Another Norden has been tested, ready now to be shipped to the USA.
We work hard and not less than 1.100 hours to produce each one of these planes. Then, when they are finally ready, we arrive at the airport for the final test flight, after weeks of work. Hard work. A complex amount of hundreds of different parts, welded 4130 tubes, aeronautical aluminium sheets, bolts, rivets, covering material, glue and paint, engine, avionic, different electric looms and electric engines, wheels and brakes, carbon parts and leather, finally are mixed together and will transform soon themselves into what we call every time “a real plane”.
A plane dreamed and sometimes waited for years by the final customer. We apologise when we are late in the delivery process, we know how hard it is to wait for something you dreamed for so long..We know and we always try to do our best. Always. The test pilot arrives at the airport and will show us if we were good at doing our job or if something will have to be fixed. A routinary job it could look, but for us, for all the people involved in this process, it is that kind of final step, that will never be short of mixed emotions.
The pilot has the hard job to transform all those different mechanical parts that a few weeks ago were waiting for the assembling, here and there, into a real plane. It is a mix of emotions for all the people involved, be assured…
For our good workers at first, that did it right as usual, for the pilot that has always to accept the possible challenges coming from a first test flight, for the owner of the company that at the end and as usual, is the unique responsible man for everything happening in the company…
All is ready, checked several times…The plane finally take off, timidly, we are not looking for best performances at this stage…Then it makes some first turns, right and left, to feel the commands, finally moving away on the horizon for a couple of minutes…You already know in that moment that all is going well. First stalls, with only one notch of flaps initially, just to start, activation of the magic retractable slats, check of the trim system, check of the cruise speed at different rpm, engine temperatures, VNE, climb speed and performance in general… All has to be checked. Carefully.
This is in short a test flight process and is always a special event, even after 25 years you are doing this job. And when done, you finally forget the tiredness of the last working days, you forget the worries if you had any, you forget everything…it is just time to relax now and inform the customer, waiting from the last side of the world for good news.
In more than 25 years doing this job, never one test flight went wrong or we had any minor or major accident, but the sense and the urgency of the moment is always present… Again and again this is and will be the same story, even after hundreds of test flights done. This is something that only someone deeply involved in this business could really understand and is one of those moments that makes this job simply “magic”.
We settled the propeller a little bit more cruise oriented and these are the final results, still giving us short take off and good climb rate, even when flying over the allowed (by the rules not technically speaking) MTOW:
Rotax 916 iS
1500 ft asl
19° OAT
26” bushwheels
4600 rpm : 165 km/h (103 mph)
5000 rpm : 177 km/h (110 mph)
5200 rpm : 190 km/h (118 mph)
5400 rpm : 197 km/h (122 mph)
max rpm : 228 km/h (142 mph)
VSI > 1600 ft/m with 2 pilots a and fuel at 660 kg take off weight (1.455 lbs.)
We will receive in a few weeks the “first” special CS prop that we consider tailored for our Stol/Fast Norden : 210cm/82,6” of diameter. We pushed and we waited a lot, to get it done by the French manufacturer…We can’t imagine right now, how better the plane will perform with that kind of prop…
We will update you asap.
