I'm thinking of buying a Globe Swift. 1948 model, pretty much stock. Anyone know much about them? Bob Z.
Interesting little airplane. I flew one once in 1947-48 and it was powered by a Cont.85. and I couldn't wait to land it. What is the power on the one in which you are interested? I flew one in the late 50's that had a 145 in it and it was an entirely different airplane.
Nce write-up. Large engine version. The early ones had that cool automobile grill under the spinner. Flying the Globe/Temco Swift
Your future... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lhALMos5AQ My great uncle had a Globe Swift (and and an Ercoupe)... the root of my interest.
My favorite college professor (and faculty advisor), John Hoover, who's the main reason I wound up as a structural designer, worked at Globe and always spoke highly of the Swift. Remember that it's one of those post-WW II designs that was supposed to appeal to fighter pilots, so I guess it could be a handful at times.
The 85 HP Swift felt like it didn't have a tail most of the time.. Squirelly on take off , lousy climb, struggling in level flight on a hot day, and lacked feel. It simply did not feel that it wanted to fly and one had to be very gentle and careful on the controls. There was two people on board and it was a hot day in Florida and the airplane could not handle it. Twenty years later I flew one with a 145 hp Cont. and later on one with a 150 Lyc. and that is what the airplane should have had to begin with. It felt very good.
Roy Lopresti was very fond of the Swift. I spoke with him at Oskosh when introduced it and he had said it was a very well designed aircraft from the start and that is why he used that as the basis for the "Lopresti Fury", where he stuffed in a 200 hp Lyc and the airplane did over 222 mph... Obviously there were a lot of changes from the original to the Fury but he said it was a very solid and nice flying airframe from the start. Roy was no dummy. He understood where the payoffs were in drag reduction and how to not only make an airplane go fast, but make it fly nicely, and to be a solid structural platform. According to contemporary reports the later Swifts and the Fury were both nice flying aircraft. As with any aircraft that is over a half a century old a very careful inspection and thoughtful maintenance is the order of the day.
I guess that I have trouble with numbers now. I'm talking about a 125 hp Cont. Swift. as being a nice little airplane. I wasn't a Lopresti at the time. I was a Lo timer.
Roy never mentioned the 85 hp version. I think he was always talking about the bigger engine version as being nice flying. As we all well know the flying characteristics of an airplane change very much with speed. Some airplanes are really bad when they can't get up to a speed where the controls harmonize and the airplane start to work as designed. I suspect that the 85 hp Swift was exactly one of those examples.
Yes, and it needed that modification. I was thinking back of flying another airplane of that ilk, the Culver Cadet, and what a delightful airplane that was. Just the opposite of the Swift, light on the controls, responsive, smooth, nicely balanced, and fast. Beautiful little airplane but, it was made of wood and fabric and had a "Spitfire' type of wing. The owner was an ex-Spitfire pilot and he said that it handled like a little Spitfire.
Hey Bob, call Charlie Stidstriker in Mt. Pleasant, he has a Swift and is a type club. He'll give you all the ins and outs. Neat guys and his wife, we met them at KAND and they became plane friends. Been to a fly-in at KLRO. Former airline pilot.
My old boss at Boeing restored and customized a Cadet and I got a look at the innards. Of all the wooden airplanes that I had seen, I never saw such delicate wood work. The fuselage longerons were tapered from 3/4 square in the forward section to 1/2 square near the tail end. The structure was a work of art with great attention given to control of form. The wing structure was beautiful and the airplane's performance matched the bones.
