1 Fatal ...r.a.h or r.a.p?

Tater Schuld wrote:

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Tater Schuld" wrote


heck that sounds like a good idea. wasn't there a time that engineers
would tow a plane behind a ground vehicle to see if it would fly?

sounds like a way to avoid risking getting hurt if some design flaw comes
up. make sure to sandbag for CG!

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy.
Is there no limit to what some *don't* know?


yeah, I'll admit it. I'm interested in flying, in too remote of a place to
get a mentor, and too cheap to afford instruction.

I also looked at the prices of buying a certified plane, and the prices of
renting one, and was disheartened.

one of my biggest complaints is that there is no possible flying potential
for someone who works at minimum wage. EAA wants bigger and bigger
memberships, and wonders why it is so hard. I believe that if they could get
the price of flying down so that a minimum wage a afford it (minimum wage
income, not minimum wage IQ), you could get a LOT more people interested. a
plane in every garage and that sort of thing.

so I am looking at homebuilt plans, trying to see what would fit that
criteria. still looking for the perfect one plane. might still be looking 5
years from now.

ok, back on the topic. tow the plane, use sandbags to simulate the pilot,
and you eliminate what percentage of first flight failures? wrong control
throws, broken or stuck cables, improper wing incidence, incorrect control
surface areas, improper structural load theories..

and you KNOW that plane can get airborne. a big confidence builder for the
first time builder/flyer


Sorry Tater, old boy, that's just not going to work.

Or, do you have some way of controlling said towed aircraft that we haven't
heard of yet?

There are two schools of thought on first flights.
Both have merit.

One is to "go for it!". Take off and climb to altitude where you can become
safely aquatinted with her "personality" safely.

The other is to make several short hops down the runway to get the feel first.

The latter, at first, scared the dickens out of me - just on principle.
Going from low and slow lift off to low and slow landing *seemed* like a bad
idea. But in the end, I've come to think this is safer than I originally
thought, and had become my standard approach to testing a new plane.

I like it because 1) we are low and slow and if anything does go wrong, at
least we are low and slow. And 2) we are expecting to "abort" the take off
soon after lift off. We will not have the danger of the engine possibly
quitting on climb out, and the attendant difficulties that presents.

And 3!) it let's you skip the first flight! When you finally are comfortable
with the plane and take it around the pattern for the first time, it's really
not the first flight! (how 'bout that for a plan!)

And, frankly, this turned out not to be the pilot challenge that I first
thought it would be. Although YMMV?


One other thing, Tater. If you can't afford lessons, wait until you can.
I know people who have tried. Most of them got smarter after dinging a
few airplanes (and themselves!). My own opinion is that teaching yourself
to fly is dumber than going into a Tiajuana whore house without a condom.
You are just begging to get hurt.

So, until then?

richard

"B A R R Y" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 5 Feb 2006 10:28:57 -0600, "Tater Schuld"
wrote:


one of my biggest complaints is that there is no possible flying potential
for someone who works at minimum wage.

You can't do a lot of things at minimum wage.

If you're intelligent enough to fly, or for that matter, communicate
on the Internet, can't you improve your marketable skills to raise
your income? In fact, the time spent learning to fly would be much
better spent improving your standard of living, no?

I didn't say *I* was being paid minimum wage. I wanted it to appear do-able
at minimum wage. that way the factory working that is working double minimum
wage can see that it is an affordable hobby.

takes aviation from "only doctors can afford it" to "anyone can afford it"

"B A R R Y" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 5 Feb 2006 10:28:57 -0600, "Tater Schuld"
wrote:
If you're intelligent enough to fly, or for that matter, communicate
on the Internet, can't you improve your marketable skills to raise
your income? In fact, the time spent learning to fly would be much
better spent improving your standard of living, no?


For the last several years I've heard families complaining about kids with
PHDs that are having to work for minimum wage. That didn't happen with my
kids,
I'm pleased to say. Glad I worked when I did and retired in 1996.

Harold
KD5SAK

"Tater Schuld" wrote in message
...
ok, back on the topic. tow the plane, use sandbags to simulate the pilot, and
you eliminate what percentage of first flight failures? wrong control throws,
broken or stuck cables, improper wing incidence, incorrect control surface
areas, improper structural load theories..

Aerial tow is hard even when you have an experienced pilot at each end of
the rope. Take a couple of glider lessons (at a field where they use aerial tow
for launch) and you will quickly see what I mean. Hint: the glider does not
willingly follow the tow plane like a trailer follows a car; you gotta fly it
every second , and it is a learned skill.

