Edit: Deleted.

That makes a lot of common sense and will probably prevent many from putting their families in danger. But rather that write off those who don't plan and set limitations, let's try to encourage all to accept all the free ground effect energy and down drainage energy given by most situations. 50' high is a good requirement for the test, but in the real life situation with family 50' earlier than necessary kills life saving zoom reserve airspeed. The potential energy of that 50' altitude could return some of that lost airspeed (not all), but that seldom happens.

Of course. I'm certainly no proponent of steep climb-outs at minimum airspeed. Didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

Where is that, Gary?

Eric: it's just W10. I wasn't trying anything fancy there. It was just a normal landing that I happened to have recorded my flight data on.

All: I agree that learning your plane and doing test flights at gross weight and keeping that as a mental reference is best, but I'm a geek at heart. Having a digital tool to play with makes my winter evenings so much more fun than just watching YouTube videos of other pilot's summer flying. I also like having a rough idea of what makes sense for planning purposes long before I see the strip I'm interested in. If it isn't viable on paper, I'm not likely to burn the gas to check the LZ out in person. If it is viable on paper, I still might decide to pass the LZ up after seeing it and the surrounding terrain in person. Since the Maule POH has no performance data, I'd like to generate some. I'd also like to compare calculated performance data against real world outcomes with me as PIC. It's something that will keep me busy during the winter months when the weather stinks and the days are short. If anything comes out of my efforts, I'll share it here.

Here's what gave me the biggest add to takeoff performance.

0. Mods to make plane lighter
1. Have the plane weighed by professionals
2. Input New W/B data into Foreflight
3. Look carefully at your CG.
4. Load airplane and ensure CG is not only in envelope, but not right on the edge
5. Feel the takeoff perf!

Some folks skip step #1 because they don't want to lose "on paper" useful load. I think it's more important to have safety and performance. I always try to fly my 180 at least 200 pounds under max gross anyways as it's just a way more enjoyable experiece.

whee wrote:As a fellow engineer I appreciate and enjoy data. Looking at the methods and results is a lot of fun. However, I feel like the takeoff and landing performance realm has so many variables that it is incredibly difficult to capture a truly inclusive dataset.

I took the path of just flying a bunch, learning to feel the plane, and be able to eyeball what I was comfortable doing. I’ve had some close calls but I really don’t think that having a chart or graph would have changed that.

The hitch is that you have to learn each plane and that takes a lot of time. I could put my 85hp Luscombe in places I still can’t take my Bearhawk. But again, I don’t think a performance chart would help me much. There’s just too many variables.

I could not say this better in any uncertain terms. At some point one must "fly the plane." I've done exactly as Whee has and been quite fortunate my "bad days" have not turned out to be really bad days as I've had some experience to avoid bad endings. Experience, feel, and judgement go a long way towards ultimate success. Unconditional faith in numbers might lead to another ending.

MW

48Stinson1083 wrote:I use Cloudahoy, mainly as a training tool for teaching my son. I get excellent TO and Landing data and can note my weight, wind and so forth.

I used to use CloudAhoy getting my PPL to analyze and work on consistency, and now I'm in the same boat as Flyhound with the Maule publishing no performance data and trying to figure out what my personal performance data at only 50 hours in Maule is vs what the plane could do as I get better. I'd like to find a way to graph over time my personal improvement and have a way to understand no/no-go data. Eventually, I'd like to think my personal skill level would start to match the planes capabilities. I'm a lot of AvGas away from that mark still.

@48Stinson - Have you used the KML export function in CloudAhoy at all? I'm curious if I can start building performance profiles in excel from it.

Cloudahoy receives either CVS or GPS exchange Format (GPX). I find the CSV is more useful because it'll include attitude, air and engine data if your airplane is so equipped. GPX only supports track data. My data is collected from a Garmin GDL-52, and recored on Garmin Pilot where it is then exported to Cloudahoy. Just a note, you can use stand-alone Cloudahoy app on its own recording your iPad GPS data.

I'm sure Cloudahoy will increase its price due to recently being purchased by Foreflight. I'm on the fence if I'll renew. I'm getting good price right now thru NAFI membership.

48Stinson1083 wrote:I'm sure Cloudahoy will increase its price due to recently being purchased by Foreflight. I'm on the fence if I'll renew. I'm getting good price right now thru NAFI membership.

I didn't realize Foreflight had bought CloudAhoy. I'm curious if they will keep the same, integrate, or dissolve it as competition. With the NAFI or SAFE discount, it was good piece of kit for the price.

Foreflight announced today they have an upcoming webinar on how to use CloudAhoy

Finally something where I might be able to give something back to the BCP community for the wealth of information and hours of entertainment I have enjoyed so far.

I just stumbled on this in the European GA Forum but maybe you already know about it. Did not yet try Cloudahoy so don't have a comparison. Anyway this is free and is apparently made by some GA/IT enthusiasts.
Maybe someone here who has more experience than me wants to give it a try. I just quickly uploaded my last flight (some local air work) as a KML from SkyDemon. I did not include any engine/aircraft data, only GPS.
Must say I am pretty impressed although I am pretty sure that the touchdown point was not calculated correctly (touchdown was close to the numbers) but that might have to do with the quality/interval of the GPS data.
The first picture is from their website, not from my flight.

http://www.flysto.net