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Lost a Mooney pilot today


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1 hour ago, Hank said:

Not if he has the nose down and is descending . . . . .

Trying to hold altitude, yes, he's dead with 60° banks.

Personally, I don't like even 30° banks in the pattern.

30deg banks produce 15% more wing loading than level flight.

Gross weight produces 20% more wing loading than solo flight (and 30% more wing loading than empty weight)

Food for thought.

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6 hours ago, Hank said:

Not if he has the nose down and is descending . . . . .

Trying to hold altitude, yes, he's dead with 60° banks.

Personally, I don't like even 30° banks in the pattern.

Yep. 30 degrees is my max too...as @steingar pointed out I prefer to stay far enough to have smooth turns while in the patterns. The Mooney is way faster than my old Cherokee and I'm still learning to dissipate all the energy accumulated...I found 70kts on final being just right for a smooth landing with my M20F. Now I must gain consistency also considering that we do not always land from a regular pattern (RNAV, etc.)

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18 hours ago, FastTex said:

Yep. 30 degrees is my max too...as @steingar pointed out I prefer to stay far enough to have smooth turns while in the patterns. The Mooney is way faster than my old Cherokee and I'm still learning to dissipate all the energy accumulated...I found 70kts on final being just right for a smooth landing with my M20F. Now I must gain consistency also considering that we do not always land from a regular pattern (RNAV, etc.)

Glad we got that straightened out...

The discussion of bank angle and Airspeed at TPA takes a lot of detailed typing.

Leaving out the detail leaves a few people wondering if the whole message gets received.

 

it helps to have your stall charts memorized.  

Unweighting the wings works well... but how unweighted are they?  Where’s the limit?

 

The discussion got even more challenging when 201er introduced the AOAi into the conversation...

 

Make sure you are familiar with all your tools.  Know they are calibrated.  Know they are working properly... before relying on them to fly slowly, in a bank, at low altitude....

Leave some margin for error... expect that you will over bank some... over slow some... over-run the final approach course some and want to recover too quickly...

They give a simple reason for this... they call it human error... it tries to happen all the time... and You are always going to be a human...  :)

don’t let it happen to you...

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

 

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On 9/10/2018 at 10:01 PM, Cyril Gibb said:

A 60 degree bank at your base and final speeds are near or below the stall speed for an F.  At pattern altitude, you're dead.

Yes.  I wanted to say the same thing.  60 degrees is the tipping point in a Mooney.  Over 60 degrees the aircraft will not make 1 vertical G, in other words it does not have enough lift to stay aloft horizontally.  All you have to do to cause an accelerated stall is try to keep the nose up.

30 degrees in the pattern.  45 is tops.

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30 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

Yes.  I wanted to say the same thing.  60 degrees is the tipping point in a Mooney.  Over 60 degrees the aircraft will not make 1 vertical G, in other words it does not have enough lift to stay aloft horizontally.  All you have to do to cause an accelerated stall is try to keep the nose up.

30 degrees in the pattern.  45 is tops.

When I was working on my PPL I would sometimes fly 30 degree turns in the pattern. My CFI would say "there you go with your fighter plane turns." He was careful to point out the dangers of too much bank along with loading up the wing. We spent some time at altitude with him showing me accelerated stalls, how you can end up in them, and what they felt like. He didn't have a problem with me flying 30 degree banks in the pattern but did say perhaps I shouldn't on my check ride just in case the DPE didn't like it. 

I still fly them sometimes in the Mooney, nothing wrong with a nice descending turn downwind to base and base to final. As you said, just don't try to keep the nose up. 

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I like that even better.  I was taught nothing greater than two-minute turns in the pattern during my instrument years ago.  Of course, there is not much pattern work during instrument, but the instructor was making the point to be conservative on the turns.  I try to stick to that, it is not always possible.  In my aircraft, at 90 kts., that means a 1 mile pattern.  I ran the calculations just for fun and posted them several years ago.  

The biggest issue is that there will be times when the cross-pattern winds are just stronger than the pilot anticipated, and it is too easy to blow through final, and then.... .  A few years ago I flew an Angel Flight to Moose Lake.  Had an aircraft full of young passengers destined for camp.  Moose Lake is down in a sort of valley after an escarpment or drop off.  The winds in that valley were very strong.  I was blown off the final and trying to get the turn made to get back on, at maybe 4 or 500 feet, and I got "Stall, Stall."  What an idiot.  I corrected without incident and we made the landing, but all I could think of was "what an idiot."  I thought, being a pilot of superior skill, I could make that turn. 