Vaughn

"Bryan Martin" wrote in message
...
In a "normal landing" you start a half mile to a mile to one side of the
runway and only require about 180 degrees of turn. In a turn back maneuver
after takeoff, you are nearly directly off the end of the runway. Turning
back to the runway from this position requires far more than 180 degrees
of
turn. So calling it a 180 degree turn back can be misleading. 180 degrees
of
turn will usually put you well to one side of the runway so you must
continue turning until you are headed back towards the runway and then
turn
back the opposite direction to line up with it. This maneuver requires
closer to 360 degrees of turn than 180 and you will lose altitude faster
while turning than when flying wings level. So before you attempt a turn
back, you need to know how much altitude you will need for a 360 degree
turn.

If you are taking off from an airport with more than one runway, you might
consider if it would be easier to turn back to a different runway than the
one you took off from. One time during a BFR, my instructor pulled the
throttle at about 500' after takeoff from runway 6 at Midland Barstow. He
expected me to attempt to return to land on runway 24. He was kind of
surprised when I just made a gentle 240 degree left turn and rolled out
lined up with runway 18 with altitude to spare. I just looked back and
realized it would be much easier to get to 18 than 24, the wind was
blowing
us that way anyway.
--
Bryan Martin


Good point.

Al wrote:
I was tempted once, but the temptation went away with the
altitude...quickly.

I lost an engine on a C210 at about 300 ft, on departure. The thing quit
like someone had pulled the throttle, which turned out to be very close to
reality. In the shock of the moment, I thought about trying a turn, but
decided to plant it off the end of my departure runway(I was 3000' down a
4000' runway), instead. The clearway at the end was level and had no large
trees. I had already cleaned up the departure flaps, was climbing at 80kts,
and the gear doors were just closing when the thing quit. I immediately
selected the gear back down, and was flat amazed at the sink rate that
developed, no power, windmilling, with the gear in transit. At about 20',
still over the runway, I had to hold it off using flaps, to wait for the
gear to finish extending. The main gear came over center in the saddles,
just as I ran out of elevator, we touched down on the mains, and had to hold
the nose gear off long enough for it to extend. I slid onto the numbers at
the far end with the gear pump still running to close the doors, and got it
stopped. The engine lit off, and we taxied back to the tiedown, and
deplaned.
It turns out that this aircraft had recently come out of 100hr., and for
some reason they had the Airquipt(sp?) hose that runs from the air cleaner
to the turbo-charger off. When the mechanic put it back on, he didn't know
what to do with the ends of the metal wire that winds around the inside of
the hose. He bent each wire end into a little "U" shape, and hooked them
together in the middle of the hose. (They should have been placed under the
hose clamp at each end) A couple of hours later, with vibration, the glue
holding the wire failed, and hooked in the middle the wire collapsed like a
slinky, allowing the hose to collapse, shutting off all air to the turbo.
What really amazed me was how fast the altitude and airspeed went away.
When the thing first quit, I would have sworn I could not get down to my
departure runway before going off the end. I was wrong. Wrong by over a
thousand feet.

Al CFIAMI


"kd5sak" wrote in message
m...

"Dave S" wrote in message
link.net...

JJS wrote:
The SQ2000 guy was flying a rotary (mazda derivative) engine that had
what the rotary community believes was an intermittent fuel supply
program and was in flight test at the time. The aircraft had made one
dead-stick due to what the community assumed was a vapor lock. This was a
fairly low altitude turn back and landing on-field but off-runway. After
some re-work on the fuel system he went up again, and on one of the
subsequent flights weeks later lost power very low, and tried to make
another low turn back to the runway. He ended up in trees.

Same tactic killed Wiley Post and Will Rogers. Don't fly myself, but in a
lifetime of reading
I've seen several references to crashes occuring from pilots trying to
turn back to a runway I

I just read (somewhere fairly recently) that Will & Wileys floats were
leaking,took on enough water that ran to the rear on take-off creating
a BAD rear CG, that they couldn't recover from. (sounds reasonable to
me, they could have been getting by with it, draining the floats after
they were airborne each time)


when they had a reasonably flat bit of terrain in front of them. It's been
said that Post knew better, but had the family fortune tied up in the
plane he and Will were traveling in and just let that drive his decision
making. What do some of you actual pilots think?

Harold
KD5SAK

"Vaughn" wrote in message
...

