Runway Opinions

[Shadrach]

2 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

Don’t forget prop, going from two blades to three cost me I believe 17 lbs on the Maule, all of it on the nose of course.

That’s true. Interestingly, @Hank has the lighter bird (1609lbs) with the heavier prop. My bird (1680lbs) has the lighter two blade Hartzell.

[Shadrach]

4 minutes ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

I believe it.  It is only a 10” stretch, and five of that is in the baggage compartment where there is no steel structure, so the steel structure delta is only 5”, so to speak.

My C’s empty weight is only 1588 pounds, and that is with a PowerFlow exhaust and 64 gallon bladders.  But she is all electric and very minimally equipped.  

That is a light bird.

I have an old remote compass that needs to go. It works well but is a redundancy that’s obsolete in the age of the iPad. Between the indicator, fluxgate and mounting brackets, I’m sure I could lose several pounds. That and an alternator conversion would likely shave ~10lbs.

[A64Pilot]

The steel tubing doesn’t weigh nearly as much as you would suspect, it’s surprisingly light, only downside to it is it’s labor intensive. The entire Thrush fuselage which is all 4130 tubing weighs I think about 200 ish lbs and it’s a 10,500 lb gross weight aircraft.

Go to how it’s made crop dusters and Dennis, one of our welders demonstrates that by picking up one end.

One minute into the clip.

 

[T. Peterson]

On 5/10/2023 at 4:32 PM, Shadrach said:

Absolutely approach speed is key. Being light means approach speed is lower. I don’t think most of the long body owners can fathom how the vintage airframes handle at low weight. With me and half tanks, I’m under 60kias by short final and shooting to be at 50 or less as I enter ground effect.

Holy Smokes, Batman, I didn’t realize you could be that slow on final! Why mess with a runway, just land on your driveway!

[T. Peterson]

9 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

The steel tubing doesn’t weigh nearly as much as you would suspect, it’s surprisingly light, only downside to it is it’s labor intensive. The entire Thrush fuselage which is all 4130 tubing weighs I think about 200 ish lbs and it’s a 10,500 lb gross weight aircraft.

Go to how it’s made crop dusters and Dennis, one of our welders demonstrates that by picking up one end.

One minute into the clip.

 

Cool video! I enjoyed it.

[Shadrach]

21 minutes ago, T. Peterson said:

Holy Smokes, Batman, I didn’t realize you could be that slow on final! Why mess with a runway, just land on your driveway!

Only in a light airplane. Calculated stall at 2100lbs is 47 kts. It’ll still float a bit at 50 going into the flare before it fully stalls because of GE.
Please understand, I am not staring at the ASI. I just try to limit short final to 1.2Vso (57kias) and start slowing before the threshold.