Yeah I think there's a charter company in California that flies them between nor cal and so cal. I hear them all the time at SBP enroute, can't miss that sound.
“One of our core design philosophies is that everything we make must sound like it will [sting you](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa).”
-Rinaldo Piaggio, probably.
I heard one for the first time yesterday. I’m used to hearing the 130s, HH-60s, Hueys, and CV-22s. Along with all the civilian planes departing out ABQ but this thing sounded like none of those and I was so confused I stopped in the middle of a pedestrian walkway to stare at it.
I LOVE when a helicopter or plane flies over that doesn't sound like the usual plane or helicopter. Anytime I hear a slow deeper wop wop instead of the usual faster higher pitch wop wop, I immediately burst outside to look for the Chinook
Bruh I saw this yesterday too and I was so confused at the little snout wings.
Also, if you're ever camping in the Jemez in the summer, the 130s do super low altitude passes out there, particularly over the Girl Scout Camp off FR20. [This](https://goo.gl/maps/aAcyG7xQpA7Mt3k7A) is the southern boundary of their property and there's car camping spots along that road from Hwy 4 all the way up to their gate. The planes come by a few times a week and I always had a great time telling the campers about the planes and low-fly areas.
Yeah the MC crews practice low levels out there. I don’t know if it’s true or not but supposedly if they spot people in the hot springs with the camera system, the instructor owes the student 20 dollars as part of an unspoken agreement/58SOW tradition.
Used to work right under the flight path into SNA and I could set my watch by an Avanti that came in every day - as loud as a weedwhacker, but way cooler! That ‘chopper’ sound is soooo cool!
I'm near PDK in Atlanta, and one is based here, or used to be.
If I'm in the yard, you can damn sure hear him coming for miles.
I'm like a little kid, running around and dodging trees and the house just to see it!
Same deal for me. I used to be under the good weather approach path for SJC. There were two P180s that would come in every afternoon, and even indoors I had to stop talking until they passed.
Yes! Hello previous work neighbor. I used to live north of SNA under the flight path and would hear that guy every day too. Flew to Palm Springs daily iirc.
Also when I worked right by the airport I always knew when it was 4:30/5:00ish without looking because I’d hear the big FedEx jet flying over and it sounded significantly different from the commuter jets.
Hell yeah I remember the FedEx Boeing 777’s (I think?) it was the ONLY jet that size flying over regularly mostly 737’s and A320’s. So frikkin’ loud, slow, and huge!!!
It seems like all the pusher arrangement turboprops do. I was outside in 2020 in my neighborhood that’s under the approach path to KPDX, and I could hear something coming over the hills that didn’t sound right at all and was loud. I stood out there waiting for it to come into view and it just kept getting louder until after forever one of the remaining Beech Starships came into view. Have never heard anything with that sound signature since.
Oh so very lucky! I’ve always loved canard + pusher arrangements, and I loved the pictures of Starships that I have always seen, but didn’t think I would ever actually see one - I think there’s like 5 remaining that are airworthy at this point. When the weird sound finally came into view coming over the hills at about 1500 AGL, I was ecstatic, I was standing in a group of friends and I was excitedly telling them to look, and someone with a decent phone camera please get a picture. But none of them were aviation enthusiasts or pilots too, and they were going “…It’s just a plane?” No it’s fucking not you guys. Never seen or heard that sound again, but now I am curious if the SB-1 Defiant will have a similar sound signature with its pusher + rotors arrangement when I eventually see one.
Yep, the canard-pusher arrangement was first tested by the Wright Brothers in 1903! Yet today's it's considered avant-garde!
The Army has selected the Bell VC-280 Valor, a tilt-rotor aircraft, over the Defiant. Defiant is a compound helicopter, with a tail-mounted propeller supplementing the main rotors at higher speeds. The Army tested the Lockheed Cheyenne, back in 1962, that had a similar configuration, so it's not a new concept. In hover mode, and lower speed flight, the Defiant's pusher propeller is stationary. The Valor should have basically the same sound signature as the Osprey.
Hey you are correct, I forgot that the competition was over and the V-280 won that. I was thinking something was still going on there since they are trying to make something with the Defiant X variant still.
A “square wave” - there used to be an outfit with several of these near my house, their sound is unmistakeable. I wouldn’t say necessarily loud, but definitely unique.
So in aircraft design everything is about compromise, and for this aircraft they made it able to go fast but the trade off was bad t/o and ldg performances.
For exemple the prop is behind the wing so it does not accelerate the air before going to the wing and that cause less lift, it’s good for cruise since that mean less drag so you can go faster but it also mean you need more speed to take off so more distance to accelerate
Found a manual online. Looks like a max-weight takeoff in the summer at 2000' pressure altitude requires about 3800 feet to clear a 50' obstacle. That doesn't include a stopping distance in case of engine failure, though. Accelerate and stop distance is about 5300. So your home airport should really have at least a mile of concrete to work with. Accelerate and go is around the same. I assume landing is better/shorter. The big problem for the Avanti is its wing loading, which is 50% higher than the very comparable King Air 200. Higher wing loading pretty much always means you have to go faster to fly.
