RV-12 = Dead Stick Landing

One of the "exercises" I had to complete before I could get my ultra lite instructor's license years ago was to dead stick a UL in, 3 times, successfully, without a restart. I'm not talking about engine pulled to idle, I'm talking about a stopped prop. It was some of the best flight training I have ever received. Thank you Frank Cuba, Lite Wings Aviation. http://www.litewings.com/home.html

Today, I had the wheel pants done, 17 gallons of fuel, I weigh 200 pounds, and I was at 7,500 MSL over my airport at 1,500' MSL. 67F was the OAT, and 80F on the ground. I was ready to find best glide.

The POH says best glide is 60 MPH if you have an engine out in the RV-12, so I sent out to see if that was right. I climbed to 7,500' and pulled the throttle back to allow the engine to cool. I pulled the throttle back to idle after 5 mins, pulled the nose up to bleed off airspeed down to 60 MPH and I killed the mags. The engine came to a stop as the airflow slowed over the prop and soon it stopped around 50 MPH, and I immediately pushed nose down, AND turned the mags back on just in case I needed an emergency re-start.

I was a glider!

After I silenced the Dynon alarms (I had to do this several times) I settled back to find best glide and to attempt a dead stick landing at my airport. There is no traffic in the area and after announcing my intentions I started with airspeed of 75 MPH and I was loosing about 800 - 1,000 FPM. I knew I could do better than that so I pulled the nose up and trimmed for 65 which came in at 500 FPM. MUCH better! I slowed down even more and found 60 MPH airspeed was about 400 FPM! SWEET!

After writing down some notes and talking to the air I decided I had better try a restart just to make sure. I hit the starter and had INSTANT POWER! I killed the engine again and now it was time for the "dreaded" dead stick landing. I had plenty of altitude to make the MIDDLE of the runway. I emphasize the MIDDLE of the runway if you are doing a dead-stick. This is no time to "hit the numbers". It is your runway, use the whole dang thing! (I can remember Frank reminding me of that!)

I turned downwind, base, and final all in one gentle sweeping left hand "carrier approach" turn to get a feel for the rate decent of the -12 in a turn. There was only a slight increase in the decent rate in a gental (less than standard rate) turn. Finally on final, I needed to slip to loose a little altitude to make my touchdown point (MIDDLE OF THE RUNWAY! )

Everything looked good, felt good, and after deploying flaps I touched down prop stopped and came to a complete stop before firing up the engine and taxiing to the hanger.

Not only is the RV-12 a capable cross country machine, it makes a good glider also.

Best glide = 60-65 MPH
Fun factor on a scale of 1-10.... it's a -12!

Sweeeeet!

Thanks for the report on that, fun to read.

I think you have found min. sink speed instead of best glide speed. The best glide speed is usually a little more than min. sink speed and if you're gliding into the wind, you need to add about half the wind speed to your best glide speed. My -3 has a best glide speed at 85-90mph with a L/D of 10.7 with the prop stopped. Increased weight will not change the L/D, only the speed of best L/D, but it will increase your rate of sink. Interesting report, thanks.

WD, You are correct, what I was looking for is best sink rate.

If my calculations are correct the -12 has an 13 - 1 glide ratio.

Now, if I can only "full feather" the prop!

I'm glad you said "middle of the runway". On a BFR an instructor wanted me to land on the approach end, simulated engine out. I though that was dumb & felt it was smarter to look for a spot farther down the strip. If you misjudge and don't make it to the runway, you go in at something like 50, 60, 70 mph, depending on the plane. Or maybe you try to stretch the glide and end up stalling it 50 feet in the air. If you are too high and land 300 feet from the far end, you hit the trees or whatever on the ground at 10, 20 or maybe 30 mph and maybe you can pick out what you are going to hit. That hurts a lot less.

I think this is good training. I'm surprised by how many people have zero idea what their plane will do in a power off situation. I checked a 100 hour pilot out in a Cherokee 180 about 5 years ago. I pulled the power to idle on downwind abeam the numbers and told him he had an engine failure. To me, this was a no-brainer. Manage the drag and make a pretty normal approach--power off. For him it was a hair-raising adventure. Sad, really.

I'm within a month or so of flying my Midget Mustang again. As far as I'm concerned, it has the glide characteristics of an anvil with a cinder block tied to it. It'll be fun to see if it's as much of a sinker as I remember it to be.

Thanks for making us think, Larry.

I'm within a month or so of flying my Midget Mustang again. As far as I'm concerned, it has the glide characteristics of an anvil with a cinder block tied to it. It'll be fun to see if it's as much of a sinker as I remember it to be.

and squirrelly! lol have a ball

good job Larry...thanks for saving us the grief. Now...could you see how many times it spins before it comes out on its own? Thanks in advance!

RScott said:

I'm glad you said "middle of the runway". On a BFR an instructor wanted me to land on the approach end, simulated engine out. I though that was dumb & felt it was smarter to look for a spot farther down the strip. If you misjudge and don't make it to the runway, you go in at something like 50, 60, 70 mph, depending on the plane. Or maybe you try to stretch the glide and end up stalling it 50 feet in the air. If you are too high and land 300 feet from the far end, you hit the trees or whatever on the ground at 10, 20 or maybe 30 mph and maybe you can pick out what you are going to hit. That hurts a lot less.

Click to expand...

"Better to go off the end at 15 knots than come up short at 60"

TODR

Sounds like fun Larry. Many times I feel people learn to drive their planes not fly them.

I'm interested in knowing if a Rv-12 can do a teardrop back to the runway from 500 ft AGL (alt. at which power is pulled). I don't recommend shutting down the engine for this maneuver, but a hot Rotax will start almost instantly.

I'm interested in knowing who wants to test that!

opticsguy said:

I'm interested in knowing if a Rv-12 can do a teardrop back to the runway from 500 ft AGL (alt. at which power is pulled). I don't recommend shutting down the engine for this maneuver, but a hot Rotax will start almost instantly.

Click to expand...

I can easily do it in my -4 at 400 AGL, and I'm sure Pierre has gone much lower in his -6.

There are at least three prerequisites/requirements:

Practice,

Practice, and more

Practice!