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Greg,
i have seen one of the 4P conversions and have met the owner. the airplane is located at Spruce Creek and the owner's name is Ron. he sometime contributes to this forum. He says, with a grin, it is a different airplane.
A 4P Turbine was converted, but i have not seen that airplane; i was told that airplane was previously equipped with winglets and the Tip/Cuff conversion by Fibercraft was five Knots faster after the conversion. i cannot attest to than speed increase differential. But, more importantly, The achievement was maximum roll off after stall of 30 degrees.
i would want to see the testing numbers including temperature, humidity and altitude of the testing; but even if the numbers were the reverse and five knots slower, it would not discourage me in the least.
i am very happy with my 4P;
i had vortex generators installed on my airplane and i cannot attest to loss of top speed, if any, as we did not test that. but i had, Test Pilot, Len Fox do the before and after testing on my airplane with the VG's. the stall on my airplane was reduced by 7-8 knots with a detailed test pilot report. the VG's are at 10% of cord. we then tried moving some of the VGs to 8% of cord in the area of the aerolons. Len tested that configuration and sadly it did not improve the post stall characteristics. i was hoping to dodge the bullet of the post stall gyrations. I asked Len about stall strips and he said that he had tested stall strips for others on Lancairs, (like you would see on a Beech Bonanza) and it did not tame the Lancair 4/4P stall.
Thus, if i want docile stall characteristics, i will have to go with the only proved conversion i know of, which is done by Fibercraft in Spruce Creek, Florida. Matt Collier is the head of Fibercraft and he is incredibly knowledgeable about Lancair 4/4P/Turbine aircraft. he has build ten in his own shop and has serviced many more than that as well. But the credential that impresses me is that he was there at Lancair when they were converting the Lancair 4 into the Columbia 300 etc. He was there to build prototypes #2 and #3. ( i only learned of Matt's experience at Lancair long after i engaged them to work on my airplane.)
http://www.fibercraft.us
so far i have had two of their products installed on my airplane. the first item is small but i consider important. The Lancair kit comes with nylon clevis for the trim actuators, they tend to wear. Fibercraft builds a metal replacement.
the second item was more interesting, a Carbon Fiber rudder.
the "fast build" rudder weigh 42-44 pounds. an early home build will run around 29 pounds. my new rudder weighs about 19 pounds. now, for me it was important to move the CG forward as i am likely on a number of occasions have four people in my airplane. because i had a 29 pound rudder, it only moved the CG forward about 5/8" to 3/4." but i am tickled pink with the new rudder.
note, on a recent trip from TEB to KEYW, i had four adults, 60 lbs of luggage and was well within CG. The airplane handled excellently.
(as a minor note, we seemed to be about 10 knots slower at 17,500 feet, than when i was 460 pounds lighter with only two persons) (250 kts v. 260kts at 18 gph)
I have encouraged Matt to redo his web site as it does not do justice to the improvements in "docile performance" that his cuff/wing tip achieves. The web page is like Matt, very conservative in tooting its own horn.
a recent incident
As to crashing on the way home, as near as i can tell it is pilots who have not had training in the Lancair airplanes. the attitude is "hey, i have all these hours, i have flown everything" "i don't need no training"
At one time Bonanza were know as "Doctor Killers" and later it was likely to be Beech Barons and then, tearing the tails off of Piper Malibu's . The doctors, ( had the money and the means. they were going from Cessna 172's to the Bonanza's.
I looked at a 4P in Florida which had a Gator picture on the whole side of the airplane. The owner told me that a Cessna 210 pilot had come in from California to buy the airplane. on short final this buyer chopped all the power and nearly killed himself and the owner before the owner could get the power back on. HE SAID IT WAS UGLY. The 210 pilot went away without buying, but alive.
personally
i have great respect for the 4P, right now my personal limits are IFR, 400-500 foot ceiling and limited night flying. Last week, i did my first "go-around" in many years at night at TEB. they had asked me to keep my speed up, which was about 200 knots and i couldn't get slowed enough to be comfortable, even with gear, flaps and speed brakes out. The speed envelop is much greater that the twin Cessna time that is the bulk of my 3,700 hours. i would have no trepidation, tomorrow, to shoot to 100 sky obscured, 1/2 mile vis. in my Cessna 340A. We are old friends. Even though the 4P is flown with similar pattern speeds, "day ain't da same."
peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg <greg456pw@gmail.com>
To: peterpaw <peterpaw@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Jan 29, 2013 12:00 am
Subject: Mailing List lml@lancaironline.net Archived Message #63898
Hello Peter,
Do you have any information about the modifications done to the three prototypes and where these changes made for the lVP or turbine lVP? I am interested in the piston improvements.
Is there a common theme with the 11% of new owners crashing on the way home?