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34 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

I like that even better.  I was taught nothing greater than two-minute turns in the pattern during my instrument years ago.  Of course, there is not much pattern work during instrument, but the instructor was making the point to be conservative on the turns.  I try to stick to that, it is not always possible.  In my aircraft, at 90 kts., that means a 1 mile pattern.  I ran the calculations just for fun and posted them several years ago.  

The biggest issue is that there will be times when the cross-pattern winds are just stronger than the pilot anticipated, and it is too easy to blow through final, and then.... .  A few years ago I flew an Angel Flight to Moose Lake.  Had an aircraft full of young passengers destined for camp.  Moose Lake is down in a sort of valley after an escarpment or drop off.  The winds in that valley were very strong.  I was blown off the final and trying to get the turn made to get back on, at maybe 4 or 500 feet, and I got "Stall, Stall."  What an idiot.  I corrected without incident and we made the landing, but all I could think of was "what an idiot."  I thought, being a pilot of superior skill, I could make that turn. 

I've miscalculated more than once and blown through final. I had it happen recently on a flight to Big Bear. When it happens I just hold the bank I had, keep the ball centered, and let the plane come around. If I have overshot so far I can't line up I'm going around. 

I watched this video a couple years ago when I just started my PPL. He gives the best explanation and demonstration that I have seen about a skidding turn and the forces at play.

 

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36 minutes ago, Skates97 said:

I've miscalculated more than once and blown through final. I had it happen recently on a flight to Big Bear. When it happens I just hold the bank I had, keep the ball centered, and let the plane come around. If I have overshot so far I can't line up I'm going around. 

This was stressed by my primary CFI, and is what I have always done. Going around to get lined up has never bothered me, I even did one on my solo. Friends accused me of making a photo pass down the runway . . . . Most are savable like this, with zero danger, it all depends on how badly I blew the turn.

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Why do we think 60 degree turns are the tipping point?  My CFI won't let you out of a FR unless you show 60 degree bank turns or as he showed "turns around a point"

I follow the POH in the pattern.   "No turns under 90mph without flaps deployed."

Edited by Yetti
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9 minutes ago, steingar said:

In my Cherokee I could always safely recover approaches like that, where you overshoot.  In the Mooney I'm not so convinced its all that safe.  I really do have to get in the habit of going around more than I do.  I have a bad habit of stuffing in bad approaches.

Overshooting final SHOULD be easily recoverable.  All you have to do is continue your base-to-final turn as you overshoot final, and keep coming around without tightening the turn.  Therein, of course, lies the problem--it's psychologically very tempting to try to tighten up the turn to keep from overshooting

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50 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Overshooting final SHOULD be easily recoverable.  All you have to do is continue your base-to-final turn as you overshoot final, and keep coming around without tightening the turn.  Therein, of course, lies the problem--it's psychologically very tempting to try to tighten up the turn to keep from overshooting

Exactly, just hold the bank angle and don't kick in any extra rudder.

The one thing to be very careful of is when dealing with parallel runways. KCNO where I did all my PPL training had two very busy parallels. It was not uncommon to look over and see another plane flying final next to you. I would err on the side of turning base to final early and drifting into lining up so as not to overshoot and end up on the approach for the other runway.

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Just now, Skates97 said:

Exactly, just hold the bank angle and don't kick in any extra rudder.

The one thing to be very careful of is when dealing with parallel runways. KCNO where I did all my PPL training had two very busy parallels. It was not uncommon to look over and see another plane flying final next to you. I would err on the side of turning base to final early and drifting into lining up so as not to overshoot and end up on the approach for the other runway.

Yes that would be bad with parallel runways :o

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My home drome has parallel runways.  My problem is when I do all that (I try hard not to slip it unless I'm using the slip to loose unwanted altitude, in which case I'm watching my airspeed carefully) I often wind up landing fairly long.  The other thing is I do find myself yanking and banking far too low to the ground with far too little energy.  I really think I should just get in the habit of going around when these things happen.  Sooner or later I'm going to try and do that on a short field.  Might be I don't make the go-around decision in time to avoid the trees that invariably seem to be off the end of the runway.  I think I should be more spring-loaded for the go around, and am going to endeavor to do so.

Lucky me, I have to buy a new radio for my poor ship. Anyone got a 14V KX155 with GS they want to be rid of?

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Over here, provided certain criteria are met such as being able to obtain correct wind info, traffic and a 5 mile call, we are permitted to do straight in approaches, which is by far my preference.

The same as the main reason why an RNAV Approach is much safer than the old NDB approach, followed by circling to land.

