Pilot report rating on the Aventura II amphibious light sport
aircraft.
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| Rating from 1 to 10 with 10 being the best or easiest. |
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| Design - Structure, history, safety, resale value, |
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| The Aventura II, has a sound history,
safety record and holds it's resale value. It's bolt together
construction allows quick and easy repair and replacement of parts.
Other than regular engine maintenance, and control system
lubrication the plane is literally maintenance free. The covering
material is dacron sail cloth which requires a UV barrier be applied
and touched up every couple of years. |
| Kit - Construction style, complexity, knowledge requirement |
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| It is a relatively simple kit to
construct. You basically start from the main landing gear and work
back, then forward. Wings are simple bolt together ladder style
construction, with wire bracing. |
| Factory - Years in business, kits produced, kits flying. |
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| The plane has been produced since
1994. Aero Adventures has been building them since 2002. Over 120
are currently flying. |
| Manuals - Ease of reading, completeness, drawings and diagrams |
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| The construction manuals in the past
were not very good. Bob Boswell of Aero Adventures indicates that
they now have new manuals, which have been updated, with parts and
description boxes. Plus additional pages of information with
reference to FAA doc. for experimental aircraft. The new manual
include CAD drawings, and come in a 3 ring binder, and will be
shipped with kits starting June of 2007. |
| Cockpit - Comfort, noise, visibility, |
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| The Aventura II is a very comfortable
plane to fly, trim, flaps, throttle, sticks are all comfortable
located. Visibility is excellent. Noise in the cabin is is good when
you consider the plane is being flown with no doors, a lot like
driving a convertible. |
| Ground handling and suspension - System, complexity, does it work |
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| Ground handling for a tail dragger is
good. But the overhead thrust will take some pilots a little getting
use to. Suspension is via the flex in the landing gear and use of
low pressure tires. On water the hull performance is one of the best
I have ever flown on. |
| Flight Controls - Pressure, comfort, effectiveness, |
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| This is one area where I was
disappointed. Pressures on the control systems were about the same
as the BUC II. Which were heavy. I expected that they would have
been redesigned to be lighter. |
| Propulsion Package - Reliability, noise, vibration, |
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| The Rotax 912 S mates to the Aventura
II like they were made for each other. It has proven to be a
reliable power plant. The engine mount passed no vibration through
to the airframe that I noticed. The only negative experienced was
the hard starting.
The engine temperatures were all running quite a
bit colder than recommended by Rotax. Which would indicate a
redesign or modification of the cooling system might be necessary to
bring them into the proper ranges. |
| Performance - Compared to other craft with same weight, power and style of control systems. |
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| Excellent |
| Overall Rating |
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The Aventura II gets a good rating.
It holds it's resale value. Has an excellent safety record. Fun and
easy to fly. The area's that it fall short in like manuals have
nothing to do with the plane, and have apparently been addressed by
the factory, but I can only report on today, not tomorrow.
It will take a conventional pilot 5 to 10 hours to convert
especially if he doesn't have any tail dragger time. |
