A Murphy Moose with a Corvette Engine
A while back I had the opportunity to have a look at a partially completed Murphy Moose that a local builder was working on. His name is Brent Davies and he was constructing his airplane in a hangar at the London International Airport in London Ontario Canada.
First of all, I have to say that a Murphy Moose is a big aircraft. I would say that its floor level would be even with my belt or higher and I am 5′11″. This thing needs a big engine. This was the tail-dragger version but I heard that Brent was going to put it on Clamar floats so that he could ply the northern lakes and catch lots of fish.
Normally you would slap on a 300hp Lycoming IO-540 to get this thing to perform respectably from the water but at ~US$50000 it is an expensive endeavor. This is where Brian Robinson and his Corvette engine conversion comes in.
Brian has been modifying Corvette engines for aircraft use for quite some time now. He has a Corvette engined Republic SeaBee that he developed the package for with over 1000 hrs running time. I have been to his home north of Toronto and have seen the engines being connected to the gearboxes. They are impressive indeed. You can see his site here. http://www.v8seabee.com
After getting all a number of Republic SeaBees running on Corvette power Brian turned his sites toward other aircraft that require high horsepower engines. Brent’s Murphy Moose fit the bill perfectly.
Brent had to do a lot of work, in consultation with Brian to get the firewall forward completed. This has been completed though and last I heard, Brent has successfully flown the aircraft.
I’ll attach a couple of photos to give you an idea of what the installation looks like.
This is going to be a potent combination providing that Brent can get enough air through the rads to cool the engine effectively. this has been the Achilles heal for many automotive conversions. I have flown in Brian’s SeaBee and if his earlier version is any indicator I think that he has a winner with this Moose.
Keep on riveting!
Dave