Cruisair on Ebay.

G

gjordan

New member
In talking with Larry L a few days ago, he told me that there was a Cruisair project on Ebay with a starting bid of $600. I need another project like another hole in my head, but true to form, I looked. It is in Southern Calif. but the interesting part (to me) was that it said it had previously had a Franklin 6V350 in it. Larry looked up the N number (74413) and it shows a 6V350. The FAA never could tell the difference between a 6A Franklin, and a 6V Franklin. At this point it has 17 hours to go, and no bids. For someone that wanted to build up a 220 powered Cruisair, it might save all of the trouble of kissing the backside of the FAA. The reason it has no bids, is that it is not in Ebay motors. You have to go to collectables, and type in Bellanca project. Might be interesting to a Bellancaphile. _______Grant.
 
This airplane comes without any engine....
The engines installed when consulting the FAA registry may or may not be accurate. I've seen that many times.
What is interesting is that I see a Continental IO-360 installed in the photo. I guess the project never got finished for some reason. I'll bet there wasn't any paperwork generated either. This is a feasible installation.
Dan
 
Yes the add said that the IO360 was for sale somewhere else. The add said that it previously had a 6V350 in it, and the FAA web site said 6V350, so I assumed that it had been approved. I sent for the CD records from the FAA, but they wont arrive until the auction is over. Just for parts, it is an good buy, but I have far too many parts already, and title is probably suspect. I plead temporary insanity for thinking of bidding. ______Grant.
 
Dan was absolutely correct. The CD arrived and there is no paper work that says anything about a 350 engine. I amazes me how f#$% up the FAA records can be, and yet if we make a paperwork mistake, they make it hell for us. The plane was interesting in that it was approved for a tow release on the tailwheel fork, and a stretcher on the passenger side. Try getting that approved in this day and age. Just another little tid-bit of Bellanca history. Grant.
 
It is an a TCM IO 360 and without APPROVED engineering data the motor mount is not worth more than scrape. By the time you get approvals from a DER and the FAA it is not worth it. Ask me how I know...I had numerous 337s, one time field approvals and permission from all the owners of such to use their engineering data for a Lyc 0-360 which is the more common conversion. By the time I would have been done, (the cost of the engine, prop, and DER) I would have thrown the airplane in for free. At the time I was looking at doing that, Ozzie was selling his plane (O-360 with CS prop) for $28K...I don't know what it actually sold for. Try and get that now! There certainly would not have been anything near a return on investment if I wanted to sell my plane with that conversion in my lifetime (or my heirs!) But then what Cruisair owner can ever really expect that...!
Larry
 
Again, talking with Larry L we discussed if any Cruisairs had ever been approved with the Continental IO-360. I said that I sold some parts to a guy years ago that was putting one in a Cruisair, and it was being engineered by Rob Harrison from Southern Calif. I looked in an old telephone log of mine, and it came up as the same N# as the one on Ebay. At that time it was under a different owner than the registry shows now, and it is presently being sold by yet a different person. Even with an engineer, it apparently never got approved. 15 or 18 years, and who knows how many thousands of dollars, and still the only legal, easy installation is a 150, or 165 Franklin. Our friendly FAA at work! ______Grant.
 
Ok.. well there is still one flying with lyc power that is for sale in SoCal.. that was approved when dinosaurs roamed the earth and faa guys still knew airplanes ( and their bosses did,more likely.)

I now believe that the best thing you can do to insure the longevity of your cruisair is to sell it to a foreign country with more flexible regs.. like Canada eh ? !
 
Rest of the list probably doesn't know it.. but Grant's airplane stash must be very close to being engulfed between 2 huge fires in Lake County , Calif.

Hope you are ok Grant ! :shock:
 
at this juncture I would gladly take experimental status for my plane IF it were and option.
Probably just make the insurance worse, and all the other costs would stay the same. :evil:
 
The closest those 2 fires got was about 3 miles, but last Friday night a fire started just down the road. I was 45 minutes away, and got a call. When I got home, the fire bombers already had it out. Wonderful guys, those fire pilots. A bigger threat to my stash is that my house will be sold in about 10 days, and I only have a couple of weeks after that to clean out my over stuffed hanger. Lots of decisions to be made. _____Grant.
 
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