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New to me 2007 owner statement.


Buckaroo

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I'll bet I'll end up a minimul flap CT jockey as slow and steep is not my cup of tea. In Cessna's I always only used full flap landings for short field work.

 

Building onto this knowledge base I have another question. How does this bird feel in a nice banked accelerated stall with some flaps?

 

Remember, it's a slow flying plane with adequate power to weight.  You can do turning stalls but they will be nose high and the stick slightly moved to turn.  They are not rated for spins so entering one is not a good idea.

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I have about 700  crosswind landings with 30* flaps.  I am not in agreement that 30* should be avoided in crosswinds.  If you look to published stall speeds you will see same or similar numbers for 30* vs 15* but 30* landings is where landing at minimum speed works well.  The law of primacy will apply here, if you begin with minimal flaps to learn landings you will be a fly it on guy.  If you begin with 30* you will probably be a land at minimum speed guy.  I believe it all stems from the early training or in this case the transition training.

 

 

CT I have more than that sitting in the right seat trying to teach students how to make crosswind landing. If you go back and look I didn't say they should be avoided. I said you should use caution. If you have plenty of experience in the airplane you can make crosswind landings with more than 15° flaps, but it still carries a higher level of risk as compared to 15° flaps.

I would not recommend a new owner to try using 30° flaps with a significant crosswind, Until he gets some experience in the airplane or he has an instructor who is really familiar with the CTSW.

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Here in Montana we get significant winds. During my instructor days I drilled hard on crosswind work. I plan to ease into them with zero flaps and ready go around in my throttle hand. I want to be proficient with cross winds!

 

Question: Will a CT handle cross winds as well as say a C-172? I used to love them in the T-41 at the windy Air Force Academy!

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CT I have more than that sitting in the right seat trying to teach students how to make crosswind landing. If you go back and look I didn't say they should be avoided. I said you should use caution. If you have plenty of experience in the airplane you can make crosswind landings with more than 15° flaps, but it still carries a higher level of risk as compared to 15° flaps.

I would not recommend a new owner to try using 30° flaps with a significant crosswind, Until he gets some experience in the airplane or he has an instructor who is really familiar with the CTSW.

 

Tom, I understand your thinking and method.  We view 'level of risk' and the power of 'primacy' differently.  In the CTSW days I saw a lot of them get sold and saw the training issues that were being experienced.  

 

At first there I saw 30* used for normal landings and 40* avoided.  Over time that became 15* for normal landings and eventually you can use more when you are more proficient.

 

There were 3 results, the 30* guys continued to use that setting for normal and crosswind landings and the later continued to use 15* and generally landed at higher speeds.  Early on there was a group of existing pilots that crashed in transition.  I don't think these early crashes had as much to do with flap settings.  I think at first we had pilots trying to hold off while they were still 5' too high, using a remembered sight picture.  They didn't know where the ground was.

 

My problem with the current training methods is the students don't see flaps as part of normal landings and the big picture is risk is increased.

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Tom, I understand your thinking and method.  We view 'level of risk' and the power of 'primacy' differently.  In the CTSW days I saw a lot of them get sold and saw the training issues that were being experienced.  

 

At first there I saw 30* used for normal landings and 40* avoided.  Over time that became 15* for normal landings and eventually you can use more when you are more proficient.

 

There were 3 results, the 30* guys continued to use that setting for normal and crosswind landings and the later continued to use 15* and generally landed at higher speeds.  Early on there was a group of existing pilots that crashed in transition.  I don't think these early crashes had as much to do with flap settings.  I think at first we had pilots trying to hold off while they were still 5' too high, using a remembered sight picture.  They didn't know where the ground was.

 

My problem with the current training methods is the students don't see flaps as part of normal landings and the big picture is risk is increased.

 

When I'm teaching I start students out with 15° flaps, but the technique I use is the same for all flap settings. The only difference is with 15° flap is give the student more time with each landing to develop the sight picture and height cues needed to make good landings. Later when we transition to more flaps the only difference is the steeper sight picture on final and the whole round out, flare, and touchdown sequence happens faster. With this method I have never had an issue with a student having problems when making landing with higher flap settings.

