That is cool. Super nice to see a someone demo an aircraft in real conditions. Yes, the 30' takeoff is cool to see, until you notice the 40 mph headwind in the background......
A very cool wing. Hats off to the engineering dept for sure.
Tom

One of my (many) pet peeves, is a YouTube video purporting to illustrate the STOL capabilities of an aircraft, and they don't clearly state, beside the wind of course: the field elevation, the temperature, whether the aircraft is at gross or totally empty with 3 gallons of fuel onboard, and the slope of the runway, if any. This video is typical of the exclusion of that info, sea level, 5,000'? Hot, cold? Who the hell knows?! I'm not knocking Zlin in particular, (I'm sure it's a great STOL craft) you see it all the damn time on YouTube, we pilot watchers are left to guesstimate, while the gen pub gets wowed, not realizing the difference in any aircraft's performance with current field conditions.

On the other hand when I post a pic of some landing I've made, and state the ASL, it's sounds, or at least I feel, like I'm bragging, but I do it in the interest of full disclosure. PLUS, I'm bragging . Heck, I could post a video of a 30' takeoff (at most) and leave out the pertinent information that it was on a 16 % downhill grade with a 18 MPH direct headwind, and 50 degrees temps. As a pilot community, let's all demand, or at least request, that this info be included before we go, "wow." Nice plane, I'm not picking on it.

Amen, brother!

Best,

Tommy

I agree courierguy. I didn’t think the online STOL competition on Facebook was very cool because of this variability. Some guys had a 40 mph headwind which could make almost any lighter weight airplane look good!

Zlin’s field elevation is about 2,000 ft MSL and the temp was around 75 degrees here I believe. I’m guessing the weight of the aircraft was around 1,220 pounds in this video but don’t know exactly.

But I am excited to see this baby try some takeoffs with a little bit of headwind! That could be really impressive, especially with the 400 hp EPeX engine that will be installed late this year.

Last Friday, I landed my Rans S-6ES in a truly “stout” headwind at KBRG... I was literally hovering stationary over the runway indicating 65 mph... My landing roll was 0 ft, and I had to Throttle up to about 65-70% power to taxi off the runway. I could not turn the plane crosswind, so I just “skittered” sideways in the wind to the parking area, where I got some help from a wing-walker (escort) to a tie down spot. I had to wait for a lull between gusts to jump out and grab the other wing.

Scariest experience of my flying life, but would have made a great YouTube post for the uninitiated, but any pilot viewing it would have said what I said: “What an idiot!” Problem was, there were unforecast high winds throughout the Albuquerque area. BRG was the best choice based on runway alignment...

Here’s an update from Zlin.

800 lbs (363 kg) Savage Norden with Rotax 915?

As we anticipated last February, the prototype has been reworked, to get this empty weight. And we did it.
The target was to offer to the market a lighter version of our plane to improve the STOL performances and with these main characteristics: full metal wing, retractable slats, double slotted flaps, carbon wing tips, 140 lt fuel tanks, "Rotax 915”, carbon cowling and 4 blade propeller, extended landing gear, 22” tires (in these pics we show the 29” ), soft baggage, carbon seats covered with Alcantara, carbon floorboards.
To get these results, we worked on every single detail, using as much as possible, carbon parts and also covering the fuselage with Oratex 6000. In the meantime, and with performances in mind, we have even asked to one our supplier, the propeller manufacturer Propellers E-Props, to build a larger propeller to explore better the STOL performances.
As you can see, we tried to design even a new paint scheme. The Oratex in black, is really nice, but we didn’t want to have and offer a total black plane. We tried to make something different, keeping in mind the final weight increase and painting the plane as less as possible…

Dang. https://youtu.be/S-pLdKLJZuI

That video is amazing

Unusually high power to weight ratio can induce some really bad habits. Even at that altitude there was plenty of vertical space available to let the nose go down naturally into. He is gaining a lot of pull back on the stick in the pattern muscle memory.

contactflying wrote:Unusually high power to weight ratio can induce some really bad habits. Even at that altitude there was plenty of vertical space available to let the nose go down naturally into. He is gaining a lot of pull back on the stick in the pattern muscle memory.

Like Jim (Contact), I cringe every time I watch one of those "cowboy" takeoffs where they pull the nose to an extremely high AoA immediately after the wheels leave the ground. Many times, it continues WAY beyond the height of any obstacles nearby. To me, it seems totally unnecessary, and exposes the operator (and anyone else unlucky enough to be a passenger) to much higher-than-necessary risk.

At that point, only the engine is keeping you flying. If the engine even hiccups during the initial climbout, the results are NOT going to be pretty. Not even the Norden's advanced "shape-shifting" wing is going to salvage an engine failure with the wing at an AoA well above the power-off stall...

There's a guy at my home airport who does this type of "max perfomance" takeoff / climbout (which really isn't!) on every departure, even though he's got 7002 feet of runway ahead of him...