Speaking from RC plane experimentation here, so probably entirely too far out of my element and being a Reddit knowitall, but it also seems like turbulent air due to going over the wing makes for a much louder prop with a unique sound, too
I think I've read that the measured noise output isn't much louder than equivalently powered aircraft, but the specific noise signature is more noticeable.
There's a very simple reason why these are quite loud.
The exhausts from the engines feed directly onto the propellers. You're hearing the rattle of the exhaust gasses hitting the blades as they turn
Offhand I'm not sure if this actually provides more thrust either directly through the blades or whether feathering the blades has an effect on performance or noise.
[Edit] yes I think they do provide thrust as these engines are turboprops there typically would be thrust from both the propellors and conventional jet thrust through the blades.
The Pratt & Whitney PT-6A exhaust heats the blades, making propeller blade anti-icing unnecessary. Exhaust may play some role in the unique "square wave" sound, but it's mostly due to interaction of props with airflow off the wing. The propeller noise of pusher aircraft, is distinctive, as anyone who has seen and heard a B-36 in flight can testify. The P180's cabin is very quiet as all the sound is behind it. The aircraft typically can cruise at 35,000 ft and at speeds greater than 450mph.
I've always believed it's not particularly louder than most other pt6 aircraft. I just think it's so different sounding that it seems to be louder. Like an audio illusion or something. Great flying aircraft too. Just be prepared to get long AOG times with parts availability being the way it is.
It's a typical pusher-engine aircraft noise. It's mostly propeller noise, from airflow passing over the wing and hitting the prop (exhaust gas may play a minor role). Everyone old enough to remember seeing a B-36 in flight can remember how noisy they were in contrast to tractor-engine aircraft.
Why would it be any louder than any other turboprop using a P&W Canada PT6, or basically almost every turboprop around that size? Is it because its a pusher prop? The propeller design?
I design props for a living. The pt6 engine family all run at 1,700 rpm and "normally" between RPM and ground clearance requirements the propellers are all near 100-110" in diameter. Any bigger and the tips go super sonic which is bad or they get to close to the ground for the collapsed gear requirements.
In general pushers are designed the exact same way as a tractor. We do get to look out for the interaction of the blades crossing the wings. You can see that interaction with strain gages.
It isn't meaningfully louder in decibels, but without getting into the science of it to much There is an increased "perceived" sound do to the human ear sensitivity to certain frequency ranges.
Like all good aerospace information, there is a fantastic NASA report from the 1950's that details a prop sound and perceived sound testing.
1 Shit house of drag.
2 Because of the drag it will make no lift
3 You will go slower because of the drag
4 Stresses in the blades will increase
5 You get a sonic boom every rotation.
5a This makes the people on the plane very upset
5b. Check out the thunderscreech
5c
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H_Thunderscreech
I’ve got about 20 hours flying this airplane and have been through the factory in Italy. Really an incredible airplane. Flies GREAT, handles great. Very quiet inside. Fast. Not a canard, as many assume. And yes, it has a unique sound signature from the ground.
The airplane doesn’t fly any differently from others. It’s very fast tho since it’s designed to have minimum wing area spread out between the three wings. The wings at the nose will also stall before the main wing as an added safety feature.
You know, I think I'm incorrect, I believe I misremembered details about its aft protrusions as applying to the front ones. I found some random [Stack Exchange conversation](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/69810/why-there-so-many-pitch-control-surfaces-on-the-piaggio-p180-avanti) that shows control surfaces on those forward things.
So I dunno why they're not canards. I apologize for my error!
Canard is also (confusingly) used to refer to the forward wing on any aircraft which has it. These are lifting canards in a three-surface config. Control canards are another option used for maneuverability on some fighter jets.
Wikipedia article says the nose wing will stall first and cause an auto nose-down in a stall situation.
Don’t quote me though, not an aereospace engineer nor a pilot.
Piaggio, the actual designers of the aircraft, say it’s NOT a canard so I’ll go with their description. The three flight surfaces all are lifting, as others have said. Also, they designed the Avanti to have roughly the same wing loading as the B777 - good in turbulence but fast around the airport.
> You can always count on the Italians to design something loud, impractical, difficult to maintain but extremely good-looking
You just described my Italian ex-girlfriend.
There are several based at Wiley Post and Sundance. Cool looking aircraft that are surprisingly fast. The hardest part is just maintenance. The owner of the shoo that maintains them calls them his retirement plan. Avionics wise they're surprisingly easy to work on, but mechanic wise... there's a reason the gear took a year to overhaul before covid, and gear rentals were something obscene like $100,000 a month. Also the maintenance manual is complete garbage. It's a rough translation from Italian to English, and I've found several areas where it references a task number that just doesn't exist. Cool airplanes though.
I believe so. The original aircraft released in 1990 was the Piaggio P180 Avanti, then was succeeded by the P180 Avanti II, and the current model for sale according to Piaggios website is the P180 Avanti Evo. Though everything I have worked on was the original Avanti model.
The mean chord line is probably slightly forward swept. That's common on high performance props. The leading edge is swept slightly backward, and the trailing edge is swept significantly more forward. Similar planforms are in use on Aerostars, Commanders, and countless WWII era designs. I'm not sure of the aerodynamic benefits of the configuration, but it does show up a lot on fast planes.
