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I've read this discussion w/ interest and because I have [as of yet] no lancair time, I've kept quiet. I am a professional pilot, however I'm far from the experiance level that many of you are. I fly a 414 for hire so I am used to pressurized, reasonable speed, heavier airframe and reasonable approach speeds. When it comes to slow flight, I'm an advocate of training. I've spun C-150's many many times, primarily because in Canada it's part of the training syllabus. It's a required training exercise which must be demonstrated as well as learned and practiced w/ and w/out an instructor on board. [it's been long enough that I can't remember if it's a flight test item or not].
One comment which was passed on to me once was, " you can sometimes go faster, but you can ALWAYS go slower". I don't think anyone here is saying "go flying around on the razers edge for hours at a time & make sure your right over the trees" but rather know your airplane, it's low speed limitations. In the course of day to day flight's we don't ever plan to have emergancy's or inflight problems but they do occur and we do need to train and practice for them. There are many situations where knowing how close you are to a stall is VERY important. The short list that comes to mind [and I'm missing 99% of this list I'm sure];
1-Partial power loss- You are having trouble maintaining altitude, your over terrain on which you cannot land, trying to stretch those last few miles from the airframe.. Typically we should be slowing to a speed which meets Max range in a situation like this.. how close is that to your stall? Maybe you just need to suck it up over that last set of trees, are you going to stall if you lose more speed?
2- Short final missed approach, like others mentioned runway incursion or possible birds, skydiver [smaller airports] or glider, anything gets into your path on short final and requires an abrupt pitch change, evasion manouver. It'd probably never happen to 99% of us.. but it could, are you ready if it does?
3- Structural issue.. you hit a bird, or whatever and feel that the best way to lighten the structural load on the airplane is to slow down.. REALLY slow down.. how slow would you go? Certainly not to the edge of stall.. and maybe the impact is such that if you slow to much you might lose control authority [roll control 'say'] but if you don't know how your airframe behaves at 1.3x and are scared to slow that much, are you really doing everything you can to slow the airplane down and minimize structural load due to speed?
4- Failed gear extension. Wanna make a slow pass for the tower to have a look, I'd be wanting to go as slow as I feel is safe.. make sure they have lots of time to look at it.. doesn't mean I'd be right at the stall.. but the slower I go.. the more chance they have to see what's what.
I'm sure there are many many more.
When the day arrives and we get our 320 airborne I plan to know how to learn how to fly it in the green arc and know how it behaves anywhere in the green arc. That's not to say that I plan to spin it but I do plan to stall it, and understand how it behaves at the bottom end of the arc. And, if need be work to tame the stall to a point where it is controlable and predictable, and yes.. to do this may cause a hair raising trip or two. I will be doing it w/ a parachute, and while I'm not a huge fan of jumping, I've jumped a few times before & I will be prepared. Is this testing going to be at tree top level.. hardly.. is it manditory, yes. Can it be accomplished with a reasonable degree of safety, YES.
I think often this type of testing during the manditory 25 is more of a 'ok we're slowing.. there's the buffet... add power.. ok.. we know it will stall.. next item" and leave it at that.. it's my opinion that this is a poor form of flight testing. Often these a/c are built w/ the intent to get flying and going places and the testing phase is just an annoying nuisnace standing between me and where I want to go w/ my a/c. The first 5-10 hrs are spent doing the nesc checks for sign off and there-after it's just burning gas around the local airport until I can get my 25 in and get outta'here..
In the 414 we shoot approaches at 110-120knt depending on load and the airport, however I have done approaches into short strips w/ a lighter load at 90, it wasn't terribly comfortable but it was doable, because I knew from training that the airframe would fly at those speeds. A extreme example is Bob Hoover. He could fly the pants off a Shrike and it wasn't because he flew it fast, when he did his engine out routine he was using the airframe to either limit [fast and slow]. He was able to do this because he knew what it could and could not do. I'm not saying we need to go to these extremes [Bob had tight margines to play w/ when he did his routine and practiced it] but we should be comfortable knowing our airplane in its normal flight envelope, from either extreme of that envelope. If we are scared to fly to either end of that envelope then either we have to much airplane or we need more training/testing to be comfortable in our
plane. Spin/stall training and slow flight is not dangerous when approached from the right perspective [and in the case of spin training, completed in the right aircraft]. Don't spin your Lancair, but if your scared to stall it "..'cause it'll kill ya.." then there is REALLY something wrong w/ the airframe and I wouldn't fly in it period.. not until that issue is addressed and fixed. GA aircraft [and I mean traveling a/c, not aerobatic] should no be that unpredictable, regardless whether it's an Experimental or not.
Ok.. I've said my piece.. Asbestos suite on..
Jarrett Johnson
235/320 55% [zero Lnc Hrs]
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> >I side with Bill and others: STALL TRAINING AND STALL AWARENESS
> TRAINING AND PRACTICE ARE ESSENTIAL TO YOUR >FLIGHT SKILLS.
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> Why are they so necessary? I was speaking with a friend of mine
> and he
> asked the same question. I at first thought it odd that he would
> question it. Then I remembered my last flight review where my
> instructor had me do a bunch of slow flight work. It was great
> fun and
> everything, but I distinctly remember noticing that I never used such
> skills.
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> Why are you flying your airplanes so slow as to require this kind of
> skill? Isn't that like practicing driving your car on the edge of a
> cliff in case you need to avoid going over a cliff one day? Just
> don'tget that close. Don't fly that slow, unless you're flaring
> just before
> you reach your touch down point, then what do you have to worry about?
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> I think we (myself included) get so fixated on something dumb someone
> did that we miss the real point in avoiding the same mistake.
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> If a 90 or 100 knot approach speed gives you the willies, then get
> intoa 172 or an archer for crying out loud
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> Kevin
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