"With full deflection of all controls and plenty
of throttle, the turning circle is
wild."
The six cylinders that sit high above water, atop the engine pylon, are one reason this airplane should appeal to pilots who use seaplanes as a tool of their trade. The Lycoming 10-540 turns out 250 hp through a three-blade Hartzell Q-Tip propeller, and it makes the airplane sound like a Bonanza that floats. It also makes the Renegade eager to fly. Compared with the Buccaneer, the Renegade is heavier (3,050 pounds versus 2,690) but has lower power loading (12.2 pounds per horsepower versus 13.45), and is longer (by 18 inches in the forward hull, and by more than three feet overall) and deeper in the forward hull for better rough-water handling.
I felt at
home very quickly in the Renegade-quickly enough to come away with a seaplane
rating after a few hours in a production airplane and a check ride in the
prototype. The Renegade is remarkably agile on water. It surges forward onto
the step swiftly with full power and - unusual for a seaplane - no back
pressure; left aileron counters torque from the pusher propeller. Once it is
planing on the step -- meaning that most of the structure is out of the water,
with just the lowest part of the hull in the water - the airplane will tolerate
hard 90 degree turns just short of flying speed or a hard turn after touchdown
for a shorter landing run. (The 90-degree slew works beautifully on water, but
don't try it on land.) In rough water, the Renegade's hull slices through the
waves cleanly.
Turns on
the step call for rudder and full into-turn aileron (to keep the outboard
balance float clear of the water) and progressively more back pressure and
power as the turn tightens. With full deflection of all controls and plenty of
throttle, the Renegade's turning circle on water is wild. Lateral G loadings
approach those of a sports car being abused, especially when the airplane bites
into its own wake while chasing its tail. There's no need to make the airplane
chase its tail quite so doggedly - for a circular takeoff from a small body of
water, the turn radius has to be larger for less drag - but if a floating log,
for example, appears in the takeoff path it's useful to be able to scoot around
almost sideways.
Paul Furnee, general manager
of Lake at Laconia and the man largely responsible for bringing the Renegade
into being, says that in water-landing tests the airplane was subjected to nine
Gs. (Asked by the FAA inspector aboard to demonstrate that the aircraft could
sustain the negative G limit, and unable to roll inverted, Furnee dived, pulled
up and pushed over to reach the requisite -1.52; he and the inspector were
showered by water pouring upwards from the bilge.) The engine pylon is stressed
to 20 Gs. Every gauge and instrument on the Renegade panel is cupped at
its top to cut reflection, and all switches and fittings on the panel
are nonreflective mat black. The only major change made to the airplane throughout
the test program came when the original T tail was replaced with the cruciform
empennage now standard, according to Furnee.
At first
glance, the Renegade looks much like a Buccaneer/EP-boat hull, outboard motor,
and gracefully tapered wings sprouting retractable mainwheels and balance
floats. Although the new airplane flies on
beefed-up Buccaneer wings, it is larger, with a cabin
designed to fly four full-size occupants in comfort or four full-size and two
smaller people in somewhat less expansive accommodation. The Renegade also has
a big upward-hinged hatch along the star-board side of the cabin in addition to
wind-shield doors, which simplifies the loading of people, fishing rods, prize
salmon, game, camping gear or whatever else is to be carried. The hatch and the
bigger cabin address what the bush operators tend to regard as a shortcoming in
the smaller Lake.
The
Renegade was initially certificated as a four-seater, with approval for six
seats pending. Lake said that the delay was largely a matter of the placard
wording, which was expected to limit the rearmost bench seat to 260 pounds.
Lake wanted the placard to be interpreted as meaning that a 170-pound man and a
90-pound child could occupy the bench, but the FAA wanted the weight limitation
divided by the number of seats, for a per-seat limit of 130 pounds. FAR Part 23
says that an airplane must be able to carry enough fuel to fly for half an hour
with every seat filled, and the Renegade meets this by being limited on the
rearmost-seats load. With all six seats carrying 170-pounders (which would be
uncomfortable for all aboard, to say the least), the airplane would be out of
CG and over gross weight.
With the
entire cabin forward of the wing, careful loading is important on the Renegade.
A load of one 150-pound pilot and full fuel in the main tank (240 pounds) will
put the airplane out of aft CG, calling for 45 pounds of ballast in the nose
locker to bring the CG back into the envelope. At present, full fuel is 54
gallons-40 gallons in the main (fuselage) tank and seven gallons in each
optional balance-float tank. Production airplanes number IQ onwards, says Lake,
will come with 76 gallons standard (40 in the fuselage and 18 in each wing) or
90 gallons optional (with seven in each balance float). Fuel consumption is
not-listed in the airplane's somewhat Spartan flight manual, and neither is
cruise speed information. The 250-hp 10-540 should burn about 13.5 gph at
75-percent power, giving the 90-gallon Renegade long legs with full tanks.
Speed
isn't one of the Renegade's strongest suits when you consider its power, but
who wants to break speed records in an airplane like this, anyway? At 500 feet
and 75 degrees F., the airplane indicated 120 knots at 24 inches and 2,450 rpm,
75-percent power. Sixty-five-percent power (24 inches and 2,250 rpm) at 5,000
feet produced 122 knots true. The
Renegade’s power shows best on the water and while climbing, and the cruise
speed is the price you pay for being able to operate on land, sea and air. When compared with the cruise speeds of
300-hp amphibious floatplanes, though, the Renegade’s is not shabby.
Always on the lookout for ways to improve the neighborliness of its amphibians, Lake has struck upon a technique for a noise-abatement takeoff. It calls for the release of all 29 inches of manifold pressure through just 1,900 rpm instead of the normal 2,575 rpm. Lycoming, while not officially approving the technique, does concede that it briefly runs the IO-540 at 2,000 rpm and 29 inches in the test cell. Lycoming says that 26 inches would be the maximum manifold pressure permitted at 1,900 rpm. The company also says that, at 1,900 rpm and 29 inches, the Renegade’s IO-540 would be producing only 185 hp. Clearly, the pilot has to strike a balance: keep the neighbors sweet (that’s important), get off the water safely, and don’t damage the engine. Prudence would seem to suggest using the noise-abatement procedure only at low weights. Takeoff noise was certainly lower at 1,900 rpm, but the sensation was much like that of moving off in second gear in a stick-shift car. It didn't sound or feel right. If the choice is between controlling the din on noise-sensitive lakes and not flying, though, you can bet pilots won't settle on the latter option. It will console some owners to know that the 10-540 as fitted to the Renegade has 250-hp innards in the 350-hp case fitted to the Piper Mojave. Lake gets the thicker (and presumably stronger) case because it asked for an easily accessible side-mounted dipstick, a feature of the Mojave case.
If the
noise-abatement takeoff didn't feel right, though, everything else about the
Renegade felt just great. It has the power to inspire confidence. In the
Buccaneer, I sometimes felt that the engine was being stretched to meet the
task. But that's not so in the Renegade, which, at the midrange weights I was
flying, moves across water, concrete or soggy beaches with relentless
eagerness. There's something about a six-cylinder engine; it has a sound that
won't say no, a sound that has transformed the Lake amphibian from a lovable
putt-putt -sorry, Buccaneer owners, but
you'll soon see what I mean when you try the Renegade - into a fire-breathing
powerboat that flies. It's far from being a handful, though: Bill Mason, the
examiner who administered my single-engine-sea check ride in the prototype, has
Renegade number eight on order. It was only his second time in the airplane.
When we landed, he was beaming. "Truly an old man's airplane," he
said, patting its nose. This airplane is a ball, the kind of machine that will
start the rest of us playing the state lottery.