|
The building of a plane such as the Legacy involves making
decisions on a daily basis. Yes or no on the speed brakes is one that
involves a fair chunk of money. Here's a few thoughts and observations
that might help make that decision easier, or not, your call. Actually,
the term "speed brakes" is probably not as accurate as "spoilers" according to
the inevitable "experts" that are abundant at most airports. I feel that
depends how you use them. In a Legacy you can either come down or slow
down, take your pick. In cruise, deploying the brakes and doing nothing
else to power or trim, the plane will establish a very nice rate of descent
and only slow a little. When low enough, pull power a bit and raise the
nose to maintain altitude and the speed bleeds off rapidly. When
approaching to land I do this down to gear extension speed, put out the wheels,
retract the brakes and voila, ready to enter the pattern. As an aside, in
case you're wondering, the Legacy can be flown safely with only one speed brake
deployed. John Halle and I found this out the hard way when his Legacy
developed this problem on an intermittant basis. The good news is
that Precise Flight was great about solving the problem. John got
the first set of brakes for a Legacy and they have since revised the product and
they updated his to the new specs and no further problems.
This brings up another suggestion. Buy a set of the
aluminum speed brake hole blanks from Lancair. If you need to remove the
brakes for any reason they can be installed and you can continue to fly in the
interim. If you're not installing speed brakes, having the blank covers
installed allows later installation easily by you or the next owner some
day. Also, the blanks can be used when doing the body work around the
openings so all that dust doesn't get into the speed brakes.
Do you need them? No. Are they a nice? You
bet. Can't decide? Planning ahead will allow later installation with
little hassles. We report, you decide.
Leighton Mangels
|