182 STOL driver wrote:

lowlevelops wrote:

182 STOL driver wrote:....I fly into and out of 1200 ft. strip at ranch and use 1/4 -1/3 length .

At or quite possibly over gross? ...at high DAs? Just wondering is all.

I'm with Rob on this one....

Density Altitude in hot Arizona strip summers runs 5-6 grand Density Altitude .Aircraft(56 182) load is usually 600 lbs of 1000 useful -legal 2550 .I'll try and get video .

That is impressive, Remember the vid aktahoe1 posted that had the '09 heavy touring comp at Valdez? Well here's the real world numbers :

The red 185 (300hp) was piloted by Paul Klaus, It was empty, low fuel, and he was solo. I guess most folks would say he's a pretty decent stick....( I would say exceptional, but what do I know?) So here's the Deal.... He won the heavy touring in that plane that day. His take offs were 141' and 148' with the temps at 46 degrees and Valdez elevation at 121'

Based on my interpolation of your post you are getting off in 300' - 400' at a DA of 5000' - 6000' ? admittedly not at gross, but not light either.... That's some flyin....


And BTW... none of this really has much to do with the safe operation, of a 'real world' heavy airplane, in a commercial capacity...

aktahoe1... you guys are having wayyy too much fun! A friend once ran the numbers on light, early 180s. Turns out the weight to power ratio is better than a good cub...My experience ( I have an OK cub) agrees ... (but I still wouldn't take my 180 everywhere I take my cub ) given that info, and the wind, your numbers sound fun, but not unbelievable by any stretch of the imagination . You might keep that in mind when you re visit that IFR panel jazz...

Take care, Rob

One thing a person should take into account when loading a tricycle gear plane is where you put the load.
It is best to position the load in the plane at the rearward limit of the C of G range.
By doing this you don't need to use the extra downward force (extra weight) on the tail of the plane to lighten the nose wheel.

Date: 16-FEB-2009
Time: ca 09:30
Type:
Cessna 182N
Operator: Robert Norton
Registration: YV2480
C/n / msn: 182-60266
Fatalities: Fatalities: / Occupants: 7
Airplane damage: Unknown
Location: Venezuela - Venezuela
Phase: En route
Nature: Ambulance
Departure airport: Karun
Destination airport: Bethel
Narrative:
Missing. Cessna aircraft Model c182N, color white with grey red black stripes down side.
Picture of Ambulance aircraft http://www.medicalaviation.org/venezuela/10-9-08.htm

Timeline
1) The plane left Santa Elena and arrived in Karum successfully.
2) The plane departed Karum heading to Betel.
[search starts here]
3) On the way to Betel after they left Karum, they were reported by residents of the village named u201CMaruku201D as hearing the plane and then hearing unexpected engine silence.
4) The plane was then reported as heading North near the village Maruk towards the village Betel where
5) Residents reported hearing the plane coming towards them, but it did not arrive.
The search is now focused between Karum and Betel

Karum is latitude 5°18'8.94"N longitude 63°21'47.22"W
Betel is latitude 6°25'48.91"N longitude 63°34'40.97"W

The search box width is 8.2 miles east of the ridge line near latitude 5°44'14.80"N longitude 63°22'0.43"W. The search area follows from the ridge line north 33 miles.

All of the pilots anticipate the flight path route to be East of the mountain. Since the river route has already been searched, the helicopter and ground crews have been sweeping the Eastern area and are moving further East.

They now believe by the evidence that Robert Norton did not wreck but was hijacked by gorillas and is being held near the Columbian Venezuelan borders. He worked as a volunteer for gospel ministries international.

cstolaircraft wrote:They now believe by the evidence that Robert Norton did not wreck but was hijacked by gorillas and is being held near the Columbian Venezuelan borders. He worked as a volunteer for gospel ministries international.

"Gorillas" you say? Could be a hairy situation. I hope they are just holding out for a few bananas.

In all seriousness, I hope it works out okay.

Well, since I'm probably the only one here who is actually working full-time in the Johnson Bar and flap handle business I will weigh in on this one.

In the initial testing that I did when developing the EZ Flap upgrade for manual flap aircraft, I flew a stock 1956 Cessna 172. 145 rip roaring fire breathing horsepower. On a hard surface runway, light weight, with stock 6.00 tires and a stock airplane... pulling flaps to 20 degrees just at rotation delivered a slight, but noticeable improvement in takeoff compared to starting the roll with 20 degrees. (The numbers for more horsepower or heavier weight will be different but the principle and concepts hold true.)

My opinion is that this improvement was due 90% to reducing the drag and slightly increasing thrust during the takeoff roll, and 10% from applying the extra lift from flaps at the same moment of rotation. Anything within the propeller arc makes more drag than it does outside the prop arc because of the extra airspeed form the prop blast (drag rises as square of airspeed). So the small portion of flap area inside the prop arc may have 100 MPH worth of drag when the airplane is only rolling at 50. This also creates a very slight reduction in prop efficiency (thrust) from messing around with the pressure field gradient behind the prop.

