Flight Test 2 of Passenger Carrying Capacity

 July 27 2020  Once again I wanted to do another test to see what I was comfortable carrying for weight in my Quickie Q2 with the Revmaster 65 HP engine.  My airport elevation is just under 4000 ft. at 3965 ft. and as a result I have been reluctant to carry a passenger in my aircraft from this airport elevation.  Note that in a previous post I did a short weight carrying test with 70 pounds of sand in the passenger seat and as a result was not happy with the climb out performance.  Once again I will mention that I purchased this plane from a sea level airport and we flew with two people on board with no problem.

On this day I flew a loop trip for 2.5 hours north from Springbank Airport to Glenifer Lake, Sylvan Lake, Gull Lake and finally Pigeon Lake.  Some segments were along the beaches and finally at Pigeon lake I did numerous circles over a location where I have friends with a lake shore house.

Temperature was 22 degrees C on my departure and the airport Density Altitude was 6000 ft.  My aircraft empty weight is 626 pounds and my gross weight on this morning takeoff was 921 lbs.  Just as in my previous test completed for this purpose my climb out was very shallow and slow to gain altitude.  My header tank has a volume of exactly 7 gallons, which I measured.  Therefore if I carry only the  7 gallons in the header tank plus my 165 pounds and 10 pounds of misc. gear, my max passenger weight would be 157 pounds based upon the 1000 pound max gross weight.

Present airport elevation CYBW is: 3965 ft.
Empty weight of aircraft:              626 lbs.
Pilot weight:                                  165 lbs.
Misc. gear wt.                                  10 lbs
Fuel weight carried:                         120 lbs (this is full header tank and 13 gallons in main)
Outside air temperature: 22 degrees C
Total weight:                                    921 lbs.

So I am flying my test flights on a warm day of 22 degrees C and at a weight of about 79 pounds under the gross wt. of 1000 lb.  Obviously I will not be carrying a passenger in my Q2 from my elevation airport of 4000 ft. in the summer.  Now on a cold day I may be able to carry that 157 pound passenger but I doubt that I will ever try it.  I have a friend with the same plane and same engine at a airport elevation of 2650 ft and he does carry a passenger so you can see that the elevation plus the temperature can make a very big difference to the performance of this marginally powered aircraft.

A note worth mentioning here is that when I bought my plane it came with a registered max gross weight capacity of 1100 lbs.  Now the regular Quickie Q2 as per the plans has a all up max gross weight capacity of 1000 lbs.  The owner however can do a weight/climb test and have his aircraft licensed for a new higher max weight and that must be what the previous owner did when at sea level.

Final note:  If used as a single seat aircraft at my airport elevation this is one sweet ride.  Performance speed, climb rate and handling are just superb.  As a cross country aircraft it is fantastic for covering distance with great visibility and comfort.  Airspeed is 130-140 mph in cruise at 3.5 gallons per hour.  For my airport at 4000 ft elevation to have a density altitude of the same value the temperature needs to be 7 degrees C outside.