| I firmly believe most Lancair drivers (especially myself included previously )badly underestimate how quickly these airplanes loose energy with a dead engine and a windmilling propeller. I have done many practice landings by pulling the power to idle and then working to make the field and dropping the gear and flaps late and then landing. This is good practice. It is however deceiving.
It is dramatically different (worse) with a dead engine and a windmilling propeller. I believe this fact has taken a terrible toll on our community. With a dead engine, you will be making a much more aggressive decent than you ever would in normal operations to keep your energy up as you need to overcome the drag of the engine and propeller. Gear and flaps will make this worse. A casual glide at 100-110 knots is fine at altitude.
When you get anywhere near the ground, you will want more than that. As we all know these planes start to sink when they get a little slow. You can momentarily reduce the sink rate with the stick but with no power, pulling back to arrest this sink will cause your energy and airspeed to fall off a cliff leaving you with no good options if you are are anywhere near the ground.
I like the LOBO training that illustrates an over head approach to the landing site with lots of altitiude over the initial (2500 or more feet depending on your airplane) over your desired landing site then make a descending left turn (adjusting turn and decent rate as necessary) and dropping gear and flaps as appropriate AFTER you have the energy to make the field. They teach how tough it is to hit a straight in dead stick approach. Better to circle over an acceptable site and carefully give away your excess altitude and energy and
avoid the fatal mistake of falling below the speed/energy curve close to the ground...
FWIW..
Randy Snarr N694RS 235/320 "Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible"-Simon Newcomb, 1902 --- On Tue, 7/5/11, Jeff Edwards <vtailjeff@aol.com> wrote:
From: Jeff Edwards <vtailjeff@aol.com>
Subject: [LML] Re: n23ph
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Date: Tuesday, July 5, 2011, 10:55 AM
Tried to stretch the glide. AvSafe Jeff Edwards 314.308.6719 mobile 636.532.5638 office Jeff, are you able to get any info on Peter's accident? Most of us at his home base think he ran out of gas but it would be really useful to know if the NTSB found any fuel in the tanks.
There were obviously many opportunities for him to avoid that situation but aside from that I have an additional question. If you look at the debris field, it appears that he pancaked in. e.g. stalled at 50-100'. Have you seen this before in accident investigations? What would make a pilot do that?
I think this makes seven thus far this calendar year. All 320/360 and Legacy's.
Jeff
Sent from my iPad
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