Category: S-6

The top and bottom cowlings of a Rans S6 microlight needed quite a bit of re-building after a prop blade parted company with the hub just on take-off.  For a brief moment, the engine thrashed on its mountings and did lots of damage. The area behind the spinner was smashed and the cowling mounting holes where torn.

I carefully grafted in new carbon and repaired the cracks, taking care not to increase the laminate thickness.  The cowling mounting holes were reinforced with alloy inserts.  Since a different type of engine was being fitted a few changes were made to oil inspection flap, exhaust pipe cutaway, etc.

I helped a Rans S-6 owner to adjust the propeller pitch on his microlight.  It was not going very fast in cruise mode, yet it would take off quite quickly. He figured something was not quite right.

He desperately wanted some more speed before he convoyed long distance to Rangiora with a Tecnam ‘Eaglet’ and my Skyleader ‘GP One’, both of which cruised easily at 100 knots.

We checked the blade pitch using a bubble protractor and found up to 1/2 degree difference between blades. Then we carefully adjusted it to have one degree more pitch. The result was pleasing – an increase of over 5 knots in cruise airspeed (now 85 knots at 5000rpm revs), but only a small decrease in take-off/climb performance.