What is it? (w/pics)

After hearing an abnormally loud aircraft I looked up to the sky and saw this.

Lo-and-behold I had a camera on my person. My apologies that these are not the greatest pictures, but I only had a couple of seconds to take them. I hope there is enough there for someone to I.D it.

I've never seen anything like it. What is it?

en.wikipedia.org...


She's a pretty bird!

reply to post by METACOMET


Propeller plane
That's why it was so loud

reply to post by METACOMET


Maybe one of these?

The Piaggio P180 Avanti II


link

reply to post by _Del_


That's exactly what it is. Thanks Del!

There's only 200-250 of these babies, so no wonder I had never seen one. Very cool design.

Originally posted by wan7ed
reply to post by METACOMET

 

Propeller plane
That's why it was so loud

There are many propeller planes flying around all the time. This thing was abnormally loud!

From wikipedia:

Due to the strongly disturbed flow in which the pusher propellers operate, the exterior noise is higher than desirable.

The P180 has been the subject of noise complaints at airports such as Naples Municipal Airport, Florida, where the airport authority determined it was the noisiest aircraft using that facility.

Alan Parker, chairman of the Naples Municipal Airport Authority's technical committee, described the Avanti as "irritating loud" and compared the high pitched sound "to fingernails on a chalk board"

lol

those things are LOUD!
and i thought that they were all built by people who got the plans from 'popular-mechanics'!
learn somethin' new every day...

reply to post by METACOMET


As it happens, someone brings one in locally about twice a month or so. It's pretty distinctive.

Originally posted by tinhattribunal
and i thought that they were all built by people who got the plans from 'popular-mechanics'!

learn somethin' new every day...

Haha The Long-EZ, maybe? Similar, but homebuilds are substantially smaller!

I love the Avanti. It reminds me of some designs from many years ago that failed because they were so far ahead. Rumor is they have offered it to the military for various missions.

No doubt it was offered, but whatever the mission, they're better off just buying more King Airs. The logistics already exist, and whatever the performance benefits, it would not make up the difference in cost.

The Avanti is a quite loud aircraft, but it has nothing to do with disturbed airflow around pusher props.....Wikipedia is full of crap. Whoever wrote that wiki really needed to learn a bit more. The Avanti is a turbo prop aircraft. Those pusher props are turned by jet turbine engines. There is the prop noise AND the jet noise at the same time.

Likely belongs to Avantair which is a charter company that primarily uses this peculiar aircraft for flights across the US. I had an earlier thread posted about the same model aircraft.

What really got my attention when seeing one is that it has a sound similar to a large WWII-era radial engined aircraft... Looking up expecting to see something a bit more "classic" or "vintage", and surprised to see that thing. Something about those props. (It is loud if you're near its flightpath.) At least until it goes somewhat past and then you also get to hear the turbine whine.