60 degree turns in the pattern is asking for big trouble IMHO and I doubt if your passenger/s would want to fly with you again. You would soon be unemployed if you did that in a commercial operation.

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7 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

Overshooting final SHOULD be easily recoverable.  All you have to do is continue your base-to-final turn as you overshoot final, and keep coming around without tightening the turn. 

It all depends in how badly you overshoot . . . I've leveled out where my final was aimed for the ramp . . . . . There ain't no "recovering" that! I went around and paid better attention to the base-leg tailwind the next time, rolled out lined up pretty well.

 

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It all depends in how badly you overshoot . . . I've leveled out where my final was aimed for the ramp . . . . . There ain't no "recovering" that! I went around and paid better attention to the base-leg tailwind the next time, rolled out lined up pretty well.
 


And the reason for the overshoot. If you underestimated a strong crosswind, the temptation to yank it over even more would be high. Been there.


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2 minutes ago, Marauder said:

And the reason for the overshoot. If you underestimated a strong crosswind, the temptation to yank it over even more would be high. Been there.
 

 

Me, too. But I keep hearing my primary CFIs voice, "just keep your turn going and fly to the runway. Don't you dare steepen your turn!"

Primacy is a great teacher!  ;)

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8 hours ago, Yetti said:

Why do we think 60 degree turns are the tipping point?  My CFI won't let you out of a FR unless you show 60 degree bank turns or as he showed "turns around a point"

I follow the POH in the pattern.   "No turns under 90mph without flaps deployed."

Load factor is 2 Gs in a 60 degree banked turn.  Stall speed increases as the square root of the load factor, so the stall speed increases to 1.41, or 41% higher at 60 degrees, than in level flight.  That puts stall speed right around the 90 kts. In the pattern, my numbers are 90 on downwind and for the turn to base, 85 on base, 75 over the fence.  Stall speed in a 60 degree turn in my aircraft is 87.7-89.3 depending on CG, in a clean configuration, say 90 knots.  Not much better with flaps half down, 86.4 - 87.7 .  So 60 degrees is right where stall speed equals or exceeds normal pattern speed.  Don’t go there.

The response is always, well if I am descending I have unloaded the wing, and that is right.  But all it takes is to bring the aircraft to level flight momentarily to cause the stall (oops I am a little low, better level off).

The increase in stall speed with bank angle is geometric, and 60 degrees is the point where the load factor begins to rapidly rise.  At 75 degrees it is 4Gs, twice what it was at 60 and it exceeds the load limit of a normal category aircraft (like the Mooney) which is 3.8 Gs.  At 80 degrees the load factor exceeds the failure limit, which I think is about 5.7 Gs.  Small errors have big consequences past 60 degrees.  I did 60 degree steep turns preparing for my commercial, but that is done at a higher rate of speed, 100-110 knots, where there is some reserve above stall speed (not much).  It is also necessary to practice accelerated stalls for commercial, and putting in alot of bank is the way to make that happen.

PS I have watched that APS video the Skates put up several times.  It is on my bucket list to do the APS training.  Maybe next summer.....

Edited by jlunseth
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Steingar,

there isn’t much different going on in a Mooney vs Brand P...

It seems that approach speeds, bank angles and stall speeds are all intersecting during the bank... no matter what plane you fly... the importance of bank angle is nearly self explanatory...

Often around here, somebody (Ross) will define speeds around the traffic pattern in relation to stall speed... Vso.

1.3 X Vso, 1.2 X Vso, 1.1 X Vso...  Landing occurs right around Vso...

If you define your stall speed around 60...

  • Downwind...  1.3 X 60 = 78
  • Base...            1.2 X 60 = 72
  • Final...             1.1 X 60 = 66
  • Touch down...  60

Now Check your POH...

1) Compare this math simplification to how you actually fly your plane...

2) Look at your stall speeds at 30 and 45° angles...

3) At what speed does a 45° angle cause a stall...?

4) I supplied a sample stall speed chart for a Long Body...  be sure to use your POH fo your plane... adjust for weight and memory skills...

5) In this example... if you fly base at 72 kias... As calculated above....  the stall chart indicates a 77.5 stall speed...

6) attempting a level 45° bank angle will stop flying before you reach 45°.  Right as your are turning base to final... If you are sloppy at coordinating your turn...  people on MS will be discussing your stall/spin turning to final...

7) Methods Of improving the stall margin...

  • unweighting the wing by pointing the nose down.  (Anyone have any hard numbers for this?)
  • Limiting bank angle in the TP to 30°.
  • Increasing speed.

