Jump to content

CIRRUS DOWN AT KMYF TODAY


Recommended Posts

23 minutes ago, Shadrach said:

Yup, I love the way tail draggers can reverse direction in small areas. Is the Cirrus a completely free castering nose wheel? 

I think so, but not 100% sure.  My experience without nosewheel steering has only been in a few RV's

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/9/2022 at 5:58 AM, A64Pilot said:

If your the type to trim full up on approach, do a practice go around or two, ease into it but do one where you go from idle to full throttle very quickly, how hard you have to push has caught people off guard before.

I agree, everyone should see what it is like, but they shouldn't go from idle to full throttle quickly. It doesn't take full throttle to arrest the descent and get positive rate of climb. When I have to go around I advance enough throttle to stop the descent and get positive rate, start adjusting trim and then advance the throttle the rest of the way. It's a quick process, and reduces the amount of pressure required to keep from going nose high and stalling.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

I think so, but not 100% sure.  My experience without nosewheel steering has only been in a few RV's

Yes.  Even the jet.  You can grab the wing and spin them around on the ground.  One of the reasons that one that got hit by the Tesla wasn’t damaged much (just a fairing and some composite repair).  You see on the video the whole jet spin around and it looks bad but it’s turning on its nose wheel.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

Yes.  Even the jet.  You can grab the wing and spin them around on the ground.  One of the reasons that one that got hit by the Tesla wasn’t damaged much (just a fairing and some composite repair).  You see on the video the whole jet spin around and it looks bad but it’s turning on its nose wheel.

So when you push a Cirrus back into the hangar does the nose wheel flip around backwards like a shopping cart?

  • Haha 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Skates97 said:

I agree, everyone should see what it is like, but they shouldn't go from idle to full throttle quickly. It doesn't take full throttle to arrest the descent and get positive rate of climb. When I have to go around I advance enough throttle to stop the descent and get positive rate, start adjusting trim and then advance the throttle the rest of the way. It's a quick process, and reduces the amount of pressure required to keep from going nose high and stalling.

Depends on the reason for the go-around, one of my most memorable was the Deer standing in the middle of the runway in front of my Maule at night, just stopped and was standing looking at me. It took immediate full throttle to get over that deer. Sure planned go-around are easy, but not all are planned.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Yes, the Aerostar is a piece of cake. Very easy, very precise. Aero Commander is a whole other kettle of fish.

Except working the throttles with the right hand, then reaching across and down to the center console with your left hand to work the rocker switch, and still be able to look around to clear the area.  Oh, and there is no indicator, so you have to be VERY careful on takeoff that the nose wheel is straight. :D

One neat mod on one I got to fly.  They put a second double rocker on the glare shield about where you would naturally grab it with your left hand.  So left on the glare shield with thumb on the switch, right on the throttles, sitting upright and straight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

Depends on the reason for the go-around, one of my most memorable was the Deer standing in the middle of the runway in front of my Maule at night, just stopped and was standing looking at me. It took immediate full throttle to get over that deer. Sure planned go-around are easy, but not all are planned.

I was not there, and don’t doubt your decision making (especially given it worked out). But we should acknowledge that there are scenarios where it is safer to hit the deer than to force an airplane into a high power, high AOA, high drag, situation.  Indeed with most go arounds you have time to be methodical. This is not a binary of “holy shit firewall everything” and a “planned” maneuver. I’ve executed a number of unplanned go arounds over the years and none of them required a “balls to the wall now” mentality.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, skykrawler said:

Are you saying the King Air has a castering nosewheel?    Not true.

Also, Aerostar's have electric trim only.

Hmm, the only experience I have in a King Air (C90) it did have a castering nose wheel.  Steering with brakes and power (including beta).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

Hmm, the only experience I have in a King Air (C90) it did have a castering nose wheel.  Steering with brakes and power (including beta).

All King Airs I have flown including the C-90 (s/n LJ-939) had steering. As to the Aerostar, never had a problem, and I don't know why people complain. I actually liked the system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/10/2022 at 2:53 PM, A64Pilot said:

Depends on the reason for the go-around, one of my most memorable was the Deer standing in the middle of the runway in front of my Maule at night, just stopped and was standing looking at me. It took immediate full throttle to get over that deer. Sure planned go-around are easy, but not all are planned.

You shouldn't have blinked first, now the deer can't stop bragging :)

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, hais said:

You shouldn't have blinked first, now the deer can't stop bragging :)

Point I’m trying to make is there are two types of go-around, one you realize that your going to land long and it’s probably better to just go-around than to try to salvage a bad approach, those are easy you can take your time, use partial throttle whatever.