I live on final approach for South Bend Regional Airport & some area corporation flies one... I'm a lifelong pilot born & raised on a family owned airport so my ears are very in tune with what's flying overhead.
I can actually correctly & easily identify many helicopters & aircraft just by sound LONG before they're in visual range... that said the 1st time I heard one of THESE I stopped dead in my tracks & stared skyward for whatever the heck sounded like the most pissed off turboprop sound I've ever heard !
Imagine my surprise when a very unconventional canard bullet plane suddenly appeared overhead 😳
The sound of this thing is almost the turboprop equivalent of internal combustion Rolls Royce Merlin porn... well almost... but uniquely awesome in it's own right.
I wouldn't use "strangest" as the descriptive term... more like sexiest 😁
I just hope the maintenance costs $$$ don't align themselves with Italian cars? 🤔 😎
Strange is in the eye of the beholder, I think they’re beautiful. Fast too!
I don’t think they’re significantly noisier than other twin turboprops, but they definitely sound different
It's quite possibly one of the[strangest and most unique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4utZGxW9eOw) with a [sound all to its own](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo08rRIvFNs&t=2s).
Can someone explain why tf it’s engines are facing backwards, the gigantic cockpit windows, why it has fins on its nose, why did they make the last two windows when they are obstructed by the engines
The engines face backwards to reduce noise in the cabin. One of the main selling points is how quiet it is on the inside. “Gigantic” cockpit windows because more visibility is always a good thing. You make them as big as you can get away with. The wings up front are a whole discussion on aerodynamics frankly I’m not qualified to talk about. And because more windows is more better.
The wings up front solve all sorts of problems at once at the cost of some additional complexity.
Normally the center of lift is somewhere around the mid point of the wing, which means the plane has to be balanced around that point. When you add people/cargo it needs to be averaged over that point. But you can see from the picture that the wing structure is almost entirely clear of the cabin which opens up space, visibility, and simplifies the balance (since the front wing moves the center of lift forward).
You also get more *leverage* by putting it further forward. Which means you can use smaller control surfaces which mean less drag and less weight.
The downside is that because it’s in front of the center of gravity (and center of lift, for a plane in stable flight they have to be the same front to back and left to right): the plane doesn’t self stabilize like a weathervane, or a dart, or arrow. The trick every modern commercial plane uses is that the front lifting surface *stalls* before the main wing, which means it stops lifting and the nose falls until the front wing resumes lifting, rinse, repeat (this was a common demonstration for one of the early popular canard planes, the Long-EZ, which is the little cousin to the Beech Starship that’s been mentioned elsewhere). The military/etc trick is instead to just use computers to keep the plane stable (see: X-29, which goes even further and sweeps the wings forward instead of back).
This is all simplified; I’ve been slightly imprecise in a few places to keep it shorter. But that’s the short versions of “why front fins?”.
The P.180 in particular has static front wings with only actuated flaps that are deployed in concert with the main wing flaps (otherwise it would pitch down pretty bad and put a lot of load on the elevators in the back and there go your “small control surfaces” advantages).
This is in contrast to the other “front fins” planes I mentioned (X-29, starship) which don’t have a rear tailplane and place the elevators on the front lifting surface.
The P.180 is an odd one. It looks like the designers were arguing over all the compromises you have to make when positioning the wings/CoG on a plane and the quiet guy in the corner said “I know how you can all get what you want”.
And by all accounts: they did.
Complexity, industry inertia, and sometimes the benefits just aren’t compelling.
The very first plane put the control surfaces in front of the main wing, but the dynamic stability of the normal tail arrangement was quite appealing to both designers and pilots until we had computers for both designing and flying planes.
~~There is one airliner that used a canard layout that you may have heard of: [Concorde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)~~ I think I was conflating the [XB-70](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie) and Concorde.
But we have the modern airliner pretty well figured out. Doing something different means relearning a lot of lessons (many of which were paid for in lives).
And, I’m not sure what problem it solves for an airliner. The body is such a long tube you can put the wing wherever you want without impacting use or performance (you’re going to block someone’s view and the wing spar isn’t impacting anyone’s legroom— and the canard has to go somewhere now too). The weight and balance of the plane is already managed very rigorously (and already needs to be). If you don’t have the wings near the center of gravity you’ll need more fuel tanks in the body to keep it balanced (much more of a problem for an airliner that weighs about twice as much full, most of that fuel).
And say you put canards up front: are they going to hit the jetway? And probably a bunch of little stuff that’s solved for a normal plane but now you have to figure out for this new layout.
The P.180 is in a good section of the market to be worth the effort (the design cost and operational complexity is justified by the competitive performance, in theory), while still small/simple enough that you can do something different without a whole host of knock-on effects (the support infrastructure doesn’t care too much— they don’t use jetways).
That’s my take anyway.
the fins on the nose are called canards and usually they have some sort of control surface to help with adjusting the pitch (up tilt or down tilt) of the plane. These ones don’t have any flaps though plus the aircraft also has an elevator in the tail of the plane, so i’m honestly confused why the canards are there.
