I told my friend to buy a Cessna for conversion in to a STOL, but he ended up with this plane and wants to make it STOL, what can be done?
Cuff, VGs, tips?
Which are the best?

motoadve wrote:I told my friend to buy a Cessna for conversion in to a STOL, but he ended up with this plane and wants to make it STOL, what can be done?
Cuff, VGs, tips?
Which are the best?

IO-720 firewall forward

Whatever he modifies it with, teach him to fly it as well as you fly your 182. Technique sometimes, most times, trumps modifications.

Tell him to resell it and buy a high wing aircraft that is better suited to STOL type flying.

Seriously though, I never could understand a person wanting to do any STOL/off airport type flying with a low winged aircraft. Sure looks to me like an awesome way to ding up wings and other parts. Just my humble opinion. The can be made to perform better with add-ons but if you are limited to nicer landing areas why waste the money on mods?
I know there are low wings made for such operations but they are in the minority.

The single best thing he can purchase to make that airplane land short is GAS, lots of gas. Put it in the tanks and fly the hell out of that thing. You'll be amazed at how good those airplanes can be when flown well.

Don't worry about mods, spend money on gas.

MTV

He bought it because he is cheap, even he has lost of money, which is something I have never understood.
There was a 182 P like mine but he said too expensive.

He will end up selling it soon, and wanting something better.

Already told him there are some strips he wont be able to land, no matter how good he becomes at flying it.
This one for example, I take grass out of my wingtips when I return to the hangar.



or

I loved the small cross controlled rudder turn on the first landing to line up with the runway. A less experienced pilot might have used a coordinated turn and put a wing into the trees.

Like MTV said, he can learn a lot about flying with his Cherokee. You are right about unimproved narrow runways in the jungle. I didn't fly Pawnees and Callairs in the jungle, but I sure bent a lot of road signs over to use county roads for loading. My loader always bent them back up when finished.

And when it comes to crashing, a low wing is fine to crash on. The important thing there, as with any airplane, is to fly all the way to the crash.

+1 what MTV said, which is the same advice we gave you a long time ago. Tell your friend to buy gas. Lots of gas, and go out and burn it. Add the gadgets later when they'll mean something.

Gump

I saw a PA 28 once that had Robertson STOL kit added. The aelerons would droop down with the flaps. Pretty elaborate system.

I have had a few very nice highly modified aircraft and not had to make any appreciable investment in time or effort to have them. The best (least expensive and least time consuming) way to get a modified plane is to buy one that someone else already invested the big bucks and time into. I paid far less for my previous aircraft (22/20 Pacer) than it would have cost to convert the tripacer with a Univair wide gear kit and re-covered it. I paid $20K for that plane (wish I never sold it) and it had STCs and upgrades galore.. It would have cost near $37k if I had done the work myself, not to mention the time. My current ride is a tail wheel converted STOL C172. I paid a slight premium for the plane over the cost of a regular 172 with no mods. If I had to buy the STC and convert a 172, it would have cost untold amounts of money and time.

Modifying a plane like a PA 28 for STOL is a stranded investment. I doubt you could ever recoup the money by selling it and it's a pretty shabby off field platform IMHO (great plane otherwise). My dad and I are building a kit plane now. He refers to it as a monument to his stupidity, because he knows that he could just buy a working aircraft for far less that is perhaps more capable. However, it affords the both of us some good dad son time and it's keeping him off the couch so there is an upside. But we both know it's never going to be as valuable as the invested money, time and effort to build it. It will be an awesome off field plane though unlike the Cherokee.

Bender wrote:

Win!