Jeff,

 

One small point.  I am a satisfied user of the small tail.  I took my first civil flight lesson shortly after ordering a Lancair 320 slow build kit, thus I have no military or ATP training or flight time.  My airplane can be trimmed all the way to touchdown and the elevator has all the authority I have ever needed.

 

Either you have found out by personal experience or that of others that the 300 series Lancairs are, uh, less happy fliers when the CG is located in the aft most quarter of its range.  The Mark II tail alone exacerbates flight problems at rearward CGs since it adds such a large rearward moment.  Thus the corollary recommendation that the long engine mount be used to move the CG forward.  This is especially true if lighter props and equipment locations means the empty weight CG is not at least at the most forward point so indicated in the build manual. 

 

  

 

Harper,

About six years ago I faced the decision you now face, asked the same
questions, and ended up
cutting out the small tail and installing the larger one.

I made a web page of the process, and that is somewhere on LML, maybe Marv
can point you to it.

With all due respect to my fine small-feathered friends, I find that
the strongest proponents
of the small tail either once flew fighters, or now fly for a major
airline, or both.

They are much more current, experienced pilots than I will ever be.
They have been through the very best flight training available.

My job forces me to take 3-6 month breaks from flying. When I do fly I
can do it often, but
then I get involved in something demanding at work, and I have a long layoff.
After a layoff I find myself controlling poorly the first few times
back in the left seat.
I repeatedly retrain myself.

I wanted to be sure my Lancair had plenty of elevator authority.
I wanted to be able to trim right onto the runway.

Also, the fact that Australia really truly did reject the small tail version,
then Lancair actually did change the design...that was a factor for me.

I would say the large tail mod added 250 hours to my build time.

I am right now dealing with the long mount cowl.  I have an angle valve 200 HP
engine, and have had to completely rework the cowl.  I am nearly done
but have at least 250 hours in the cowl as well.  I chose to
make gradual changes, but if I were starting again I would throw away the
Lancair-provided junk and make my own from scratch.

One comment: even though the cowl was c**p, the large tail was
very nicely built.

These are my thoughts and I hope you find them useful.

Jeff Peterson
N273CK







--
Jeff Peterson
Dept of Physics, CMU



--
Jeff Peterson
Dept of Physics, CMU

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