| Ontario, especially Northern Ontario, with it's
thousands of lakes and rivers is a float flying pilot's dream come
true. One of Canada's leading manufacturers of floats for ultralight
and light sport aircraft has expanded his business to include an
aircraft to go with his floats. J.P. Krucker
of Krucker Manufacturing in Sudbury Ontario was at Sun N Fun with
his latest floats and amphib float systems specifically designed for
trikes. Krucker also had his brand new Tundra trike on display and
flying.
The Tundra has been designed from the ground up to
be a trike that can get in and out of short, rough fields. It has a
10 inch travel spring suspension system on the two rear suspension
arms, plus a rubber donut suspension system on the front wheel.
The Tundra comes from the factory equipped with
Rotax 65 HP Blue Head liquid cooled engine, and an E reduction drive
with a 3 to 1 ratio, spinning a three blade Hot Prop. J.P. has
designed hydraulic disc brakes for all three wheels. Krucker also
manufacturers all of the airframe components in house and has made
up all the molds for the plastic accessories, such as instrument
panel, wheel pants, and seats for the Tundra.
The Tundra gets off the ground with two on board
in 150 feet, climbs out at 900 feet per minute, cruises at 55 mph,
with a very docile stall coming in at under 30 mph. Trailering is a
breeze the whole system on floats can be folded down on a trailer
for transport in less than 15 minutes.
Krucker originally got into the ultralight market
by developing a float system specifically for trike application.
Because a trike does not have a fixed wing regular floats have a
tendency to cause the trike to porpoise, and throw off a lot of
water. Realizing this J.P. has designed his float with a two step
system one near the front the other at the rear. With this system
you only have 25% of the weight on each step rather than 50% on the
single step floats. This gets the trike up on the steps quickly,
eliminates porpoising and reduces excessive water spray.
The Krucker amphib system is operated by a single
lever, mounted on the left hand side of the floats just forward of
the pilot. The unit is retracted manually and dropped down in the
air via gravity. It has a lock in the up position and a lock in the
down position that is released via a control on the retract arm. It
takes literally a second to go from full up to down or down to up.
All float manufacturing and amphib gear set up is
manufactured in house by Krucker in Sudbury. The floats are produced
from 5052 aluminum, (which is the same as that used in the boating
industry) and come powder coated. |
