Hey guys, look at the calendar, today is
April 1st. April fools day.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lancair Mailing List
[mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Terrence
O'Neill
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 2:13
PM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] Re: True
"composite" question
Hi Tim,
There's nothing wrong with the 360 wing; the accidents
were caused by the pilot pulling the wing to a stall AOA. A wing
will not stall unless the pilot
pulls the wing to a stall aoa... the wing (hands off) will instead remain
at it's trimmed AOA, no tmatter whatflight gyrations the plane does.
Pilots need to SEE airflow, to SEE what they're doing,
so they can avoid causing a stall AOA..
But we all learned the wrong, FAA way... airspeed --
and since flying is like bike-riding, by habit, we're cautious about changing.
The FAA guys are the same
Don't abandon the excellent 360 wing... is my
suggestion.
It would be much simpler to just make yourself a stall
ANGLE indicator vane. With that, you can SEE your angular distance you are
controlling your wing to fly at, compared to the stall mark on the AOA
indicator, and avoid pulling the stick back to a stall AOA.
I've been flying with my AOAs since 1969, and am
uncomfortable without one. I've made one for each of my experimentals....
I mount thre Lancair's to a tube on the inside of the
left wing stub, and it is removable, held in place with a 3/32 csk pop through
the mounting tubes, rivet held in place with white electrical tape...
It's in my left field of vision, which I reference by
habit whenever pulling high AOAs, like in steep turns onto final, with no
sweat. Here's mine on N211AL, our 235/320.
FYI, one year before I returned to civilian life from
Patron FOUR, the Navy put AOAs on all carrier aircraft in 1956 and cut landing
accidents 50% the first year! They've been using them ever since.
That got me started on using AOAs when I was running
my TC program in 1968.
I've used AOAs on all my stuff since:
FAA Provisional TypeCertificate A19CE on O'Neill Model
W, 1969.(See Janes 1973-4)
Designed, built and test flew original or major mods
to Waco Model W Aristocraft, O'Neill Model W, Magnum, V8 Pickup, Mitchell B-10
Wing, Dragonfly, Lancair 235/320.
Make yourself a simple little AOA with a shielded
stainless steel ball bearing floating a balanced vane.
Tech counselor and flight advisor 15+ years
On Apr 1, 2011, at 9:34 AM, Tim Jørgensen wrote:
My LNC2 is near completion and I
have started preparing all the paperwork necessary for the flight permit.
During my research I have stumbeled
across the NTSB website and made a search on "Lancair 360". For
those of you who have not done that (probably most!), this is HORRIFIC reading
!!!
There seems to be quite a large
number of stall related accidents, which leads me to believe that the airfoil
is basically unsafe. Anyway, I am not going to fly this thing as is, although I
have had my license for more than 20 years and have accumulated more
than 200 hrs.
I have now come across a set of RV-7
wings that survived a hangar collapse last winter. This airfoil seems much more
forgiving, anyway, that is what my A&P says, and I am trying to come up
with a way to install them on my otherwise finished airframe. I will, of
course, have to keep the stub wings and make them fit the slightly larger RV
wing but, apart from that, would I be in for at lot work? Has anyone done this
before? Any advice taken!
Lancair 360, was 95% done, now back
to maybe 60%.....