Greg Milnar
| hi there
there is such a product with two or three flying; the promise seems to be a rolling motion limited to 30 degrees. the ones flying seem to conform to that standard.
it was developed by someone who worked at Lancair when they converted the Lancair 4 into a certified airplane with docile stall characteristics. he build prototypes #2 and #3 while at Lancair.
this is a conversion that you don't need it until you really need it. Ask Ron from Spruce Creek; his airplane is such modified.
i am appalled by the record of Lancair aircraft. 11% of purchasers of Lancairs crash on the way home.
THAT IS ONE OUT OF NINE.
(they did not have Lancair specific training)
easy to understand why there are only two companies in the Lancair insurance market and i pay $9,000 a year for $200,000 of hull insurance with a $20,000 deductible. and, i have 3,700 hours with 2,700 hours of twin Cessna time.
i wish that the FAA would impose something like they did to the MU2 pilots; it would keep us all safer.
peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Terrence O'Neill <troneill@charter.net>
To: lml <lml@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Sat, Jan 26, 2013 2:25 pm
Subject: [LML] Re: 4P AUGERING IN
Just a suggestion to theLNC4 guys: why don;t you dudes get together and finance a wind tunnel survey of the pitching and yawing moments through the AOA range? Then fix it.
Has Boeing or NASA Langley already done that?
terrence
On Jan 26, 2013, at 1:07 AM, peter williams wrote:
HI THERE
THE OSTRICH HAS ITS HEAD IN THE SAND
it seems everyone is avoiding the issue here with this loss of airplane and pilot.
there is really only one clue at this point; a witness says that the plane was rotating when it came out the clouds and descended into the ground.
i dont pretend to know what happened without the radar track, with the speed readouts.
A SCENARIO THAT FITS THE DATA WE HAVE SO FAR
stalling a 4P is serious business.
MAYBE DISORIENTATION; MAYBE AN AUTOPILOT MALFUNCTION; MAYBE UNEXPECTED ICING. MAYBE A TEMPORARY LOSS OF POWER all of which could cause a stall.
imagine what it would be like to be IFR and stall a Lancair 4/4P/turbine. Not Fun. OK,
so here you are. nose pointing straight down. you look over at the airspeed and you see 100 knots (flying speed right???--- wrong, and maybe wrong) do you have an AOA? it would tell you if you have lift back on the wings...OH, by the way, did your Gyro(s) tumble. do you have the ability to cage the Gyro?? or is it self righting. OH and how fast does that happen. and 100 knots is a silly low number and 200 knots is more likely within ten seconds. STRAIGHT DOWN. What's that? 41 seconds to the ground OR 20,000 feet per minute straight down.
(remember that the average 4P stalls and rotates 90-120 degrees and points straight down)
SO YOU THINK
ah, stall recovery...add power. well a little power? when that doesnt work more power. HOW MUCH RIGHT RUDDER DID YOU ADD? BETTER BE A LOT. remember the turbine engine puts out 1,950 foot pounds of torque v. the 550 foot pound of torque of the piston engine. even at idle, the turbine is putting considerable torque. My suspicion is a TORQUE ROLL and still in a stalled mode. YOW. (sorta like a Snap Roll we have all seen at Oshkosh; a snap roll is an accelerated Stall. YES STALL)
so you have twenty seconds at most to learn how to do stall recovery in IFR conditions.
BOEING BUILD LANCAIRS
when Boeing built three 4P turbine aircraft for their own purposes; (likely a fast chase plane) they found the tail surfaces unsuitable for the purpose. (remember the airplane was designed for 350 HP not 750HP) Boeing redesigned the tail feathers including using a thicker airfoil for the horizontal surface.
SO IN THE OPINION OF THE PROS AT BOEING, THE REAR SURFACES WERE INADEQUATE FOR THE PURPOSE
STALLS
personally i believe that every pilot of these Lancair(s) be required to see the stall of their airplane. sit in the plane and let a pro do the job. maybe if you are brave, with the "test pilot" next to you try the recovery yourself. do it under the hood?? YOW. does your gyro tumble. YOW again.
it is scary just to contemplate.
at what altitude did you do your approach to stall training? 8,500 feet, 12.500 feet. there is a reason.
personally, i would be disinclined to ride in a 4 Turbine. i'm not smart enough. but if the infidels were at the edge of the airport shooting Rocket Propelled Grenades at me...then i would gladly take my chances in a Lancair 4 Turbine.
the airplane that comes to mind in comparison is the GeeBee; Jimmy Doolittle said it was the worst airplane he ever flew. AND, just above the runway it dropped a wing 90 degrees, pointing straight down. BUT, that wasn't bad enough, it did have one worse trait. as the pilot slowed down the nose kept rising and required forward stick; just the opposite of any other airplane.
so there is an airplane made to go fast in 1931.
peter
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