Re: Member locations
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Vern,
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Some problems with trying to do transition trading at a fly-in is different goals. Fly-ins pilots give rides to encourage builders and may let the rider fly when high enough to not cause problems, unknown rider qualities. When I go to fly-ins it is usually a jam packed adventure of planning, packing, assessing weather, multiple leg flights, little sleep, socializing hangar talks, return planning, flying home with no problems. Not to mention the Dragonfly does not qualify for the dual flight Phase 1 testing. Each aircraft is different and will have its own personality. I spent several days traveling to gratefully spend an hour in the pattern with a CFI in his Dragonfly. He actually let me do touch and goes and had to control the power. I am not that guy. Thoughts on thinking about transitioning from conventional aircraft to tandem wing aircraft. The following is my opinion and flawed understanding of some aspects of flying tandem wing aircraft not to be construed as intelligent instruction. I think that most of the transition is to really understand the difference of flying with the horizontal stabilizer in front and how to deal with it. Case in point: 27,000 hr retired airline pilot starts ferrying airplanes for hire. Gets hired to move a Dragonfly, no time in type. Manages to land at Ogden pitch bobbing down final. Confesses to my brother the next day, said he never wrecked a plane yet but needed help because he might wreck this one before getting it delivered. I talked to him. He could not understand why he could not lift the tail by pushing forward on the stick during the take off roll. After a couple of hours of discussion about changing aircraft angle of attack by changing camber and lift on one end of a teeter totter and the resulting change that rotates about the rear wing 1/4 chord behind the center of gravity. In conventional aircraft the center of gravity and the center of lift of the one wing are very close together and near the 1/4 chord and change aircraft angle rotates around this point of by wagging your horizontal stabilizer around with the stick. Pushing forward instantly lowers the angle of attack and you are flying again. This does not happen with a canard platform. The canard design depends on the rear wing never being able to reach an angle of attack that would result in a stall. The center of gravity is far ahead of this (main) wing compared to conventional planforms in the tandem wing configurations. The horizontal stabilizer also has to carry more load than the wing and must stall before the main wing to be spin proof, a desired feature. This brings a hidden hazard to the novice tandem wing pilot. When approaching a stall in a tandem wing the front of the airplane is high, airspeed is slow, and the sink rate is high, slow down more and it will pitch buck with the canard stalling and un-stalling, but will not spin. With a VW going to full power will not stop the sink rate if you are below 80 mph. You have to push the stick forward increasing the sink rate momentarily to get your airspeed ahead of the power curve. So if you approach slow on final nose high low power, pull back to stop the sink but you are already on the back side of the power curve but clearly faster than pitch buck, adding full power without lowering the nose will not help you stop the sink. Bounced landing, broken prop, broken canard, runway excursions all the fun killing things you do not want. Second thing taking off with too much back stick and associated elevator drag and not enough power to climb away in a 3 point attitude. You have to push stick forward close to the ground to gain enough airspeed to climb out, again behind power curve. Hope there is not a 50 ft obstacle to climb over. Hey! You all have fun out there and be safe! One Sky Dog
On Dec 5, 2018, at 8:53 AM, Vern Lehman smeshno1@... [Q-LIST] <Q-LIST@...> wrote:
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