And we wonder why insurance rates keep going higher and higher – especially for backcountry capable airplanes...

JP256 wrote:

contactflying wrote:Unusually high power to weight ratio can induce some really bad habits. Even at that altitude there was plenty of vertical space available to let the nose go down naturally into. He is gaining a lot of pull back on the stick in the pattern muscle memory.

Like Jim (Contact), I cringe every time I watch one of those "cowboy" takeoffs where they pull the nose to an extremely high AoA immediately after the wheels leave the ground. Many times, it continues WAY beyond the height of any obstacles nearby. To me, it seems totally unnecessary, and exposes the operator (and anyone else unlucky enough to be a passenger) to much higher-than-necessary risk.

At that point, only the engine is keeping you flying. If the engine even hiccups during the initial climbout, the results are NOT going to be pretty. Not even the Norden's advanced "shape-shifting" wing is going to salvage an engine failure with the wing at an AoA well above the power-off stall...

There's a guy at my home airport who does this type of "max perfomance" takeoff / climbout (which really isn't!) on every departure, even though he's got 7002 feet of runway ahead of him...

And we wonder why insurance rates keep going higher and higher – especially for backcountry capable airplanes...

A BIG mash of the like button for this post.

Talk about stating the obvious.....of course those kinds of high AOA ops are depentant on the engine continuing to operate, some pilots are prepared to KNOWINGLY take that risk, their risk tolerance has nothing to do with your insurance rates, get off it.

Guys keep in mind it is a "marketing video" and I'm trusting the operator has "risk over reward". While I agree none of that will matter if the fan stops but clearly its a choice that's been made. Without risk there's no reward, or NASCAR, F1, RENO Air Races, STOL competitions, River running video, sand bar landings etc, etc, etc.

Crop dusting is just as impressive and safe and reinforces good energy management technique.

Mapleflt wrote:Guys keep in mind it is a "marketing video" and I'm trusting the operator has "risk over reward". While I agree none of that will matter if the fan stops but clearly its a choice that's been made. Without risk there's no reward, or NASCAR, F1, RENO Air Races, STOL competitions, River running video, sand bar landings etc, etc, etc.

X2. Well said.

David, you have kids. If the goal is showing off the airplane, that can be done more effectively and safely using ground effect and the energy management turn. If the goal is Russian roulette, that can be done more effectively with a revolver. He can't quite hover out of ground effect, so the forward slip down the runway is not useful. And he cannot save himself with a hovering auto-rotation so the R-44 you flew is much more effective for that mission. Air to ground gunnery can be learned pretty quickly, energy management turns in a couple hours, and crop duster technique in twenty or so. All safely and very impressive. Using a low ground effect takeoff until cruise airspeed will quickly give the 65 hp Champ 7AC the same capability of very steep bank in the turn to crosswind, if we allow the nose to go down naturally. Any airplane can use a ninety degree bank base to final turn safely, if the nose is allowed to go down naturally.

If the company is trying to sell engines and props, I can see the value of the demonstration. That is poor use of an airplane, however, when energy management can achieve the same thing safely.

contactflying wrote:David, you have kids. If the goal is showing off the airplane, that can be done more effectively and safely using ground effect and the energy management turn. If the goal is Russian roulette, that can be done more effectively with a revolver. He can't quite hover out of ground effect, so the forward slip down the runway is not useful. And he cannot save himself with a hovering auto-rotation so the R-44 you flew is much more effective for that mission. Air to ground gunnery can be learned pretty quickly, energy management turns in a couple hours, and crop duster technique in twenty or so. All safely and very impressive. Using a low ground effect takeoff until cruise airspeed will quickly give the 65 hp Champ 7AC the same capability of very steep bank in the turn to crosswind, if we allow the nose to go down naturally. Any airplane can use a ninety degree bank base to final turn safely, if the nose is allowed to go down naturally.

If the company is trying to sell engines and props, I can see the value of the demonstration. That is poor use of an airplane, however, when energy management can achieve the same thing safely.

I agree that it's not the safest, or the best use of energy management Jim. But to go on about insurance rates and safety is pointless. Flying over the mountains isn't necessarily safe either, or over trees, or he'll, flying at all. I like to paid on sand bars that's are deep into the valley of a river with no outs. I fly in the dark over trees. I fly over the mountains, and you know how jagged those are where I live. Hence why I agree with Bryce. If everything comes down to risk mitigation we should just stay on the ground.

My first thought was this:

I know David. I was there when young. I'm just getting old and mean.

Its with deep concern and an abundance of caution for the steadily rising insurance rates that henceforth all form of air display will be terminated. Please secure your airborne steeds in their respective stalls and promptly mail the keys to your insurance provider. In the future all forms of aerial shenanigans will require prior approval from your insurance at which point the keys will be "released" for the approved event or series of events as authorized.

Please understand this is for the good of all, as insurers we only have your best interest in mind and the health and safety of all winged daredevil's alike.