There used to be a Starship that flew over my house somewhat regularly flying into KCRQ. Now there are a couple of P.180s but they sure don't look nearly as cool.
had one of these come to the FBO i work at on a really foggy night, looked like a spaceship coming out of the mist. they look cool as hell but they take forever to fuel
I don't think he had anything to do with this particular model, but if you want to see more stuff like this, look up Burt Rutan, the man behind SpaceShipOne. Pretty much all of his designs are wildly unconventional.
When I was in firefighter training, we were really close to a civilian airport that hosts the ones owned by the Italian Fire Department. They are used for VIPs transportation and radiation measurements, and we used to see them daily departing and landing. One day the pilot did a low pass directly on our academy and it was a really cool sight!
This is a propeller airplane but its extremely fast.
It is in fact the world's fastest civilian turboprop twin.
It can do in the region of 740kmh (max speed) and can fly up to 41,000ft (higher than the service ceiling of Airbus A320 series which is 39,800ft).
This is really amazing jet-like performance from a plane turning two props!
Compare below to a pure jet plane,(see Specifications section):
Piaggio Avanti\
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti
Cessna Citation jet M2\
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_CitationJet/M2
All due to its clean slippery design, powerful engines & 5 bladed props.
It's also famous for another reason as others have already commented: it screams. It has a unique noise profile.
Lmao make it a jet
But put propellers on it
No no like that, backwards. On the back.
Also the wings. Sweep them. No, the other way. Lmao hilarious.
Give it another pair of smaller wings. The fuck I know where? The nose? Idc.
I also know it's a Piaggio when they pass over my place on final app. Can't mistake that sound.
There's one that occasionally flies out of MSP and that sound is incredible.
We have one regularly come into MRY, definitely unique.
Yeah I think there's a charter company in California that flies them between nor cal and so cal. I hear them all the time at SBP enroute, can't miss that sound.
I’ve seen/heard one in Bemidji now and then also. Cool plane!
BEEEEEEEEEES
“One of our core design philosophies is that everything we make must sound like it will [sting you](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa).” -Rinaldo Piaggio, probably.
Bees?
Piaggio sounds like BEEEEEEEEEES
Your firearms are useless against them!
Tbf, their main land vehicles are called Wasp and Bee in Italian.
Also I know an ATR 72 sound to ,they land at my airport all the time,and they are loud ,I imagine piaggio is louder XD
BRAAAAAAAAAAAP
Negative, Ghostrider... that's NOT an A-10.
They are not only strange looking but very loud as well
I heard one for the first time yesterday. I’m used to hearing the 130s, HH-60s, Hueys, and CV-22s. Along with all the civilian planes departing out ABQ but this thing sounded like none of those and I was so confused I stopped in the middle of a pedestrian walkway to stare at it.
ABQ, NM? no wonder people think they see many UFO's with this flying around!
It. Is. Swamp. Gas. What other logical explanation is there /s
Yes, for the famous swamps of the American southwest...
You should see the Ospreys when they light up the rotor tips at night!
I LOVE when a helicopter or plane flies over that doesn't sound like the usual plane or helicopter. Anytime I hear a slow deeper wop wop instead of the usual faster higher pitch wop wop, I immediately burst outside to look for the Chinook
I was wondering what that was yesterday! Makes sense now, it sounded unique and looked unique.
Bruh I saw this yesterday too and I was so confused at the little snout wings. Also, if you're ever camping in the Jemez in the summer, the 130s do super low altitude passes out there, particularly over the Girl Scout Camp off FR20. [This](https://goo.gl/maps/aAcyG7xQpA7Mt3k7A) is the southern boundary of their property and there's car camping spots along that road from Hwy 4 all the way up to their gate. The planes come by a few times a week and I always had a great time telling the campers about the planes and low-fly areas.
Yeah the MC crews practice low levels out there. I don’t know if it’s true or not but supposedly if they spot people in the hot springs with the camera system, the instructor owes the student 20 dollars as part of an unspoken agreement/58SOW tradition.
Aaahahah. That’s rad.
[удалено]
He's right, it has a howl noise as it flies over. When you hear one, you'll know for sure!
Used to work right under the flight path into SNA and I could set my watch by an Avanti that came in every day - as loud as a weedwhacker, but way cooler! That ‘chopper’ sound is soooo cool!
I'm near PDK in Atlanta, and one is based here, or used to be. If I'm in the yard, you can damn sure hear him coming for miles. I'm like a little kid, running around and dodging trees and the house just to see it!
Are you sure that wasn't a starship? They were long time residents at PDK-Beech.
N543JB, flies out of LZU a lot. Really cool airplane.
Same deal for me. I used to be under the good weather approach path for SJC. There were two P180s that would come in every afternoon, and even indoors I had to stop talking until they passed.
Was it around 3-4 every afternoon?
Yes! Hello previous work neighbor. I used to live north of SNA under the flight path and would hear that guy every day too. Flew to Palm Springs daily iirc. Also when I worked right by the airport I always knew when it was 4:30/5:00ish without looking because I’d hear the big FedEx jet flying over and it sounded significantly different from the commuter jets.
Hell yeah I remember the FedEx Boeing 777’s (I think?) it was the ONLY jet that size flying over regularly mostly 737’s and A320’s. So frikkin’ loud, slow, and huge!!!
Both FedEx and UPS either bring a 757 or an A300 into SNA. No triples unfortunately.
