Today I was able to feel out the envelope a bit more of my 1956 182 with Horton STOL. I had been impressed with its short take offs and landings but spent time today doing some slow flight and stalls (if you can even call them that).

Spent most the time at 3/4 flaps (thought 40 degrees might be too much drag) the plane is easily controllable at 50 mph and will even fly down to 40. Pull the power and ease into a stall and it will descend with yoke full aft at about 600 fpm and 40 mph or so, still with aileron and rudder effectiveness. Clean it up a bit and flying around at anything between 60 and 80 mph is very stable.

The stall speed is an easy 10-15 mph below the white arc. I would feel comfortable bringing it in down final right at the bottom of the white arc.

Pretty impressive, and that was my first time feeling it out. I should bring the GoPro next time!

What are your experiences?

Two things to keep in mind:
1. The stall speed will be higher with a bigger load, as much as 10-12 mph difference in a Skylane between running light (quarter tanks and just you) and filling to gross.
2. Running too long in slow level flight with flaps extended will heat up the CHTs, especially the back two.

But what you're doing is the best thing to do to get comfortable in any airplane, i.e., learn its envelope.

Cary

The Skalywagon came with a Horton, got a decent amount of time behind it and was happy with the performance. Power off stall in ground effect in calm wind n 40 flaps was 55mph, power on was 48-50mph working it hard.

That said, removed the Horton and installed the Sportsman last summer...Very happy with the investment, Sportsman outperforms the Horton in all flight regimes on this particular aircraft.

FWIW if I'd leave a stock wing alone vs installing a Horton. Any Cessna I own will have a Sportsman.

Skalywag wrote:Any Cessna I own will have a Sportsman.

That's my philosophy as well.

My 182 had the Horton when I bought it, it's very hard to get it to actually stall when loaded lightly or with a forward cg. It will just kinda get mushy and start a descent. From what I've heard, with an excessive aft cg you can you yourself into trouble and the docile stall characteristics go away. That being said, Before I do my wing-X extensions I will probably change over to the sportsman and get rid of the flap gap seals.

Horton is good, but here is what I did.
I had 60hrs total time When I bought my 182 and it had the Horton,I was happy with it.
Since the start I wanted to do backcountry flying and short strips.
It had flap gap seals too.

I installed VGs, low speed control was improved.

I approached at 58 60 mph to short strips with a feeling of the plane sinking from under me.
Power off stalls at 50 mph full flaps
Started to learn a bit and wanted to go to shorter strips.

Asked around and Sportsman was the recommendation.
Removed the Horton , removed flap gap seals.
Big improvement.
Approaches to short strips 48 50 mph.
Power off stalls 40 mph full flaps.
Removing the flap gap seals might have helped with the big improvement too.

Take off starts flying at 40 mph 30 degrees of flaps.

Overall it feels like a totally different airplane,definitely safer and more fun to fly.

++ on Sportsman. I too removed a Horton (really an Owl) and installed a Sportsman. Big difference. (Insert VG debate here...) Im also an huge advocate of VG's. Add WingX and you have an incredibly stable platform.

So how do I know if I have a sportsman or a Horton? My speeds are pretty close to those described above. I conducted my flight at about 300 lbs under full gross.

Hoeschen, if you have stall fences on the tops of your wings you've got the Horton. Also you should check your logs to verify, important because Horton STC comes with some paperwork that you must reference for W&B.

Oh boy[emoji3]

I personally wouldn't take off a Horton to replace it with a Sportsman. I've had both, and they both do a pretty good job. If I were putting one on from scratch, sure, do a Sportsman. We did a side by side years ago, the Horton left the ground sooner but lost on climb out. Every airframe is different of course.

We have an air taxi here who goes in and out of a dirt strip that's not overly short but lots of high obstacles. Loaded to the gills 206 and 207 for work not play. Hortons were no good at all until they wrecked an airplane last year and ended up getting replacement wings with a Horton cuff. Now I hear they work really well. [emoji3]

If your Horton is working for you, run the Hell out of it. And thanks for the report!

Mostly opinion.

Its all about "CONTROL AT LOW AIRSPEED" -the Horton,Bush,,Mid America,, Owl etc. STOL kits were developed in and around Wellington ,Kansas . The Sportsman was developed by Marvin Davis a engineer for Lockheed NASA in southern California ,and has bigger leading edge "droop" -I have the FAA flight test report written by Marvin Davis in mid late 1970's. I have a Sportsman STOL on my 1956 182 that has "POSITIVE CONTROL " to low 50 mph area. 30 degree flap takeoffs are common . Full 40 degrees (no flap gap seals) are common. I've had them all and would take off what ever and replace with "SPORTSMAN STOL" any day on any Cessna. Slower approach and touchdown means less strain on air frame,wheels and brakes. A AOL-LRI meter sits above glare shield to tell me how to control the aircraft at most positive safe speeds. If you can get your motorcycle,dirt machine up to 40 mph on old dirt road without loosing it you can land and take off in your Cessna. .

Hoeschen wrote:So how do I know if I have a sportsman or a Horton? My speeds are pretty close to those described above. I conducted my flight at about 300 lbs under full gross.

My first thought was to check your airplane paperwork. You should have a 337 documenting the STOL kit installation which should reference the kit maker, as well as a corresponding entry in the airframe logbook. if you don't have either, you need to rectify that. Get the aircraft records CD from the FAA. If the documentation isn't on there, and you don't have it in your own aircraft records, your airplane could be considered unairworthy. Although this issue may never come up (unless you crash), I would want that squared away, but that's just me. I've found out from experience that you can document this stuff after the fact, but it can be a PITA.

