Use of drag chutes
The ASW17B (17045) has a belly chute. One day Mark Grubb and I took turns landing it with the chute. We intentionally packed it with less care each time, and it always deployed. This was a fun test prior to Mark's rebuild of the ASW12.
The technique was pull at 600'AGL on short final. Woomph! Nose down, pull the double-surface airbrakes out fully. Laughter! Gently ease back on the stick just before your feet hit the runway. Normal touchdown. As it was a paved runway, we jettisoned the chute shortly after touchdown to reduce wear on the cover attached to the crown of the chute. The loss of drag is quite apparent.
Unfortunately we lost the piece of the belly (swivel clip failure) off the end of the runway before trying the drag chute at 15m span.
The 17B has a lot of handles at the bottom of the panel. Best not to adjust the pedals without looking at the handle.
Jim
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