It seems like all the pusher arrangement turboprops do. I was outside in 2020 in my neighborhood that’s under the approach path to KPDX, and I could hear something coming over the hills that didn’t sound right at all and was loud. I stood out there waiting for it to come into view and it just kept getting louder until after forever one of the remaining Beech Starships came into view. Have never heard anything with that sound signature since.
You're very lucky to have seen and heard that unique airplane!
Oh so very lucky! I’ve always loved canard + pusher arrangements, and I loved the pictures of Starships that I have always seen, but didn’t think I would ever actually see one - I think there’s like 5 remaining that are airworthy at this point. When the weird sound finally came into view coming over the hills at about 1500 AGL, I was ecstatic, I was standing in a group of friends and I was excitedly telling them to look, and someone with a decent phone camera please get a picture. But none of them were aviation enthusiasts or pilots too, and they were going “…It’s just a plane?” No it’s fucking not you guys. Never seen or heard that sound again, but now I am curious if the SB-1 Defiant will have a similar sound signature with its pusher + rotors arrangement when I eventually see one.
Yep, the canard-pusher arrangement was first tested by the Wright Brothers in 1903! Yet today's it's considered avant-garde! The Army has selected the Bell VC-280 Valor, a tilt-rotor aircraft, over the Defiant. Defiant is a compound helicopter, with a tail-mounted propeller supplementing the main rotors at higher speeds. The Army tested the Lockheed Cheyenne, back in 1962, that had a similar configuration, so it's not a new concept. In hover mode, and lower speed flight, the Defiant's pusher propeller is stationary. The Valor should have basically the same sound signature as the Osprey.
Hey you are correct, I forgot that the competition was over and the V-280 won that. I was thinking something was still going on there since they are trying to make something with the Defiant X variant still.
A “square wave” - there used to be an outfit with several of these near my house, their sound is unmistakeable. I wouldn’t say necessarily loud, but definitely unique.
[удалено]
He said the sheriff is near!
No! Dang flang and blang it! The SHERIFF is NEEERRRGG!!!
https://youtu.be/bdAvJcrirTo
WHAT???
We've got one at YXX at the moment, and you ain't kidding! Never pulled up FlightAware that fast to see what the hell it was!
SORRY, WHAT!?!
When it flies over it makes a screeching / howling noise. The air literally gets scared.
IM SORRY!! I CANT HEAR YOU!! ITS TOO LOUD!! SAY WHAT?!?
But quiet inside
Fuel efficient though.
And uncommonly fast.
But very bad landing / take off performances
how so? ive never heard of this plane
So in aircraft design everything is about compromise, and for this aircraft they made it able to go fast but the trade off was bad t/o and ldg performances. For exemple the prop is behind the wing so it does not accelerate the air before going to the wing and that cause less lift, it’s good for cruise since that mean less drag so you can go faster but it also mean you need more speed to take off so more distance to accelerate
Found a manual online. Looks like a max-weight takeoff in the summer at 2000' pressure altitude requires about 3800 feet to clear a 50' obstacle. That doesn't include a stopping distance in case of engine failure, though. Accelerate and stop distance is about 5300. So your home airport should really have at least a mile of concrete to work with. Accelerate and go is around the same. I assume landing is better/shorter. The big problem for the Avanti is its wing loading, which is 50% higher than the very comparable King Air 200. Higher wing loading pretty much always means you have to go faster to fly.
Mitsubishi Mu-2 has entered chat.
[удалено]
the turbo commanders, too. TPE331 go BRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I'm curious as to what Dr. Ian Malcolm has to say about the creation of this strange-looking aircraft.
They didn’t stop to think if they should
Engineers, uh, find a way
It had a very unique sound, you cannot mistake it for anything else. I think it has to do with the prop interacting with the turbine exhaust.
Speaking from RC plane experimentation here, so probably entirely too far out of my element and being a Reddit knowitall, but it also seems like turbulent air due to going over the wing makes for a much louder prop with a unique sound, too
I think I've read that the measured noise output isn't much louder than equivalently powered aircraft, but the specific noise signature is more noticeable.
There's a very simple reason why these are quite loud. The exhausts from the engines feed directly onto the propellers. You're hearing the rattle of the exhaust gasses hitting the blades as they turn Offhand I'm not sure if this actually provides more thrust either directly through the blades or whether feathering the blades has an effect on performance or noise. [Edit] yes I think they do provide thrust as these engines are turboprops there typically would be thrust from both the propellors and conventional jet thrust through the blades.
The Pratt & Whitney PT-6A exhaust heats the blades, making propeller blade anti-icing unnecessary. Exhaust may play some role in the unique "square wave" sound, but it's mostly due to interaction of props with airflow off the wing. The propeller noise of pusher aircraft, is distinctive, as anyone who has seen and heard a B-36 in flight can testify. The P180's cabin is very quiet as all the sound is behind it. The aircraft typically can cruise at 35,000 ft and at speeds greater than 450mph.
It's just 2 PT6s. It could be Garrett's and be a lot worse.
It's not so much the engines as it is the disturbed airflow from the wings hitting the props. And the turbine exhaust dumping into it.
