A long time ago in a land far, far away we purchased a piece of land adjacent to a private, paved, 2400’ x 36’ runway at 1700’ elevation. It was our intention to build a hangar home on the land. At the time I had a Piper Dakota, and except on the rare day when there were strong gusty crosswinds, the plane and I did just fine on that runway.
Then I sold the Dakota and bought a Legacy. My transition instructor told me “you will never land this Legacy on that 2400’ runway”. Looking at the Legacy’s specs I believed that with time and experience I would be able to land on that runway. Indeed I have put the Legacy down using only 1700’ of a 3000’ runway, although was near sea level. In order to do that I had to reduce my approach speed, touch down right on the numbers, and brake aggressively – essentially a maximum (or near maximum) performance landing.
One day it occurred to me that if I located on a runway where every takeoff and landing was at or near maximum performance it was just a matter of time until something wasn’t quite right and I had some big trouble. Essentially I would be accepting as standard a situation where I had little to no safety margin in my daily operation.
So I realized I had to either sell the Legacy and get something more appropriate for that runway, keep the Legacy at the larger, nearby public airport, or live somewhere else. I still have the Legacy. The land is for sale. And the instructor was correct – I will never land the Legacy on that runway.
Never give up your safety margins unless you have a really good reason.
Jay Phillips
From: Lancair Mailing List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of vtailjeff@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2012 9:16 AM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] Re: Getting back into the air
First-- how much does your aircraft weigh empty? IVP's are heavier than IV's, naturally and have higher landing speeds.
Speaking from my experience and LOBO's flight training recommendations, 3000 feet of level paved runway in good dry condition with no obstacles in the approach/departure path is the absolute minimum for an experienced LIVP pilot with a proven aircraft.
My LIVP would typically use 2000 feet to get off the ground and 2000 feet of stopping distance on the ground.
For landing, on a 3000 foot runway with 2000 feet to stop means obviously you must be very good at putting the aircraft exactly on the aimpoint. The IVP typically crosses the threshold at 100 KIAS. With no wind at sea level that is approximately 100 KTAS and 100 KGS. If you are spotting a touchdown 500 feet down the runway it means you have about 3.2 seconds from threshold to touchdown. If you are a little fast or a little high and over shoot your touchdown spot you are chewing up runway at about 150 feet per second. So you have three seconds from passing that chosen spot to the point that if you put it on the runway you will not be able to stop before going off the end. Rain, turbulence, etc. Forget it.
For folks in the Phase I period I urge you to use 5000 feet or more of runway. You have spent many years and thousands of dollars building it now is not the time to get cheap. When you are at that 5000 foot runway put a marker at 3000 feet and see how many times you go past it on landing or taking off. I had a client years ago that wanted to use a 2500 foot runway. We trained at a 5000 foot runway with a midfield taxiway. He could never get it stopped in 2500 feet. Never. Never, Never.
BTW I had this same conversation six months ago with Fairley Gooch, a retired Delta captain/ former military pilot. He chose to ignore my advice and LOBO's advice. May he rest in peace.
The advice I’m looking for centers around the fact that our runway is 3,000 feet long, certainly more than adequate for this airplane but not by a lot. The first flight after reinstallation will be a test flight with several different concerns
-----Original Message-----
From: John Barrett <jbarrett@carbinge.com>
To: lml <lml@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Sat, Dec 15, 2012 12:56 pm
Subject: [LML] Getting back into the air
My Lancair IVP after 55 hours of total flight time is having an engine overhaul (it was a “new engine” to start with from Performance Engines – I’ll tell that story later) and I expect to get the engine back from Barrett in Tulsa in January or early February. It will take a while to get the engine back on – all the other upgrades and fixes completed, taxi tests etc etc and so I expect to be ready to get airborne again in the spring or early summer.
I have about 60 hours of personal IVP time – 50 of them in my airplane. I am hangared at 0S9, Port Townsend International Airport in Washington State.
The advice I’m looking for centers around the fact that our runway is 3,000 feet long, certainly more than adequate for this airplane but not by a lot. The first flight after reinstallation will be a test flight with several different concerns.
1. Although I have much confidence in my decision to have Barrett overhaul the engine, it’s still a break in flight and carries more risk than normal for that first takeoff.
2. Because I am still a low time LIV driver and I will have had almost 6 months of rust developing in my IVP skills, that will be a factor
3. Because the airport environment is not conducive to emergency landing after takeoff (trees and salt water at both ends) engine problems during this takeoff would be problematic.
Port Angeles is about 6 or 7 minutes away in the IVP and has a nice long and wide runway, so the plan is to head directly there and perform engine break in over head that airport followed by several landings there prior to returning to home field. There is another runway at Sequim midway between that is 4,000 ft long - it’s narrow but could be a satisfactory emergency strip if necessary.
Is there advice other than hiring another test pilot and/or buying time in someone else’s IVP that I should be planning for to lower risks in this upcoming event? Any other concerns I should be thinking about I haven’t mentioned?