Secondly, there's a number of leading-edge-cuff STOL kits out there beside the Horton & the Sportsman. OWL, Mid America, Robertson, etc. But the Sportsman cuff is the only one I'm aware of that does not incorporate a stall fence. It also appears to have the most "droop" and the most added wing area. From pireps, it also seems to be the most effective.

FWIW I installed a Micro VG kit on my old C150/150TD, and was unimpressed. I noticed very little improvement in stall speed or in low speed handling. YMMV. As for me, I would not install a VG kit again on a stock Cessna wing, although I hear they do improve aileron control when added to a cuffed wing.

Also FWIW, after much thought and a long discussion here on BCP, I removed the flap gap seals (brand unknown due to improper documentation) which came on my 1953 C180. No difference in stall speed, low speed handling, climb rate, or cruise speed. About the only before-and-after difference I notice is that now there's a row of little holes where they were riveted on..

motoadve wrote:....
Asked around and Sportsman was the recommendation.
Removed the Horton , removed flap gap seals.
Big improvement.
Approaches to short strips 48 50 mph.
Power off stalls 40 mph full flaps.
Removing the flap gap seals might have helped with the big improvement too.
Take off starts flying at 40 mph 30 degrees of flaps.
Overall it feels like a totally different airplane,definitely safer and more fun to fly.

Just to clarify-- is that after installing a sportsman, or just after removing the Horton?

This comment isn't meant to denigrate any particular STOL kits, or VGs, or the ultra-droopy tips or flap gap seals like I have on my airplane. I believe that all of these things are useful, or can be in the proper hands. But the first and most important thing is to learn to fly the airplane. Doodads of any kind can't make up for poor flying.

The pre-73 Cessna 170/180/172/182 wing isn't a bad wing, and a whole lot of them without modifications of any kind have done a fine job of allowing them to get in and out of relatively short strips for 70 years. Slow speed handling is improved, i.e., it's more positive and less mushy, with the moderate cuffing and very slightly drooped tips that Cessna started doing in the 73 and newer models, which is largely based on the Horton/Owl STOL kits but without the stall fences of those kits. The actual stall speeds didn't change all that dramatically, but the handling improved at slow airspeeds.

Similarly, the low speed handling improves with the addition of VGs, but few of their manufacturers claim slower stall speeds, although there may be some reduction. Likewise, the low speed handling improves with the addition of the ultra-droopy Madras droopy tips such as I have on mine.

The Sportsman, which involves a pretty radical leading edge cuff, is probably the only STOL kit that actually does any significant reduction in the stall speeds, allowing the airplane to be flown at noticeably lower airspeeds than stock, especially than the stock pre-73 wing. There seems to be an almost universal agreement that the Sportsman is the most capable STOL modification for both lower than stock stall speeds and low speed handling.

Yet for most folks, a lot of those capabilities are neither necessary nor actually used. Way too many pilots still make their final approaches faster than they need to, or at inconsistent airspeeds due to failing to trim, regardless of what modifications their wings may have. And of course, most are landing at places where super short capabilities just aren't necessary.

A short comment on flap gap seals. Cessna started installing them on 206s as stock items. I'm not sure when that started happening, sometime in the 70s I believe, or what Cessna's particular purpose was. When I had them installed on my airplane, it was in an attempt to increase the cruise speed, and they did that, roughly 5-6 mph. That sort of makes up for the extra drag of the Madras tips. I did not notice any change at all in slow speed handling after the flap gap seals were installed, although others claim that there is an adverse effect.

All this gets back to my first comment, though, that the most important factor in slow speed operation is good piloting.

Cary

Hoeschen wrote:....Pull the power and ease into a stall and it will descend with yoke full aft at about 600 fpm and 40 mph or so, still with aileron and rudder effectiveness. Clean it up a bit and flying around at anything between 60 and 80 mph is very stable.....

Personally I wouldn't call that a stall, I call that mushing. IMHO a stall is when the airplane quits flying and the nose drops. My old C150/150TD didn't want to stall, even power off, when you eased into it as you described. It'd get down to about 38 mph IAS and just mush. The last little bit of up-elevator, you had to give it a good pull to get it to actually break into a stall. You might give that a try the next time.

Stalls main wing vs horizontal stabilizer:

With my VG's the Scout mushes and is pretty controlable unless you really jack the nose above normal flight pitch. Very hard to stall. Safe bird.

Now for some contrast..

..on the other end of the GA scale is the "T" Tail Turbo Lance. The horizontal stabilizer will stall at low speeds before the main wing (not always depends on profile CG, GW) We tried it and it did! I have about (10) hours in a Piper Lance. Not to many reciprocating "T" tails being produced anymore

This is after installing the Sportsman and VGs

This is after installing the Sportsman and VGs

I have flown with a couple of very experienced pilots with just the standard Cessna wing , and they do a great job at short landings, but definitely I can tell with a STOL kit and their experience the margin will be a bigger, and they could do even better.

bigrenna wrote:I too removed a Horton (really an Owl) and installed a Sportsman.

Thank you for remembering George Owl, a good engineer and innovator. I never had the chance to meet him, but a few of the people I raced with flew his designs and told me how clever of a guy he was.

motoadve wrote:
I installed VGs, low speed control was improved.

Removed the Horton , removed flap gap seals.

So are you now flying with the Sportsman STOL and VG's?