JMBreitinger
Registered User
Minneapolis, MN
I had an opportunity to fly with Chris Napier today.
He is one of those rare pilots who is both a great stick and rudder guy with loads of tailwheel time and a good teacher. He put me through the ringer with air work. We did really sloooow flight with climbs, decsents and turns all with the airspeed indicating zero (actually, it would have been about 15 MPH, it the scale went that low). We spent a lot of time right on the edge of the spin entry.
Then he had me do the falling leaf, power off with the stick against the aft stop, the object being to keep the wings level with the rudder. When the wings are stalled and the ailerons are useless, the rudder remains effective. I have done this is a stock Cub and in a Pitts. It is a lot of work but a good excercise. With the vortex generators, my Cub just settles into a mushing decsent with the wings level. Aileron authority is still good. About the only way to get the wing to break and fall off is to induce some excess yaw.
Anyway, we talked a lot about glides. He got me flying the wing with the horizon as my primary reference. In my airplane, if you set up for a power off glide trimmed so that the bottom of the wing is parallel with the horizon at the wing tip, it settles in at the best glide speed. For a no flap landing, this is a great approach speed. We did a bunch and experimented with it a lot to prove it. It works.
The more I fly this airplane, the more I learn that it works best with outside references.
He is one of those rare pilots who is both a great stick and rudder guy with loads of tailwheel time and a good teacher. He put me through the ringer with air work. We did really sloooow flight with climbs, decsents and turns all with the airspeed indicating zero (actually, it would have been about 15 MPH, it the scale went that low). We spent a lot of time right on the edge of the spin entry.
Then he had me do the falling leaf, power off with the stick against the aft stop, the object being to keep the wings level with the rudder. When the wings are stalled and the ailerons are useless, the rudder remains effective. I have done this is a stock Cub and in a Pitts. It is a lot of work but a good excercise. With the vortex generators, my Cub just settles into a mushing decsent with the wings level. Aileron authority is still good. About the only way to get the wing to break and fall off is to induce some excess yaw.
Anyway, we talked a lot about glides. He got me flying the wing with the horizon as my primary reference. In my airplane, if you set up for a power off glide trimmed so that the bottom of the wing is parallel with the horizon at the wing tip, it settles in at the best glide speed. For a no flap landing, this is a great approach speed. We did a bunch and experimented with it a lot to prove it. It works.
The more I fly this airplane, the more I learn that it works best with outside references.