8) Adjustments for weight, weather, flap procedure, et al... apply.  Other things like equipment not working or ice...

9) To be clear... this is slow flight near the ground.  A Piper stalling at TPA May recover before hitting the ground.  And it may not. Turning to final is too low to the ground to make judgements. 

10) properly calibrated and trained for... AOAi(s) really make a lot of sense for this...  or memorize that stall chart completely...

11) If not sure... go around...

12) regarding straight in approaches... they don’t have the same safety and judgement mechanisms that the standard TP has...  

  • the traffic pattern supplies a few key points that are identifiable by looking out the window.
  • gliding to the runaway from anywhere during descent from TPA is part of the plan.
  • the key points allow the pilot to adjust power inputs three times based on speed and altitude.
  • The straight in can do this as well depending on the skill of the pilot and the equipment he may have on board or on the ground....

 

This post is regarding the math used for calculating and selecting bank angle, Airspeed, and stall speeds....

Not to be used for flight.

As usual, PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

EACA98F2-9A3F-43E3-B7CA-D61904AFB649.thumb.jpeg.ee2505829a6311756c695c2f8ff11a77.jpeg

 

 

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9 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

The response is always, well if I am descending I have unloaded the wing, and that is right.  But all it takes is to bring the aircraft to level flight momentarily, to cause the stall (oops I am a little low, better level off).

In the pattern, as with all slow flight:  pitch for speed, power for altitude. Regardless of speed or bank angle, if you get a smidge low, correct it with a kiss of power, NOTNOT by moving the yoke. Similarly, if you get high, pushing on the yoke will increase your speed, so instead, back out the throttle just a tiny bit. If you are high and slow, then give it a nudge of forward yoke and leave the throttle alone.

Ingrain the pattern early and you won't have problems with this.

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21 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

Load factor is 2 Gs in a 60 degree banked turn.  Stall speed increases as the square root of the load factor, so the stall speed increases to 1.41, or 41% higher at 60 degrees.  That puts stall speed right around the 90 kts. In the pattern, my numbers are 90 on downwind and for the turn to base, 85 on base, 75 over the fence.  Stall speed in a 60 degree turn in my aircraft is 87.7-89.3 depending on CG, in a clean configuration, say 90 knots.  Not much better with flaps half down, 86.4 - 87.7 .  So 60 degrees is right where stall speed equals or exceeds normal pattern speed.  Don’t go there.

The response is always, well if I am descending I have unloaded the wing, and that is right.  But all it takes is to bring the aircraft to level flight momentarily to cause the stall (oops I am a little low, better level off).

The increase in stall speed with bank angle is geometric, and 60 degrees is the point where the load factor begins to rapidly rise.  At 75 degrees it is 4Gs, twice what it was at 60 and it exceeds the load limit of a normal category aircraft (like the Mooney) which is 3.8 Gs.  At 80 degrees the load factor exceeds the failure limit, which I think is about 5.7 Gs.  Small errors have big consequences past 60 degrees.  I did 60 degree steep turns preparing for my commercial, but that is done at a higher rate of speed, 100-110 knots, where there is some reserve above stall speed (not much).  It is also necessary to practice accelerated stalls for commercial, and putting in alot of bank is a the way to make that happen.

PS I have watched that APS video the Skates put up several times.  It is on my bucket list to do the APS training.  Maybe next summer.....

I was thinking 60 degree bank up high.  I would never even approach a 45 degree turn in the pattern and don't go over 30 degrees

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10 minutes ago, carusoam said:

 

5) In this example... if you fly base at 72 kias... As calculated above....

6) attempting a level 45° bank angle will stop flying before you reach 45°

Sorry, Anthony, this is only true when attempting to maintain level flight, which probably is not the case in the traffic pattern.

Everybody knows that "a wing can stall at any speed", it stalls when it exceeds its critical angle of attack.  In exactly the same vein, "a wing may not stall at any speed", unless it exceeds its critical angle of attack.

Put another way: if you are in a 60° bank with the nose of the airplane 15° below the horizon at 72 knots, you won't be anywhere close to the critical angle of attack and therefore you won't stall- but you will be descending like crazy.

But I absolutely agree that a 45° bank at 72 knots on base is a pretty stupid thing for all of us who aren't Bob Hoover.

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11 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

 91.307 agrees by the way.  Any intentional maneuver over 60 degrees is an aerobatic maneuver, parachute required.  

some people think it is over 59 degrees.    The more interesting question we had was what is maneuvering speed for a F model

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