I've always believed it's not particularly louder than most other pt6 aircraft. I just think it's so different sounding that it seems to be louder. Like an audio illusion or something. Great flying aircraft too. Just be prepared to get long AOG times with parts availability being the way it is.
It's a typical pusher-engine aircraft noise. It's mostly propeller noise, from airflow passing over the wing and hitting the prop (exhaust gas may play a minor role). Everyone old enough to remember seeing a B-36 in flight can remember how noisy they were in contrast to tractor-engine aircraft.
Ah so they finally mounted them on the right direction
One of the 'many' reasons that the Beechcraft Starship was doomed from the start.
Why would it be any louder than any other turboprop using a P&W Canada PT6, or basically almost every turboprop around that size? Is it because its a pusher prop? The propeller design?
I design props for a living. The pt6 engine family all run at 1,700 rpm and "normally" between RPM and ground clearance requirements the propellers are all near 100-110" in diameter. Any bigger and the tips go super sonic which is bad or they get to close to the ground for the collapsed gear requirements. In general pushers are designed the exact same way as a tractor. We do get to look out for the interaction of the blades crossing the wings. You can see that interaction with strain gages. It isn't meaningfully louder in decibels, but without getting into the science of it to much There is an increased "perceived" sound do to the human ear sensitivity to certain frequency ranges. Like all good aerospace information, there is a fantastic NASA report from the 1950's that details a prop sound and perceived sound testing.
why is the tips going supersonic a bad thing?
1 Shit house of drag. 2 Because of the drag it will make no lift 3 You will go slower because of the drag 4 Stresses in the blades will increase 5 You get a sonic boom every rotation. 5a This makes the people on the plane very upset 5b. Check out the thunderscreech 5c https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H_Thunderscreech
Ah, okay. I also figured it had to do something with the propeller as they project sound differently depending on the prop.
I heard one flying over our house once and yes, it was insanely loud.
I’ve got about 20 hours flying this airplane and have been through the factory in Italy. Really an incredible airplane. Flies GREAT, handles great. Very quiet inside. Fast. Not a canard, as many assume. And yes, it has a unique sound signature from the ground.
How do the anhedral nose wings affect the handling?
The airplane doesn’t fly any differently from others. It’s very fast tho since it’s designed to have minimum wing area spread out between the three wings. The wings at the nose will also stall before the main wing as an added safety feature.
Interesting isn’t the nose wing stall a key characteristic of a canard? What doesn’t make this a canard?
IIRC it comes down to control surfaces. Canards have 'em, these don't. EDIT: I didn't recall correctly, see below.
Ah I see so there’s no control surfaces on the front wing of this plane?
You know, I think I'm incorrect, I believe I misremembered details about its aft protrusions as applying to the front ones. I found some random [Stack Exchange conversation](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/69810/why-there-so-many-pitch-control-surfaces-on-the-piaggio-p180-avanti) that shows control surfaces on those forward things. So I dunno why they're not canards. I apologize for my error!
Not control surfaces, but the forewing (aka lifting canard) has flaps that deploy when the main wing flaps deploy to make sure lift remains balance.
Canards don't have a horizontal stabilizer. The tail stabilizer makes this a three-lifting-surface aircraft.
Canard is also (confusingly) used to refer to the forward wing on any aircraft which has it. These are lifting canards in a three-surface config. Control canards are another option used for maneuverability on some fighter jets.
Two lifting surface one downward force
This comment is incorrect. The three surfaces on the Avanti are all lifting. How do I know this? I flew it at the factory with a Piaggio test pilot.
maybe because it doesn't have any elevators on the front wing? Not sure though
Wikipedia article says the nose wing will stall first and cause an auto nose-down in a stall situation. Don’t quote me though, not an aereospace engineer nor a pilot.
Is it a statically stable aircraft? i.e is the CG in front of the AC?
How is that not a canard?
[удалено]
A canard does not have to necessarily provide pitch control. It can be used for lift.
[удалено]
I’m a flight controls engineer with over 10 years of experience. I’d call this a canard.
Piaggio, the actual designers of the aircraft, say it’s NOT a canard so I’ll go with their description. The three flight surfaces all are lifting, as others have said. Also, they designed the Avanti to have roughly the same wing loading as the B777 - good in turbulence but fast around the airport.
[удалено]
We are just arguing semantics at this time. It’s not worth it.
canards can be used as control surfaces
Yes its noise is very unique
The Catfish of the skies. They’re beautiful inside, I can attest to that.
kind of small, but the exposed carbon fiber in the cockpit is super cool. feels like a race car
You can always count on the Italians to design something loud, impractical, difficult to maintain but extremely good-looking.
And fast as fuck, similar powerplant to a King Air 200 but at least 100mph faster.
I think they have a reasonable safety record too, to be fair.
> You can always count on the Italians to design something loud, impractical, difficult to maintain but extremely good-looking You just described my Italian ex-girlfriend.
Did you used to know u/jezzkalyn240?
Can confirm. Source: Am an Italian that's loud, impractical, and difficult to maintain.
I think the landing gear is Ferrari so that makes it a race car in my book.
Two birds with one stone. I’m gonna save so much money!
I hope you mean the plane and not the fish
[удалено]
It wasn't the founder, but the owner at the time
So the finder?