Then there are the types like just after touchdown you have a runway incursion, student pilot crosses right in front of you or the fuel truck or whatever. For me as I do grass strips with no fences often, wildlife aren’t rare at all, in Ga it was deer and God forbid, but pigs too. Here in Fl it’s sand hill cranes, maybe a Coyote.

Pigs are often black and therefore nearly invisible and I’ve been told hitting one is like hitting a stump.

But anyway very quickly one of two things will happen, you will hit the other aircraft or truck, deer or whatever or you will go-around, partial throttle may not be enough and there certainly isn’t time to play with trim, flaps or whatever.

And there is no need to, put the aircraft in T/O trim and go do some practice, very quickly you’ll find that a full power, full flap go-around right after touch down is no big deal at all, it’s exactly like a normal takeoff, but a little slower from the flap drag, assuming DA isn’t 10,000 ft or something she will climb fine, but at a lower airspeed and you’ll have plenty of time to clean up the airplane after you have begun the climb and the emergency is passed.

For those that don’t believe a student pilot will cross a runway with landing traffic, come down to Central Fl and fly with me, I’ve even had an Embry Riddle one at Deland Fl decide that he couldn’t make the landing as he was too high and do a 180 and fly back up the approach path, with three of us on final. Of course he scared himself and wouldn’t talk on the radio, he eventually turned crosswind. I know it was Embry Riddle as they are all painted the same. I expected better from them

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Is quoting someone here give the connotation that you disagree or are arguing with them?

I quote people to draw their attention to my follow-up, so they either see an answer to their question (as here), to ask a question about something they have written, or to make sure that I understood their meaning. The latter meaning is how I understood @Andy95W's quote to be, and you answered so it worked.

Sure, some quotes can be to make counterpoints, but I wouldn't leap to the "argument" conclusion quite so quickly. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let’s look at how a Mooney is constructed compared to a Cirrus for a moment, the Mooney starts out with a great many steel tubes, each one hand cut probably with a bandsaw and using jigs the ends are shaped to fit the adjoining tube, each tube is done this way, by hand.

Then if it’s like a Thrush each tube is put into racks on a cart with each hole for each tube labeled to identify it, from there it goes to the welding shop where the welder positions each tube in the jig and clamps it into place, there is a lot of hand fitting to make the ends fit perfectly where they connect to each other tube, then welded out completely, if it’s like a Thrush each tube connects to each other tube like a complex plumbing feature. So once the entire thing is welded out 100% by turning the Jig like a rotisserie, the holes are drilled in the places where the engine mount connect to and the fuselage is pressurized with shop air, some leaks are easy to find and are welded shut, but each weld is sprayed with soapy water and then welded if necessary to end up with a perfectly sealed tube structure under 100 PSI air pressure.

Then using those holes drilled and tapped where the engine mount connects the entire fuselage is pumped full of hot linseed oil, you can tell it’s goes into all the tubes because they are all hot, then the fuselage is drained and once drained hoisted up to the ceiling  nose down and left overnight to get as much oil out as possible. Pipe plugs coated with fuel tank sealer is screwed into the holes to seal them the next day. Then off to Moultrie Ga to be powder coated.

Then you have a fuselage where you can begin to hand fit each metal skin, each skin has to be hand trimmed and fitted as there is enough variation in welded assemblies you just can’t cut perfectly fitting parts. Hundreds if not thousands of skilled labor man hours go into a fuselage.

A Cirrus there are I’m sure two fuselage molds, They may do hand layups where each layer is hand laid and wetted out and excess resin squeeged out, or they could do pre-peg where the glass is laid into the mold, another male mold pressed in and the whole thing autoclaved or molds steam heated.

IF they are using pre-peg then a small crew, as in a few people could build 2 or three fuselages a day

Found this article, seems they started out wet like I thought but are now using prepeg, but a type that doesn’t require heat to cure, so no autoclave or steam heated molds. I couldn’t figure out how many people it takes to build four fuselages a day, but bet it’s a shed load lot less than it takes to build four Mooney fuselages a day

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/fuselage-skins-redesign-streamlines-production

Point is you can build a Cirrus for a fraction of what it costs to build a Mooney, so how can you sell a Mooney against an airplane that costs much less to manufacture.

Plus if Mooney is like Thrush, the hardest nearly impossible thing is finding labor with the necessary skills, skilled manufacturing labor is becoming a rare thing in the US, you can get as many people you want with a Political Science or Psychology degree, but try finding a skilled TIG welder.

Plastic airplanes are the future, if for no other reason than the skills to build the old way just don’t exist.

My bet is to a large extent the plastic airplane fuselage would perform poorly in a crash, but in theory with a chute, it doesn’t need to crash, except of course for landing and takeoff crashes, which may be a significant number of the total crashes. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.