Additional Modifications Make This Boss 182 Stand Out In Among It's 'Piers'

By Anthony J. Liberatore

You cant help but notice it in manufacturers display area of Sun & Fun, it grabs your attention like a Muscle Car from 69' or 70' when they were covered in bold graphics.

Standing tall, in deep blue and white on Amphibious Wipaire 3000 floats, a Cessna 182 with stencils noting it as a Boss 182, with 350 HP on the side of the cowl in even bolder print.

Are you hearing the song 'Bad to the Bone' in your head?

Wipaire's Amy Goetz was gracious to note that this is Boss 182 prototype that Wipaire has originally certified in 2014 and has actually been at Sun & Fun before. It is now adorned in this new deep blue and white paint paint scheme, a customer interior, and a few avionics upgrades to boot.

But what makes this Boss unique is what is under the cowl, and that is 3 components; a partially tuned exhaust, a recent (optional) port and polish job, and an Electroair Ignition System. Amy said the partially tuned exhaust was developed by Wipaire for the IO-580 and is manufactured for them by an exhaust specialist. The port and polish job was done by Ly-Con. Amy noted they saw a reduction in fuel burn at cruise of 1.8 gph by utilizing the Electroair electronic ignition system which falls in line with the 1 to 2 gph reduction in full consumption that Electroair advertises. Amy said, "we still flight plan at 20gph, but it burns closer to that 18 mark."

This Boss is also equipped with a Sportsman STOL leading edge cuff kit, however Amy noted "We did not do the VG's, what we found is they are great bang for the buck for a lot of things, however you don't see as many gains in a floatplane just because you are at a flatter attitude".

When asked about the Boss's performance with the 350hp under the cowl and Amy said: "It's good, it's real good, it will absolutely put you back in it's seat! It's a heck of an airplane, and it's available on wheels too, so obviously we are float people and we developed it for floatplane performance, but a lot of the performance modifications carry over to landplanes as well."

FMI: www.wipaire.com