Angle of incidence

On May 29, 10:57*am, Roel Baardman wrote:
On the contrary: I'm using full spoiler lately. Part of my excess in speed comes
from approaching high and putting the nose in besides full spoilers. The speed
doesn't bleed off very fast when I'm level.

Roel - I don't have any experience in a B4 so please take this as
general commentary and something to consult on before trying in a
B4:

With all the ships I've flown (both metal and fiberglass single-
seaters), the way you know you've got the right approach speed is that
when you start your flare/round-out you can bring the nose up beyond
"level" without ballooning (this leads to a decent two-point landing
or touching the tailwheel slightly before the main wheel touches
down). If you are already pulling full spoilers and you cannot bring
the nose a couple of degrees above the horizon without ballooning,
you're probably approaching too fast and you might try incrementally
decreasing your approach speed by 3-5kph (2-3mph) until you get less
float and a smooth touchdown with 50% to 80% of your spoilers deployed
(there are a couple of ships out there that benefit from closing the
spoilers most of the way just before touchdown or they kind of drop
through the flare; but again I don't know enough about the B4 to
comment).

I prefer a steep approach (for safety, in case of sink or a big wind-
gradient), and have found that sometimes you have to consciously fight
the urge to dive for the runway. It takes a bit of training to pull
spoilers *earlier* during the base-to-final turn or just after lining
up on the extended runway centerline (i.e. just as you get onto final
approach), but I find that pulling spoilers a little earlier like that
helps keep me from building up speed as I keep my pitch attitude
slightly flatter and don't dive for the runway (and if I do, having
the spoilers out BEFORE I pitch down helps the airspeed from building
as quickly - pulling spoilers *after* you dive doesn't tend to slow
you down dramatically until you get into the flare/float).

Hope this provides some food for thought!

--Noel

Thanks for the reply Noel (and others). It does provide some food for thought!