Aircraft that do not stall?

[pzinck]

How true is that statement? I have seen old advertisements for the helio courier that claim the helio does not stall. I have no practical experience with these aircraft,although they fascinate me. I have been around long enough to know that advertising performance is usually better than in the air performance. My real wonder is about slats,and slots, do they really not stall? How is the stall on the cubs with leading edge slats? I have flown damn good planes that dont stall as easy as others,the good ones will sink really well at slow speeds.On these a burst of power near the ground arrests this high sink rate and you land pretty short. I have a hard time beleiving they dont stall,but i have no experience with slats,but watching. I have seen some helios do amazing things,but i just saw a demo pilot from jaars doing the short field demo alone and wasnt that impressed.I dont know if he was having a bad day or what. When i left with a 300 pounder in 185 some bystanders later told me they thought i got off as good,and i know i didnt do all that well. I havent seen a helio perform in years,but years ago i was amazed.I dont know if i just had'nt been around good bush planes then and was impressionable. Who knows maybe it was a newer pilot demoing it.I know i cant make a cessna perform like some guys can,maybe he wasnt that good. It also may have been one with less horsepower. In my research i discovered they have about 6 different models. One more question with my long drawn out posts.Does anyone do helio training on the east coast? I would like to do some training in one of these things before i end up buying one. Thanks.

 

[Hoonahcub]

slots

I have a cub with the Dakota slotted wings on it. It will fly about 25 mph indicated and the stall is more of a mush. Just add a little power to slow the descent. It also climbs like a rocket.
Just my two cents worth.

 

[Bill Ingerson]

stall

a friend of mine Jim Perry in Monroe Washington is someone to talk to about the Helios, He repairs them and has flown them for years. Knows the good ones from the bad. He told me the one that scared him the most was a model call The Stallion ( something like that) it got away from him and scared him pretty bad, does't want to fly one any more. He installed the first turban engine on one as well. It would pay to hire him to fly out and look at what your buying before you put money down on it, not much gets passed him. As far as airplanes that don't stall, the only one I seen was at the Snohomish Wash. airport. back in 70's a guy flew in in a ultralite patterned after the tailless Casper Wing. When asked what the stall speed was he said ZERO. Then he took off from the sidewalk and did alot of tight turns gaining altitude. At about 500' over the crowd he shut the engine off. He would make it dip forward pull up some then it would slide backward and kept doing that all the way straight down until about 50' off the ground, then flared forward and rolled to a stop, Seen that myself and couldn't believe it.

 

[Longwinglover]

pznick,

Maybe your question should be phrased "the Helio does not stall under normal flying conditions. Any airplane can be made to stall under extream conditions. If you pull the Helio's nose straight up, it WILL stall.

I have no direct experience with the Helio, but would guess that under normal flying conditions, you reach a point where ther is not enough elevator to continue increasing the angle of attack, so the plane just mushes forward with a healthy sink rate (power off).

John Scott

 

[Cub junkie]

As far as Helios go, my Dad leased a 295 in the late '60's and my most memorable experience was with the factory pilot Larry Montgomery, he was Mr. Helio. Im not sure a Helio would drop a wing if you pulled it straight up, I think it would just mush backwards with the power up. I have seen the JAARS demo a few times, I would think there are a few films of Larry flying, or I hope there would be. We were just 60 miles from the factory so I was there a few times.There is a Helio web site, I found it through google.

 

[Bill Rusk]

There are a number of airplanes that " do not stall". Usually the designer will set the tail up such that the tail will stall before the wing so that it can not drive the wing past its stall AOA. Once the tail stalls it will continue to hold the wing at a high AOA (assuming you keep the stick back) and result in high induced drag. The combination of all the above (and not enough power to overcome all that drag) will result in a fairly high, to alarmingly high, sink rate. The advantage to all of this is that the wing will not be stalled and the ailerons will retain some authority all of which will lessen the chances of entering a spin.
Marketing this to the average nonpilot who thinks that a spin is 100% fatal was the goal.
You may not always be able to arrest the high sink rate before ground impact, especially at higher gross weights and density altitudes, so I would be reluctant to intentionally use this part of the performance envelope close to the ground.
If you go straight up you will run out of airflow over the wing and thus not create any lift but the wing will not be stalled. (unless the tail can push the airfoil beyond its stall AOA.)
There have been a number of ploys used over the years to convince the public that flying was just as easy as driving a car, including making the interior of the plane resemble a car. All to increase the number of pilots and thus aircraft sales. Notable efforts include roll up windows in the Stinson models, use of art deco trim in some of the shortwing Piper models, yokes that looked like steering wheels, and airplanes that wouldn't stall.

Bill

 

[Erik]

Every airfoil type wing will stall. The question is - is the aircraft capable of making the wing stall? If you take your cub and block the stick from moving all the way back, then you will have an aircraft that cannot stall. Just means the aircraft won't let the angle of attack get to a point of stall.

By the way, in the ultralight example, could you explain what type of wing it was? I get the impression that the "trikes" using the single layer of fabric are a different animal. It seems their airodynamics are more like powering a parachute (albiet streamlined parachute) around the sky. ZERO on the airspeed indicator is what a lot of Super Cub guys talk about when they land. Doesn't mean anything to me other than the indicator is inaccurate at that angle of attack.

