Cirrus Down in TX near the pattern 60R

[Shadrach]

7 hours ago, chrisk said:

Here is the chart for stall speeds.

  All K's do not have speed breaks.  Mine has manual speed breaks.  But the landing gear is by far the most effective speed break.    Speed breaks are pretty effective at high speed, but not so much at low speed.  I also find them useful when flying an approach and I want to loose 50 or 100 feet, with out changing anything else on the plane.

Thanks for the hard numbers! 90kts gives you a substantial buffer even in the unlikely event you were to arrive at your destination at gross.

[Yetti]

9 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Sure if you fly 3 mile patterns. Maybe maintain cruise speed until established on 5 mile final? Just to be on the safe side...

Well yesterday it was a 0.81 nm downwind with a 0.84 nm final.   I would say starting the turn at 90mph.  With the bottom speed brakes out and doing a 30 degree turn you are using the turn to lose lots of energy.  Given the wind of 16 gusting to 24 yesterday had to add some throttle back in.    Still made the 2000 foot turn off. 

[chrisk]

2 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Thanks for the hard numbers! 90kts gives you a substantial buffer even in the unlikely event you were to arrive at your destination at gross.

I should have been a bit more specific too.  For a normal uncontrolled pattern, I fly downwind at 90Kts, and make my downwind to base at 90.  Base to final is typically started closer to 80+ kts.  I then slow things down on final.   But I almost never get a "normal" pattern with the tower back home.  Lots of entering on base, or strait in if it is not busy.  And if it is busy, lots of really big patterns with the tower calling base.  And for these cases, 90kts seems to work really well until you want to slow down.  I've easily gotten 3+ mile finals when there are two other planes on final.