 

My view on the landing accidents is a little different than yours. I have been envolved with the CT since 2007. My involvement was as a dealer, flight instructor, and mechanic. I've spent considerable time at events like Sebring and Oshkosh visiting with pilots and owners. I also have spent considerable time with many of the people envolved in selling many of these airplanes. I think most of the accidents were caused by instructors or pilots trying to fly these airplane like any other airplane they had flown. Many people didn't have your type of flying background when transitioning to these airplanes, and it created issues.

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I agree with everything you said.  I said they were flaring too high and you said they were flying like any other plane.  Same thing I think.

 

Somehow that evolved into 15 first 30 later which makes it easier to teach/learn.  15 first 30 later does result in a different mindset as a side-effect. Landing at minimum airspeed looses its focus and today the fleet clearly gets 'flown on'.

 

When I bought my CT they weren't yet being flown on.  Think about it, the evolution resulted in transitioning pilots being taught to land above minimum speed when the intent was to teach them to fly very light aircraft.  Very light aircraft require different technique and I'll even accept that margins should increase and 1.3Vso should be 1.4Vso.  When the end result is normally leaving your landing flaps in the upright position and reliance on things like forward stick for wheel steering then the result is unintended.  The adjustment to very light aircraft technique became flying it on and fixing things with speed.

 

The only thing I fault your teaching method for is not beginning with landing flaps because primacy rules.

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I agree with everything you said.  I said they were flaring too high and you said they were flying like any other plane.  Same thing I think.

 

Somehow that evolved into 15 first 30 later which makes it easier to teach/learn.  15 first 30 later does result in a different mindset as a side-effect. Landing at minimum airspeed looses its focus and today the fleet clearly gets 'flown on'.

 

When I bought my CT they weren't yet being flown on.  Think about it, the evolution resulted in transitioning pilots being taught to land above minimum speed when the intent was to teach them to fly very light aircraft.  Very light aircraft require different technique and I'll even accept that margins should increase and 1.3Vso should be 1.4Vso.  When the end result is normally leaving your landing flaps in the upright position and reliance on things like forward stick for wheel steering then the result is unintended.  The adjustment to very light aircraft technique became flying it on and fixing things with speed.

 

The only thing I fault your teaching method for is not beginning with landing flaps because primacy rules.

 

I can assure you that I do not teach students to fly the airplane on, unless I am teaching wheel landings in a tailwheel airplane. I often tell my student the goal is not to get the airplane on the ground as quickly as possible, but rather get it close to the ground and hold it off as long as possible. The reason I use 15° flaps to start with is because it gives the student more time with each landing to absorb the information needed to make a landing, plus it allow more chances to fix a mistake if one is made. If you start with more flaps you cut the time from round out to touch down in about 1/2. Since landings are arguably the hardest thing to learn when learning to fly a airplane I think the more time a student can have learning with each approach the better of they are.

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I never assumed that you taught them to fly it on.  Again I have no issue with your teaching method except for 15 before 30 and I understand whey you do that, its easier to both teach and learn.

 

I'm sure you and Eric are fine instructors, you can read it between the lines.  

 

I think 2 things lead to a fleet that flies it on, 1) taught 15 before 30; 2) cautioned that 30 in crosswinds risks dropping a wing.

 

-----------------------------

 

I wonder, when a guy bends up his gear how often the story he tells to explain why matches what actually happened. In most cases if the pilot could assess the reason he could have also avoided it.

 

Its been a while but I've seen it happen and I heard the stories and I didn't quite believe them then either.

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Question for Tom -  you wrote "I personally try to avoid slips with full flaps."  In a CTsw, do you avoid slips with 30 degrees of flaps, or only 40 degrees of flaps?  

 

I am much less experience than you, but I regularly slip my CTsw with 30 degrees of flaps and encounter no problems.  I also have practiced stalling my plane in a slip with 30 degrees of flaps.  Recovery was uneventful (in my airplane).

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Question for Tom -  you wrote "I personally try to avoid slips with full flaps."  In a CTsw, do you avoid slips with 30 degrees of flaps, or only 40 degrees of flaps?  

 

I am much less experience than you, but I regularly slip my CTsw with 30 degrees of flaps and encounter no problems.  I also have practiced stalling my plane in a slip with 30 degrees of flaps.  Recovery was uneventful (in my airplane).