Aerial tow is hard even when you have an experienced pilot at each
end of
the rope. Take a couple of glider lessons (at a field where they use
aerial tow
for launch) and you will quickly see what I mean. Hint: the glider does
not
willingly follow the tow plane like a trailer follows a car; you gotta fly
it
every second , and it is a learned skill.

Vaughn


As Vaughn mentioned, "it is a learned skill." From the gliders viewpoint it
is a type of formation flying, or wing-matching-tail-chase. The low tow
position (flying below the tow plane's wake) gives a look and feel similar
to the U.S Naval aviation version of air-to-air refueling.

When you tie two aircraft together both are at an increased risk when the
other aircraft has a problem. The tow plane is at a much higher risk than
the glider. The glider getting out of position close to the ground can
easily put the tow plane in a position from which it can not recover. If
the tow plane has a power failure shortly after becoming airborne, again the
glider is less at risk. An experienced pilot flying a glider with 35 to 1
or better glide ratio shouldn't have a problem doing a 180 and landing
down-wind. (I've done it from 250 feet with room to spare.)

Wayne
HP-14 N990 "6F"
http://www.soaridaho.com

--------snip---------
There are two schools of thought on first flights.
Both have merit.

One is to "go for it!". Take off and climb to altitude where you can
become
safely aquatinted with her "personality" safely.

The other is to make several short hops down the runway to get the feel
first.

The latter, at first, scared the dickens out of me - just on principle.
Going from low and slow lift off to low and slow landing *seemed* like a
bad
idea. But in the end, I've come to think this is safer than I originally
thought, and had become my standard approach to testing a new plane.

I like it because 1) we are low and slow and if anything does go wrong, at
least we are low and slow. And 2) we are expecting to "abort" the take off
soon after lift off. We will not have the danger of the engine possibly
quitting on climb out, and the attendant difficulties that presents.

And 3!) it let's you skip the first flight! When you finally are
comfortable
with the plane and take it around the pattern for the first time, it's
really
not the first flight! (how 'bout that for a plan!)

And, frankly, this turned out not to be the pilot challenge that I first
thought it would be. Although YMMV?

-------snip---------

Personally, I agree and plan to use the aborted take-off method as well.
Actually, the plan has had many well known and respected advocates--IIRC,
Molt Taylor was among them.

Also, if the plan is to test a "custom built", or if there is any other
reason to question the weight and balance envelope, I plan to first test a
thrown model--prior to investing time in actual construction of a "real"
airplane. I would first re-read all of part 23 to glean any insight to
accumulated experience in defining the balance envelope. (I know, I really
have no intention to follow everything in part 23 either--for example, there
are specifications for the undercarriage and/or prop clearance that I may
find inappropriate for my application--experimental really is where we plow
the new ground!) Next, would construct a model of the wing only (with
dihedral, and a handle) and throw it with various weights and CG positions.
An excessive variation of airspeed and altitude due to fugoid oscillation,
as subjectively observed, would initially define the "natural" aft CG limit
of the wing by itself. The forward limit would be even more subjective--but
the basic objective of initial testing with something safe, light, simple,
and cheap should be fairly obvious. That should give some indication
whether the design actually has promise. If so, I would add a stick
fuselage and an empennage, and continue my subjective testing. If
satisfied, I could proceed with the main project; otherwise it might be time
to change the design and/or seek assistance.

The reason for this treatise is that I believe a lot really can be gained
from unmanned testing, and that it can be accomplished inexpensively and
with negligible risk of collateral damage.

However, (warning ... warning) the above applied only to conventional
aircraft, and even then does not address the required size of tail surfaces.
I am still looking for a "cheap and dirty" way to accept or reject a design
with regard to the tail's contribution to pitch and yaw stability. Also, I
also have NO intention of designing or building a canard aircraft because I
don't feel that I understand their principals well enough!

Peter

Thanks for the link, Marc..

For the record I will state that my post regarding this was
unresearched, and from memory alone. I am actually thankful for the time
and work that the rotary community put into investigating his accident.

Dave

I am still looking for a "cheap and dirty" way to accept or reject a design
with regard to the tail's contribution to pitch and yaw stability.

www.X-plane.com

Also, I
also have NO intention of designing or building a canard aircraft
because I
don't feel that I understand their principals well enough!

Other than making sure that the "elevator" stalls before the main wing
the principals are the same. The final pitch/yaw stability derivative
doesn't care if the numbers came from a canard, a conventional plane ,
or a flying wing.

IMHO the stall resistance of a canard doesn't offset it's other
disadvantages so your not going to miss too much.
==============
Leon McAtee
Quickie builder ........... former Q-2 builder