Delaying these inefficiencies until the last second makes a small difference, but it is valid. This is why so many pilots elect to use the "flap pop" technique out in the real world.

If you have a lot of rolling resistance (soft field, mud, tall grass, bad wheel bearings, flat tire) then the benefit of getting weight off the wheels sooner may easily exceed the loss from flap deflection. So in some cases the flaps should be down from the start.

Having "lived" this subject for a couple of years, I've learned a LOT from the pilots who flew manual flaps on a daily basis in extreme conditions for 30 and 40 years. Manual flaps allow a good pilot to "fly" or "float" the flaps between notches, as if the flaps were a more active "primary control" (Can you imagine if the elevator or ailerons had only four fixed positions to choose from?). Being able to move the flaps manually ten times faster than an electric motor is also important when you are flying in extreme conditions. This is why most pilots prefer the Johnson Bar over electric flaps. On floats, I understand that a large number of pilots use the flaps to work the airplane up onto the step, then back off to accelerate on the water, then back on to pop off the water, then slowly off to accelerate to climb speed.

The most important thing about STOL takeoffs with flaps, especially when all the chips are down (like high DA and mountainous terrain), is what happens after you have gotten off the ground. If you've put your balls on the block and taken off heavy, hot, high and short using flaps... by definition you are working the wings and flaps at their limit. Retracting the flaps at the wrong time, or retracting them too fast ("dumping") will have disastrous results. So whatever your STOL flap technique is, it must include slow, careful, and well-timed retraction to keep you flying. They call this "milking" the flaps up.

The issues with manual flaps that involve flight safety, visibility, terrain avoidance, pilot workload, and crashworthiness/pilot restraint are what started me down the road to certifying a new product for 60 year old manual flap systems. Unfortunately for me, this is not the approved place to go into that directly. But for whatever it's worth, in my research I found that fine-tuning your flap techniques for STOL operations do yield positive results in several performance and safety parameters which are quite important. Several detailed examples of these improvements are listed in the "situations" page on my website if interested.

EZ flap, that was well said.

Ok I have to go back on my word a little bit, they believe he did make emergency landing and then was kidnapped/ hijacked. last I heard was two years ago but checked today and here is the latest.
http://medicalaviation.org/site/venezuela/

cstolaircraft wrote:Ok I have to go back on my word a little bit, they believe he did make emergency landing and then was kidnapped/ hijacked. last I heard was two years ago but checked today and here is the latest.
http://medicalaviation.org/site/venezuela/

You know, not EVERY missionary or medical aid worker flying around in a third world country is doing their "Day job" 24/7. One of our own BCP members who is a friend of mine once had a job in the 1980's flying missionary work in Central America working for the Texas Bible School. Purely missionary, humanitarian, educational work... flying the UH-1 gunship.

cstolaircraft wrote: ......They now believe by the evidence that Robert Norton did not wreck but was hijacked by gorillas and is being held near the Columbian Venezuelan borders. He worked as a volunteer for gospel ministries international.

This doesn't seem to be related to the jerk-the-flaps topic-- is this post cross-threaded from another topic, or am I missing something?
Sounds pretty serious although I did get a chuckle from the gorilla hijackers.

obxbushpilot wrote:
I was taught to use the flap handle technique and now that I have a taildragger with electric flaps...........

What kind of taildragger is that? Most of the ones I can think of are all johnson bar, except the Swift. Factory built anyways, I guess a lot of homebuilts have electric flaps & trim.

I have a tailwheel converted C 172 w/Horton STOL (1969 K model).

Somebody brought him up in earlier on for something. forget what. Hotrod150 The gorilla hijackers are no joke. It is a commonly used name for a group of communist freedom fighters that are fighting a several central and south American countries. They also control Cuba. I don't blame you for finding it funny as I would find it VERY FUNNY if I didn't know what it was.

Reuben

It was the mis-spelling of guerrilla as gorilla which tickled my funnybone. (not an easy word to spell- I tried to look it up in the dictionary with no luck. I finally googled "gorilla warfare" to get the correct spelling.)
I'm sure the communist guerilla's in So America (and elsewhere) are no joke. Sendero Luminosa (aka Shining Path) is one well-known bunch, I'm sure there are several others. Apparently one of their favorite tactics is kidapping "wealthy" foreigners (all Americans are rich, you know) and ransoming them for big bucks. Big businessmen are a favorite target. Even if the ranson is paid, I imagine it's hit or miss whether the kidnappees are returned intact.
Lke anything else, it's all a matter of perspective. One man's terrorists or guerillas are another man's freedom fighters. Kinda like the Taliban-- they went from being freedom fighters defending their country against soviet invaders back in the 1980's to being asshole terrorists when they turned on us around the turn of the century.

hotrod150 wrote: Lke anything else, it's all a matter of perspective. One man's terrorists or guerillas are another man's freedom fighters. Kinda like the Taliban-- they went from being freedom fighters defending their country against soviet invaders back in the 1980's to being asshole terrorists when they turned on us around the turn of the century.

Sorry, Hotrod, nobody buys that tired old - and terribly wrongheaded - cliche you repeated that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". A terrorist terrorizes innocent, defenseless civilians. A freedom fighter conducts military operations against other military forces. There's no overlap or mistaking the one from the other, period.

