Grassstrippilot wrote:

Cary wrote:
It's been a long time ago, but one of the things I remember about both the 73 T210 I first flew and the newer 1986 versiion my pard and I owned until I bailed from the partnership, is the dramatic difference in the way that they flew lightly loaded vs. heavily loaded. While that's true of any airplane with a significant W&B envelope, I recall that it was more dramatic than, for instance, a 205 or 206, or for that matter a 182. I don't have a lot of time in any of the 200 series Cessnas, so my memory may be a bit off. But my recollection is that although it was really nose heavy when lightly loaded, it leaped off the runway very quickly, using not a lot of runway. But load it down, and it rolled a long, long way. I think due largely to its more laminar flow wing compared to the others' high lift wings, it just doesn't develop a lot of lift until it's motating pretty quick, well above its lift off speed. It's a great high speed cruiser, but it wouldn't be my choice for a back country airplane, at all.

Cary

Interesting. Since my 205 is my first experience with 200 series aircraft, I'd like to know more about the wing. I'd venture a guess that there were some design changes from the early 210s to the later 210s. Trent or Rich...or anyone else, what do you know about this. My 205 seems to do pretty well getting off, even with a heavy load.

So far as I know, the 205 and 206 and the early 210s all had pretty much the same fat (thick) airfoil, Cessna wing common also to 182s and 172s. Later 210s have a thinner wing. Another major difference is the flaps, which are more a Fowler style on the thicker airfoils and more like simple drag producers on the 210 wing (see the photo that Nosedragger posted, and notice how the flaps don't appear to move backwards like Fowler flaps do). So with the later 210s, the additional lift that Fowler flaps provide is absent as well as the thinner wing which produces less lift at slower airspeeds. All of that contributes to the requirement that the newer 210s have to get going much faster to be able to climb, especially with much of a load.

As I've said, I had the newer model T210 into shorter strips only a few times, and each time was lightly loaded, except coming off the Big Beaver strip near Detroit. With a full load coming off of that, I admit to a bit of pucker factor, as it took longer than I liked to get off the ground and wouldn't climb well until speed had built considerably--and there was a building not all that far off the end of the strip!

I do think the later 210s are marvelous airplanes, and very versatile, but IMOH they are not good back country airplanes.

Cary

Had no idea the different years had different airfoils. It looks like they changed wings in 1967 and everything after that has the "new" cantilever wing.

Nice info. Thanks!

Grassstrippilot wrote:
Interesting. Since my 205 is my first experience with 200 series aircraft, I'd like to know more about the wing. I'd venture a guess that there were some design changes from the early 210s to the later 210s. Trent or Rich...or anyone else, what do you know about this. My 205 seems to do pretty well getting off, even with a heavy load.

The 210 without the struts (1967? +) and the Cardinal both have the NACA 6 series airfoils. Airfoils designed for laminar flow, with all their supposed benefits.

On the other hand, Cessna had a love affair with the NACA 2412 airfoil for most of their other airplanes. It is used on the 205, 206, 207, early 210s and the rest of the 100 series. Keep in mind that sometimes there are multiple airfoils that define a wing and the surface in between is an interpolation, of sorts.

In case anyone else is interested in what airfoil your machine is using, here is a pretty good resource.
http://m-selig.ae.illinois.edu/ads/aircraft.html

If you can get a copy of "Theory of Wing Sections" by Abbott and Von Doenhoff, it has some of the airfoil test data and will allow you to compare the characteristics and behavior.

mtv wrote:I also think at Upper Loon (been a while since I was there, so someone correct me), but once you depart the confines of the strip itself, it's going to be really hard to stay in ground effect.

MTV

Flying in low ground effect would not be my first choice from the bag of tricks for getting up and out of Upper Loon airstrip. It might be possible, but not without some fairly aggressive maneuvering close to trees and rocks. That kind of defeats the purpose of acceleratig and stabilizing in low ground effect. I actually don't believe that I would settle for anything less than extra margin in the departure plan. Had a few close calls in my old 170 and learned my lesson.

With thousands of iterations of monitoring student pullups at the end of spray runs, one would thing there would be a certain percentage of late rather than early pullups. None. It just doesn't happen. What does happen is a tendency to pull up early bleeding energy that could better be utilized in the energy management return to target or whatever maneuvering is necessary to miss things.

This common too early pullup out of low ground effect is human nature. The obstruction is of great interest to the pilot and he tends to dwell on the top rather than bottom of it. The hand follows the eye, and he finds himself well up out of low, effective ground effect and struggling. A bigger engine can help the effect but not the technique. Someone will just come along and add more load.

Once we have trained and practiced keeping our eye on the bottom of the obstruction to aid our staying in low ground effect, we need to avoid the energy robbing jerk up to a high pitch attitude. We are not looking for Vy or Vx or any instrument procedure here. We are looking for the no more comfortable with looking at the bottom of the obstruction point. At this point, we shift our eyes from the bottom to the top of the obstruction. The hand follows the eye and a smooth, energy efficient pullup results. If we now dwell on the top of the obstruction as the target, we do not bleed extra energy by going too high over the obstruction.

As always if there is a lower obstruction, drainage, or more down hill way out, we use rudder turns in low ground effect or energy management turns to go there. Pointing the nose up is sometimes necessary, but always a very dangerous thing to do while maneuvering near the ground. It almost always must be followed by lowering the nose to regain the kinetic energy of pressure airspeed necessary to maintain flight.