It has been six months since our first flight and almost two months since we have concluded the primary test phase of flying. And over the past six months I have reported as much as I could about the progress we have made. Of coarse, all the accounts of the actual flying have been second hand. The only team member to have had to live vicariously through his teammates.

The plane and team have been through an exhaustive test program over the past six months. Our number one commitment was to safety and insuring that every system had been methodically testes in various flight conditions. This took a great deal of discipline considering the temptation.

Every flight to date has been well thought out with very clear objectives and data to collect. Unfortunately, I was not one of those data collectors. And for good reason, I was not qualified. Dave Morss, Butch Pfeifer and Ken Erickson on the other hand are HIGHLY qualified. So, it feels kind of weird to be surrounded by all this talent and feel somewhat of an outsider on your own team. Mostly because they have experienced something I have not, flying the Turbine Toucan.

They also understood something I had not; unless you’ve flown the aircraft, words just don’t describe the experience. It was something unspoken but also something very clear to Dave, Butch and Ken.

Well, all that was about to change! Ken, Butch and I felt that we have the airplane and the program at a place that we can finally have a little fun. The amount of confidence they both had in the aircraft is what lead up to a very special event in my life. I get my first crack at flying the Turbine Toucan. Talk about gratification. Building it is one thing, flying it just completes the story nicely.

So, on Friday the 30th of October, I finally flew the little Toucan!

Without going into a lot of detail, WOW just seems so meager a word for the experience. The acceleration on take off is something close to 4 G’s, never experienced that kind of performance before. Perhaps equally impressive is the rate of decent one can do. While practicing for my first landing (at altitude) I was exploring decent rates when bring the power back to idle, which I typically do for short approaches in the Pitts when abeam the numbers. In order for me to hold best glide (100mph) with the power back, I was having to point the plane almost straight down. Last time I looked inside the cockpit, I was passing 4500 feet per minute decent to keep 100mph. Damn.

So much for my typical Pitts short approach. It’s a plane you bring in under power, about 120kts over the fence to be exact. Over the threshold you come back on the power to idle and in about a seconds time you are about 80kts and in the flair. Simply amazing.

What I found to be incredible is just how fast it can decelerate. Going from 180kts to 120kts when I was entering the right 45 only took a few seconds and boy did the harness snug up in a hurry! I thought I was going to be thrown out of the cockpit, which I’m used to, doing aerobatics not straight and level flying….did I mention all the left rudder it took to keep it straight when you come off the power? Sheeesh.


I’ll be writing a lot more about flying the Turbine Toucan as I practice our time to climb record attempts in the coming weeks. I’m sure the vertical performance will be a story worth reporting on. In the mean time, Ken and team will have a few exciting posts coming up next week.

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