The Taliban in particular, whom you mention - did in fact act as freedom fighters when their country was invaded by the Soviet military in the late 70s. The Taliban conducted their military operations against the vastly more heavily armed (and airborne) Soviet Army. We (the USA) secretly aided the Taliban throughout the 1980s by supplying them with "equalizers" - primarily anti-aircraft rockets such as the "stinger", that nullified the advantage in airpower that the Soviets had in a battle environment that was not conducive to heavy armor or major ground-based engagements. The Taliban in the 1980s did not conduct terror attacks inside the Soviet Union - their ops were solely military in nature, inside their own national boundaries, to drive the invaders out.

Then when the ultra-religious extremist element took over the Taliban in the 1990s, after the Soviets were driven out, the Taliban chose to provide safe haven to OBL and Al Queda, making Afghanistan the world headquarters of the terrorist AQ. Subsequently, as we all know all too well, the Taliban-aided AQ conducted numerous terror attacks - no scare quotes needed - around the world, including the one on 9/11/01 that resulted in the largest loss of innocent civilian life in the 225-year history of the United States of America. This was our "payback" at a time when the US was engaged in no invasions of anybody anyhere. Indeed, the USA's only military operations at that time were to protect the innocent Muslim civilians in the former Yugoslavia from genocide practiced by their ancient ethnic enemies in the Balkans.

P.S.

I should correct my previous post on one point - it was not the "Taliban" per se that fought the Soviet Army in the 1980s, and that we aided in that fight, and so the Taliban did not "turn on us". It was the "Mujahadeen" who fought the Soviets, and whom we supported, which consisted of multiple elements including the religiously-extremist Taliban. After the Soviets were driven out of Afghanistan, largely as the result of US military support of the Mujahadeen, there was an internal struggle between the various factions in the Mujahadeen, and the Taliban element eventually prevailed over the other factions and formed a government ... a government that eventually allied itself with Al Queda. There was already an insurrection of the non-extremist Mujahadeen being carried out against the oppressive Taliban government by the time 9/11 happened. Al Queda was deeply involved in assassinations of non-Taliban Mujahadeen just before the 9/11 terror attack.

The Taliban were therefore never our "allies" in a political sense - they were only part of the larger anti-Soviet coalition that we supported. That such coalitions tend to splinter and result in civil war after an extermal invader is driven out is not uncommon at all. Similar to what happened in Ireland after the Republicans drove out the British in the south, allowing the partitioning of Ireland and the establishment of something short of the "Irish Republic". The result was the bloody Irish Civil War, fought between the dedicated Republicans and those willing to settle for limited self-government and the partitioning of Ireland ... an argument that remains not quite settled even today, 90 years later.

Anyway, a terrorist is a terrorist and is not a freedom fighter. It has nothing to do with "perspective".

Looks like we have gotten off the track on this post.
GJ

Soup Campbell wrote:Looks like we have gotten off the track on this post.
GJ

Ya think?

Keep it com'n guys.

mountainmatt wrote:Keep it com'n guys.

X2

I'm with you again, Matt.

Re: What''s your take on this technique?

New postby motoadve » Tue Nov 02, 2010 5:21 am
What about this technique?
(new pilot ,so you can throw stones at me)
Go to minute 3 so you dont waste time watching it taxiing.
It is me, was told too much back pressure

Hijacking Back:

Hey Costa Rica Flyer:
Throwing stones never seems to solve much, however, I will offer a bit of feedback.

I would keep the plane on that concrete pad for starting and warming up.
All that soil works on your prop like a belt sander.
Stay on the concrete though warm up and run-up.

Full elevator during taxi helps the nose strut. Looked like you had it alright there.

If possible (I could not tell from the video) I would swerve to the right and make a left turn just before takeoff. Reason is that it looked as though you turned a bit down hill which means that the plane has to work harder to get back up to the runway, also running the risk of more prop damage. The left turn just before takeoff would also allow you to accelerate a bit quicker for the takeoff.

I would also be completely ready for take off before leaving the concrete pad. That way you can make the turn around and keep rolling as you accelerate.

Getting the nose up early is the right way to start. I would have pushed the nose over right after lift-off to stay in ground effect until reaching Vy, whenever possible.
Vx, when not really needed, can get you into trouble if you climb into wind changes while close to the ground. I have been taught that it is better to be a foot over the trees at Vy, than to be 50 feet over at Vx.
You cannot TRADE Vx for much of anything quickly.
Vy can almost always be traded for Vx if needed.


Hope this helps

Trim

HAHAHA Bad spelling again! lol I never was good at it!

They do leave whom ever they kidnap and then get a ransom for intacked. I know a mission pilot from . Colombia that was held for I think 143 days. THe day he was kidnapped he shot one guy with a .38 which he had in an ankle holster that thye didn't find (they only searched from waste up). He did not kill the guy he shot, and later on in the kidnapping they became good friends. Russel Stendal (the mission pilot) wrote a book for the guy he shot its title is Rescue the Captors.

Reuben