Quick information regarding the prop's diameter: we were also surprised but the diameter is the same as for the two-blade McCauley that we had installed.
A slight diameter reduction is however approved but we did not take it. Vibration is considerably less than with the two-blade and the sound is also different: much higher frequency and a lot more aggressive

Well, if nothing else, it looks very cool!

Hi Anthony,

Recently we indavertly unlatched the deployment lever while taxing to depart from an airfield in a flight to return to our home base, and we retracted the gear after take-off... and heard a strange noise... and smell... and only after a few minutes (after extentending and retracting again the gear to understand what was happening) we discovered what was the problem...
After we figured out the situation, we secured the emergency gear latch and continued flight (after checking with other aircraft in the pattern that the gear was totally retracted). After an uneventual final landing at our base, we never had any issue with the gear again.

But now, after Reading your post, I doubt if we should double check the emergency extension system...

We will need to replace the Gear Back Up Spring in the next weeks (see my other recent post) so I believe that we should do all at a time.

Any tips to share?

Cheers!
Frederico

Hi Frederico,

Bearing in mind that I am not a mechanic....only a PPL....In theory if the emergency extension lever is fully up and the clutch fully engaged, the motor should stall and the breaker should pop. Clearly your breaker did not pop, but I suspect the smell was the motor overheating and producing an electrical burning smell.... There may be several reasons why your breaker did not pop: 1. Faulty breaker; 2. The emergency clutch may be damaged thus allowing the drive spindle to rotate inside the clutch (this was the situation in my case).

The safest way to find out is to put the plane on jacks and test the system. Alternatively, and I'm not sure I would do this, you could try the system in the air (after pulling the breakers per the POH)

Hope this helps
Best regards
Anthony

After a whole year experience with the new prop Ican say that the two mainadvantages are the better ground-clearance and the fact that during the flare it reduces the speed enourmously.