi guys: I am interested in opinions in regards to
float planes. A friend of
mine recently received the information package from
Murphy Air. He will
order either a Rebel or an Elite. Murphy's literature
leans more to the
Elite as a float plane, probably due to the O360
capabilities. I do not have
the experience in this area to advise one way or the
other. What are your
personal opinions based on experience. Thanks. - Bob
Johnson (formerly Rebel
652, currently assisting on Rebel 725 - future "who knows"




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Hi Bob,
I saw Robin fly the MAM Elite (O-360) on floats off the water in 7
seconds at Sun&Fun. The only thing that beat him was a Super Cub (don't
remember engine). I can say that there are fewer parts in the Elite
cabin area. I do agree with Bob P that when the extra weight is
accounted for there probably isn't much real performance difference
between Elite/180 and Rebel/160. If money is a factor the Lyc O-320 can
be gotten considerably cheaper. One minor factor is the Rebel cloth
surfaces vs Elite all metal. Also, I can't speak for todays Elite
manuals but the '97 version was "adapted" from the Rebel and has some
errors. To be fair, we addressed these with Darryl last Summer so they
could be corrected.
Ralph Baker
Elite serial 611E



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