New aerobatic aircraft combines enhanced performance with better value (216 words)

Published: 5/3/2001

Richard Goode Aerobatics, which is based in the UK, has sold its first Technoavia SP-55M aerobatic aircraft to a customer in Switzerland. The $110,000 aircraft is the first of a batch of ten to be produced at the Arseniev plant, after the completion of two prototypes. It is largely based on the Yak-55M, of which 100 aircraft were produced between 1991 and 1996, when production ceased. The Technoavia aircraft has been developed by Vyacheslav Kondratiev, the original designer of the Yak-55M and the family of Sukhoi aerobatic aircraft, produced by Sukhoi Advanced Technologies. According to Richard Goode, the SP-55M is a modified aircraft that is significantly cheaper than the Su-31T/M and, with the fitting of a 400hp VOKBM M-14PF engine, offers a similar performance. The adapted aircraft differs from the original Yak-55M in that its control surfaces are completely new fibre/Kevlar, so giving a 20% faster roll, 10% greater pitching authority and 35% greater yawing. Technoavia has also replaced the aircraft's original two-blade controllable pitch propeller with the MTV9-250 three-blade propeller, used on the Su-31. Rate of climb has also been considerably improved, increasing from 3,100 feet a minute to 4,000 feet. This compares favourably with the Su-31's 4,725 feet a minute.

Article ID: 2513