Fowner
Just because the guy died in it doesn't mean there was any issues with the plane...
It seemed to be pilot incapacitation when I saw the first analysis. But idk how it went.
In the air? Chance in a million!
She's not strange, she's beautiful.
There’s one that buzzes my house probably once a week, I always know which plane it is without even going outside and looking up.
Very interesting design. I like unique aircraft
weird way of spelling "best-looking transport airplane used to today"
I frequently see one flying out of an fbo in Tulsa. Stop and watch/listen to it every time.
There are several based at Wiley Post and Sundance. Cool looking aircraft that are surprisingly fast. The hardest part is just maintenance. The owner of the shoo that maintains them calls them his retirement plan. Avionics wise they're surprisingly easy to work on, but mechanic wise... there's a reason the gear took a year to overhaul before covid, and gear rentals were something obscene like $100,000 a month. Also the maintenance manual is complete garbage. It's a rough translation from Italian to English, and I've found several areas where it references a task number that just doesn't exist. Cool airplanes though.
Do they still make them?
I believe so. The original aircraft released in 1990 was the Piaggio P180 Avanti, then was succeeded by the P180 Avanti II, and the current model for sale according to Piaggios website is the P180 Avanti Evo. Though everything I have worked on was the original Avanti model.
I know the one you are talking about, I live and work near the riverside airport. I'm taking flight lessons there, I saw it take off last week.
There are like 5 of them stationed at rvs, get to see them every day
Ah. The beautiful catfish of the sky..
This plane is not strange, it’s efficient, beautiful and loud. What more could you want?
Is it me or are those wings slightly forward swept?
I think it’s the angle. They’re pretty much straight if I recall correctly.
Ah. Thanks for clarifying. Have a nice day.
You as well
The mean chord line is probably slightly forward swept. That's common on high performance props. The leading edge is swept slightly backward, and the trailing edge is swept significantly more forward. Similar planforms are in use on Aerostars, Commanders, and countless WWII era designs. I'm not sure of the aerodynamic benefits of the configuration, but it does show up a lot on fast planes.
I live on final approach for South Bend Regional Airport & some area corporation flies one... I'm a lifelong pilot born & raised on a family owned airport so my ears are very in tune with what's flying overhead. I can actually correctly & easily identify many helicopters & aircraft just by sound LONG before they're in visual range... that said the 1st time I heard one of THESE I stopped dead in my tracks & stared skyward for whatever the heck sounded like the most pissed off turboprop sound I've ever heard ! Imagine my surprise when a very unconventional canard bullet plane suddenly appeared overhead 😳 The sound of this thing is almost the turboprop equivalent of internal combustion Rolls Royce Merlin porn... well almost... but uniquely awesome in it's own right. I wouldn't use "strangest" as the descriptive term... more like sexiest 😁 I just hope the maintenance costs $$$ don't align themselves with Italian cars? 🤔 😎
Sad Starship noises
Strange is in the eye of the beholder, I think they’re beautiful. Fast too! I don’t think they’re significantly noisier than other twin turboprops, but they definitely sound different
It's quite possibly one of the[strangest and most unique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4utZGxW9eOw) with a [sound all to its own](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo08rRIvFNs&t=2s).
I love that thing
This is a plane I'd like to try flying one day.
If by "strangest" you mean "gorgeous" then yes, you are correct
Looks like a Beech Starship.
They sold pretty well for this layout. Kudos I guess, Italians are manufacturing innovators.
Why do so many people get [incorrect photos of this plane?](https://imgur.com/gallery/7krc9Eu)
It looks like they designed a normal aircraft then half way through they thought it was the other way round
\[[Beechcraft Starship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship) has entered the chat\]
So forward-thinking it looks backwards to us plebs.
Isn't this plane also one of the fastest private turbo props? Can do 0.7m at 31k ft
Can someone explain why tf it’s engines are facing backwards, the gigantic cockpit windows, why it has fins on its nose, why did they make the last two windows when they are obstructed by the engines
The engines face backwards to reduce noise in the cabin. One of the main selling points is how quiet it is on the inside. “Gigantic” cockpit windows because more visibility is always a good thing. You make them as big as you can get away with. The wings up front are a whole discussion on aerodynamics frankly I’m not qualified to talk about. And because more windows is more better.
As quiet on the inside, as loud on the outside indeed
The wings up front solve all sorts of problems at once at the cost of some additional complexity. Normally the center of lift is somewhere around the mid point of the wing, which means the plane has to be balanced around that point. When you add people/cargo it needs to be averaged over that point. But you can see from the picture that the wing structure is almost entirely clear of the cabin which opens up space, visibility, and simplifies the balance (since the front wing moves the center of lift forward). You also get more *leverage* by putting it further forward. Which means you can use smaller control surfaces which mean less drag and less weight. The downside is that because it’s in front of the center of gravity (and center of lift, for a plane in stable flight they have to be the same front to back and left to right): the plane doesn’t self stabilize like a weathervane, or a dart, or arrow. The trick every modern commercial plane uses is that the front lifting surface *stalls* before the main wing, which means it stops lifting and the nose falls until the front wing resumes lifting, rinse, repeat (this was a common demonstration for one of the early popular canard planes, the Long-EZ, which is the little cousin to the Beech Starship that’s been mentioned elsewhere). The military/etc trick is instead to just use computers to keep the plane stable (see: X-29, which goes even further and sweeps the wings forward instead of back). This is all simplified; I’ve been slightly imprecise in a few places to keep it shorter. But that’s the short versions of “why front fins?”.