 

[Bill Ingerson]

stall

Hi Erik,

The ultralite I seen was a tailess rig with a motor. I once belonged to a EAA club in Everett Wash back in the early 70s. The guy next to me turned out to be the guest speaker, I believe his name was Casper. He developed the Casper wing glider. Bottom painted white, top painted red. I asked him why, he said so you can tell if its upside down or not from the ground. He claimed he could go down field and flip the glider 180 and go back upside down. Didn't see that for myself, He gave a company in Issaquah Washington the write to use his design in a ultralite. His plane had no nose or tail, had two sticks for controls on both wing tips. The ultralite used a 2 cycle motor, no nose or tail. I did see it come straight down and roll out safely. Casper told me he crashed two times, got it down slow and flipped it upside down and it kept flipping over till it hit the ground, walked away both times. I was a student pilot at the time, and while on a hour flight I seen one of Caspers test planes in Arlington Washington. A two seater casper wing with pusher motor, painted blue with duct tape all over it, they were waiting for the test pilot to show up. When I came back from my one hour flight, I found out the test pilot got killed in it. Never seen that design used again. His idea was to have a cheap, four place, with pusher motor. His last name might be spelled with a K Kasper, might find it in the web. somewhere. Thats all I know.

Bill

 

[LANDSHORT]

Good question and i guess lacking a complete definition of stall I'll share what the M7 Maule will do with VG's..

I can slow it up, apply full flaps pull the yoke all the way back and it will not drop the nose. It will mush all the way to the ground at about 750 feet per second decent rate. Of course I can yank it back and enjoy a break over at stall. It is a very interesting safety feature in that the horizontal speed is quite low during this "drop like a leaf" maneuver. Very survivable in a worst case scenario.

Scott

 

[Erik]

It will mush all the way to the ground at about 750 feet per second decent rate.... Very survivable in a worst case scenario.Scott

Scott,

You think 45,000 fpm is survivable!!! That's 511 mph!!! Just teasing you. :lol: I know it was a typo, 'cause not even an M7 can fly that fast. A stall is defined as a state when the critical angle of attack is exceeded.

Erik

 

[fobjob]

Witold Kaspar...inventor of vortex lift, did the flap systems on the 727, as I recall... http://www.twitt.org/KASPBIBLIO.html
ever wonder how a bird swoops up and hovers, desending vertically a short distance to land on a wire?

 

[pzinck]

It is interesting to note that the first helio was a piper .All of the mods were put on a vagabond i beleive.Once all of the new innovations were proven they designed a whole new plane around them.The reason i was told because they needed much bigger plane with higher payload.The first one was called the koppen bollinger helioplane.

 

[sj]

Remember from your primary training, that there are multiple ways to recognize a stall:

1. Nose drop
2. ineffective ailerons or elevator
3. increased rate of descent in nose high attitude (mush)
4. stall horn (duh)
5. contact with the ground
6. door rises up (in a cub)
7. wind thrashes around inside the airplane

sj

 

[sj]

P.S. In some aircraft designs, the fixed the elevator so that it would almost not go up far enough to stall (except in an accelerated fashion). I think the Air/Ercoupe was one of these designs.

sj

 

[fobjob]

Ya, Fred Weick's ultimate safe airplane....his name is all over NACA papers published in the 20's and 30's... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fred+weick&btnG=Google+Search
I always thought that limiting the elevator travel might prevent you from getting out of trouble somehow... :-?

 

[fobjob]

By the way, try landing a Helio on a road, then lifting the tail to turn it around......

 

[jgerard]

I work for Jim Perry, and we have 4 Helios under way right now. I would not call them a ROUGH field aircraft by any-means. STOL maybe, SAFE you bet. But I would not want to fly one regularly out of the places some back country cub pilots go. The tail takes 2 people to lift, and the main gear are not designed for "Big rocks & Long props" type flying either. Not an ideal bush plane for rough strips. Remember they gross out between 3400-3800lbs depending on what model it is. And they are 10% bigger than a C185. Just resumed work on the Turbine (alison 420hp) bird today. Defiantly the best STOL bird for its size. 80' takeoff and landing. 96" paddle type 3-blade prop =1-1 thrust ratio !! working on getting an STC for the conversion.

 

[Mikey]

I can slow it up, apply full flaps pull the yoke all the way back and it will not drop the nose. It will mush all the way to the ground at about 750 feet per second decent rate. Of course I can yank it back and enjoy a break over at stall. It is a very interesting safety feature in that the horizontal speed is quite low during this "drop like a leaf" maneuver. Very survivable in a worst case scenario.

Scott

Did my PVT in a PA-22 (w/out VG's). My CFI liked to demo that as an emergency decent manuver if you got caught on top. Glad to say I never had to try it in the clouds, but it did work as advertised VMC. Power pulled, trim rolled all the way back, feet on the floor and sit on your hands.

Chris

 

[fobjob]

It would be fun to build a set of cub wings, using Kaspar's vortex lift airfoil. You could land vertically in places you couldn't get out of...on the tail wheel, mostly....although, there would be a huge trim change towards tail-heavyness... :roll:

 

[pzinck]

jgerard,what do you guys do ,rebuild helios? If so do you know of any for sale.Thanks.

 

[FiftyNineSC]

I can slow it up, apply full flaps pull the yoke all the way back and it will not drop the nose. It will mush all the way to the ground at about 750 feet per second decent rate. Of course I can yank it back and enjoy a break over at stall. It is a very interesting safety feature in that the horizontal speed is quite low during this "drop like a leaf" maneuver. Very survivable in a worst case scenario.

Scott

Did my PVT in a PA-22 (w/out VG's). My CFI liked to demo that as an emergency decent manuver if you got caught on top. Glad to say I never had to try it in the clouds, but it did work as advertised VMC. Power pulled, trim rolled all the way back, feet on the floor and sit on your hands.

Chris

Works in a Cessna 180 as well. Full flaps, aft trim, full RPM with manifold pressure at the bottom of the green. Hands off and keep the compass heading with your feet. It gives you a nice 500 ft/min descent that is hard to mess up.

Bill