iscover
The Cougar was launched at a time of increasing interest in lower-performing four place twins, a fact which saw the Beech Duchess and Piper's Seminole enter the market at the same time. The Cougar, from our experience of test flying all three during 1979 (refer p.24 June 79 AADR) had by far the most comfortable cabin though was sorely limited by its 160hp engines. The installation of four cylinder engines in the 200hp class (as in the Manney 201) would have made the Cougar a very flexible and exciting performer that may well have remained in production for much longer than it did.
From The Cockpit – Grumman Cougar
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Grumman GA7 Cougar
Following on from the AAS series of designs (refer last issue), in the mid seventies Gulfstream American turned its design efforts to a new light twin-engined aircraft. Thus grumman announced on the 20th December 1974 that a new twin engined programme was to be launched and given the designation Model GA7.
Named the Cougar, it represented Gulfstream’s attempt to enter the developing IFR/multi engine trainer and personal transport market. The prototype, reg. N877X, undertook its first flight on 1st December 1976 and delivery of production aircraft commenced in February 1978. The Cougar competed well in its market, against other four seat twins, but somewhat surprisingly, the market thinned significantly and dried up by the early eighties; it can be argued that this situation was for reasons which affected the GA manufacturing industry across the board, and not just in this airplane class. The Cougar thus went out of production in 1981, a bit quicker than it came in.
The Cougar is a cantilever low wing piston twin engined monoplane. Construction was conventional light alloy; more conventional in fact than that of the AA5- a similar airfoil section, NACA 63A-415mod, wing skin fastening being riveting and bonding, but the sub-structure being standard two spar. Wing flaps are single slotted while ailerons are of Frise-action design. The fuselage consists of an aluminium honeycomb construction cabin section and a semi-monocoque rear fuselage structure, again employing bonding fastening. The Cougar is powered by two 160bhp Lycoming O-320-DID carburetted engines. Fuel capacity is a useful 114US gal usable, with a single overwing refuelling point on each wing. The engines drive Hartzell two blade metal constant speed and full feathering props of a low noise 73in diameter. The comfortable cabin is configured for four adult accommodation in two side by side pairs. Behind the rear seat is a large 12cu ft (0. 34cu m) baggage compartment. The flaps are electrically operated; apart from the wheel brakes, hydraulic power is used for landing gear operation.
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