 

I learned to fly in a 7ECA Citabria. It had no flaps, so I learned to slip a airplane early on. Since then I have over 1,000 hours in airplanes without flaps, so slips are the norm. It has been a while since I taught in the CTSW, but I made normal landings with 15° flaps, and would often slip if I needed to lose altitude. In my most recent CTSW flying experiences I have not had the need to do slips, because of well planned approaches. As for slipping with 30° flaps I don't see a problem, as long as you maintain safe margin between approach speed and stall speed.

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Andy, can you really say there is no break with power on?  Wanna go for a ride with me? :)

 

 

Sure, you can make it snap down pretty hard.  But in the case you are simulating with power on stalls (departure where you get slow and creep up on the stall without knowing it), the nose will pitch down a slight amount and then stop as the engine power catches it and arrests the break.  That's the "bob" I mentioned, and the Tecnam I trained in had the same behavior.

 

I went out one time with the intent of finding where the CT's stall characteristics get more violent.  I found that if I was in level flight at about 65 knots with -6 flaps, and quickly pulled the stick back, the airplane would pitch up quite steeply, and if I kept the stick full back the nose will drop through sharply to about 30° nose low.  I even did it sharply enough once to get the right wing to drop a little, which was easily countered with left rudder.  Overall nothing scary, and you have to really work at it to get a CT to stall in any kind of violent or surprising way. 

 

Stalls in a turn are non-events too if the airplane is coordinated.  The nose just mushes and drops into the turn.

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I routinely slip with 30* on final.  My judgement isn't perfect so I aim a  little long and slip to land on the numbers.

 

When I was young and my judgement wasn't the best I to tried to put the airplane on the numbers. I was actually quite goo at it. One day I was test flying a Cessna 210 I had the owner of the business I was working for with me. He was a wise old instructor / DPE. I put that 210 right on the numbers like I had been flying it for years. After the landing we had a little talk, if you know what I mean. He said if you want to practice precision landings pick the second or third runway stripe as your target. You will still be able to hit your spot when needed, but you don't have the risk of coming up short. I personally know of wheels being ruined by hitting the lip of the runway. I helped repair rear spar damage in a Piper Arrow who caught a little snow bank at the end of the runway. I know a fellow who has a crease in the bottom of his wing from a runway light at the end of the runway.

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I'll bet I'll end up a minimul flap CT jockey as slow and steep is not my cup of tea. In Cessna's I always only used full flap landings for short field work.

 

Building onto this knowledge base I have another question. How does this bird feel in a nice banked accelerated stall with some flaps?

 

Landing the CT with 15° flaps is what I call "easy mode".  Once you get the sight picture and flare height down, you can make great landings in any conditions with that flap setting.  However, once you get comfortable with that I'd really suggest using 30° flaps when the winds are light or calm.  You will make slower, safer landings with that setting, and when you do landings at shorter fields or those with approach obstacles, it's good to have the higher flaps setting in your bag of tricks.  

 

As an example, I landed at a short grass field last weekend, it was about 1350ft of usable turf with ~50ft trees at the approach end.  Landing there would not be possible with 15° flaps, but with 30° flaps and a full slip it was not hard at all.  My approach speed over the trees was about 48 knots.

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I routinely slip with 30* on final.  My judgement isn't perfect so I aim a  little long and slip to land on the numbers.

 

Same here, no problems.  I think the "don't slip with full flaps" apprehension many have come from Cessna experience with the older 172s, where the rudder could blank out the tail and make the slip hard to recover.  A lot of pilots have unnecessarily generalized that experience to all airplanes.  In the CT it's no problem at all.

 

BTW, I'm not saying the above is Tom's reasoning, but I have heard a lot of pilots say you should never slip any airplane with full flaps and it really just depends on the airplane.  What I *will* say about the CT in slips, is that if you leave the nose where it is entering the slip, it will pick up speed.  You actually have to hold the nose up a little bit to keep it from accelerating.  My instructor says the DA-20s his flight school uses in are the same way.

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Flaps and slips have different but overlapping jobs.  Use flaps when you need a steeper descent and use slips when that steeper descent is needed for only a brief time.

 

With flaps you give up speed and with slips you can exit without that speed loss.

 

I agree.  I use slips a lot to "fine tune" my approach.  If I'm a little high on short final a short slip can get me right where I want to be.

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