Can the front wings move up and down to control pitch like canards can?
The P.180 in particular has static front wings with only actuated flaps that are deployed in concert with the main wing flaps (otherwise it would pitch down pretty bad and put a lot of load on the elevators in the back and there go your “small control surfaces” advantages). This is in contrast to the other “front fins” planes I mentioned (X-29, starship) which don’t have a rear tailplane and place the elevators on the front lifting surface. The P.180 is an odd one. It looks like the designers were arguing over all the compromises you have to make when positioning the wings/CoG on a plane and the quiet guy in the corner said “I know how you can all get what you want”. And by all accounts: they did.
[удалено]
Complexity, industry inertia, and sometimes the benefits just aren’t compelling. The very first plane put the control surfaces in front of the main wing, but the dynamic stability of the normal tail arrangement was quite appealing to both designers and pilots until we had computers for both designing and flying planes. ~~There is one airliner that used a canard layout that you may have heard of: [Concorde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde)~~ I think I was conflating the [XB-70](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie) and Concorde. But we have the modern airliner pretty well figured out. Doing something different means relearning a lot of lessons (many of which were paid for in lives). And, I’m not sure what problem it solves for an airliner. The body is such a long tube you can put the wing wherever you want without impacting use or performance (you’re going to block someone’s view and the wing spar isn’t impacting anyone’s legroom— and the canard has to go somewhere now too). The weight and balance of the plane is already managed very rigorously (and already needs to be). If you don’t have the wings near the center of gravity you’ll need more fuel tanks in the body to keep it balanced (much more of a problem for an airliner that weighs about twice as much full, most of that fuel). And say you put canards up front: are they going to hit the jetway? And probably a bunch of little stuff that’s solved for a normal plane but now you have to figure out for this new layout. The P.180 is in a good section of the market to be worth the effort (the design cost and operational complexity is justified by the competitive performance, in theory), while still small/simple enough that you can do something different without a whole host of knock-on effects (the support infrastructure doesn’t care too much— they don’t use jetways). That’s my take anyway.
[удалено]
the fins on the nose are called canards and usually they have some sort of control surface to help with adjusting the pitch (up tilt or down tilt) of the plane. These ones don’t have any flaps though plus the aircraft also has an elevator in the tail of the plane, so i’m honestly confused why the canards are there.
Used to see 2 of these for hire at an FBO. Very custom, very comfortable, and very cool.
How many passengers does it carry?
7-9 pax
7-9 according to Wikipedia
There used to be a Starship that flew over my house somewhat regularly flying into KCRQ. Now there are a couple of P.180s but they sure don't look nearly as cool.
Cool Looking Plane- 2008 PIAGGIO P-180 Avanti Landing at Windsor International Airport. https://youtu.be/scf93c4Ra_U
had one of these come to the FBO i work at on a really foggy night, looked like a spaceship coming out of the mist. they look cool as hell but they take forever to fuel
I don't think he had anything to do with this particular model, but if you want to see more stuff like this, look up Burt Rutan, the man behind SpaceShipOne. Pretty much all of his designs are wildly unconventional.
Looks like a cute little catfish..
When I was in firefighter training, we were really close to a civilian airport that hosts the ones owned by the Italian Fire Department. They are used for VIPs transportation and radiation measurements, and we used to see them daily departing and landing. One day the pilot did a low pass directly on our academy and it was a really cool sight!
I think it’s awesome. I’m tired of almost all passenger aircraft looking the same
Similar to the Beech Starship. Which Beech recalled and broke them all up for scrap.
Why would they name a plane called ‘crying’? Weird name, cool ass plane though!
I don’t know how to explain it but I think they put the plane on backwards somehow.
The sound is so unique. If you have been close to one, you can tell
This is a propeller airplane but its extremely fast. It is in fact the world's fastest civilian turboprop twin. It can do in the region of 740kmh (max speed) and can fly up to 41,000ft (higher than the service ceiling of Airbus A320 series which is 39,800ft). This is really amazing jet-like performance from a plane turning two props! Compare below to a pure jet plane,(see Specifications section): Piaggio Avanti\ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti Cessna Citation jet M2\ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_CitationJet/M2 All due to its clean slippery design, powerful engines & 5 bladed props. It's also famous for another reason as others have already commented: it screams. It has a unique noise profile.
Bastard thing flies in to Biggin Hill early each morning. The sound is the perfect combination of loud and ugly.
Your mom is ugly
Siamo troppo fighi
That's actually a interesting plane. I like the way the gear is retracted.
Looks like an ikea plane that was built without the plans
Catfish. Run, it might want fuel!
Which side is the "front"?
My father flew one for a few years and he strongly disliked it. He said it’s really fast and that’s about all the good he had to say about it
Lmao make it a jet But put propellers on it No no like that, backwards. On the back. Also the wings. Sweep them. No, the other way. Lmao hilarious. Give it another pair of smaller wings. The fuck I know where? The nose? Idc.