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  #71  
Old 01-15-2019, 09:03 AM
sblack sblack is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Montreal
Posts: 1,456
Talking

One day at a bbq I witnessed a perfect demonstration of the back side of the curve on an RV6. The pilot was a fireman who had worked late the previous night and later confided that he probably should not have flown. It was a tight grass strip with trees all around and he got behind. Of course everyone was watching and I was filming and he just fell out of the sky. The nose came way up and as it did the AOA and sink rate went way up. We heard the power come up just as he hit, but since he was probably 500ft away it took a bit of time for the sound to get to us, but either way he did not quite catch it in time. He hit hard, tailwheel first, then main gear which splayed out. I think there was some green on the prop tips but he got away with it. Scared the **** out of himself and did it in front of 50 people which is always good for the ego.

Of course the Vans wing design will be susceptible to this. It is a short stubbing wing. High induced drag is desirable on approach if you are at the right speed, short wings make for low roll damping so sporty handling, and it makes for lower wing bending moments so a lighter wing than a high aspect ratio wing and the straight planform makes it easy to build. It is a great design, but every design has its particular characteristics. This one is well known and if you are familiar with it it is a non issue. But fall asleep on final and react with stick instead of power and things will get exciting very quickly. This event really stuck in my head. I think most airplanes will do this to a point but I think an RV will do it in a bit more pronounced way. It's a "feature"
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  #72  
Old 01-18-2019, 05:15 PM
N91CZ N91CZ is offline
 
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Location: Woodland, CA
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Bryce,
It looks like you were able to make it to the back side. It is great to see folks out there exploring the slow end of the envelope. Too many (especially Lancair) pilots are scared to death by it.

Looking at your data and weight shown (didn?t change between flights), the lift coefficient at 40 KIAS is a way up there ~2.3. There appears to be a little bit of a contradiction between the glide test and the level test at the extreme low end. In the glide, the left most point had power required going down, whereas in level flight it went up. The high power to maintain level flight may be enabling these lower flight speeds ? airflow and direct lift (deck angle is probably ~20 deg).

It also struck me that the low end points could only be maintained for a few seconds? It should be a stable condition. In general it is really difficult to determine if one has a steady state level flight condition in just a few seconds. You are juggling power and trying to get altitude and airspeed to remain constant.

I wanted to rewind real quick back to the initial post about drag vs power curves and their differences and relate back to what you are seeing. I also found some additional theoretical curves on-line that show a good side-by-side comparisons of drag vs power.



The drag curve minimum is somewhere in the middle of approach speed region. It is not immediately apparent where this point is in that you would need to plot out sink rate vs forward speed or descent angle to find it. Sink rate doesn?t start climbing when passing this point. It is the ratio of D/L that starts climbing.

The power curve is obtained by multiplying the drag curve by velocity. This pulls the left end of the drag curve down dramatically. The minimum of this curve occurs at a much lower speed than minimum drag. The onset of any significant rise in power required in your plot showed how close to stall you had to get.

I think what confuses many is this. Having read about the back-side concern when on approach, they pull the nose up and see the speed decay. The initial thought is that it must be the back-side of the power curve when in fact this is a normal response even on the front side of the power curve. A flatter descent angle requires more power to maintain speed. If power is not added during the angle change, speed decays. The only difference is that it will decay faster on the back-side because you now have an additive effect. What your exercise showed is how close to stall your aircraft has to be before the induced drag portion kicks in as a significant contributor. Normal approach speeds should keep you well clear.
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  #73  
Old 01-28-2019, 01:09 PM
mbishop mbishop is offline
 
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Location: Acton, MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N91CZ View Post

I would love to see a video of a 172 in level flight indicating 15-20 KIAS. Unfortunately, once you hit buffet or stall you are not operating on the power curve being discussed.
I've been at 25-30 knots in my Cessna at level flight. I'll get video of it next time I do it.
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  #74  
Old 03-31-2019, 07:55 AM
506DC 506DC is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Fresno, CA
Posts: 38
Default Power curve video

I thought this would be an appropriate 4 minute video for this thread. It demonstrates an RV flying formation with a float plane. It appears that both pilots are fairly experienced and thus could happen to anyone. The float plane pilot got the airplane to slow on the approach and to late on the throttle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC5yscm9dsI
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  #75  
Old 03-31-2019, 08:23 PM
N91CZ N91CZ is offline
 
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Location: Woodland, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 506DC View Post
I thought this would be an appropriate 4 minute video for this thread. It demonstrates an RV flying formation with a float plane. It appears that both pilots are fairly experienced and thus could happen to anyone. The float plane pilot got the airplane to slow on the approach and to late on the throttle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC5yscm9dsI
I remember seeing this a while back. Despite the title of the video, there is no way to tell if it really had anything to do with the 'back side' or if it was simply an approach that was just too slow. Normal approach speeds (1.3 Vso) have far more energy than needed to round out and flare from any descent.
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  #76  
Old 03-31-2019, 09:11 PM
terrye terrye is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 506DC View Post
I thought this would be an appropriate 4 minute video for this thread. It demonstrates an RV flying formation with a float plane. It appears that both pilots are fairly experienced and thus could happen to anyone. The float plane pilot got the airplane to slow on the approach and to late on the throttle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC5yscm9dsI
The low wing airplane is not an RV. Despite the grainy video, the landing gear is in the wrong location on the wing, and the shape of the rudder and vertical stabilizer is wrong. Perhaps it is a Zenith?

Not sure if both pilots are fairly experienced. Something about not flying within 500' of a vessel or person. I doubt they had a waiver.

And definitely not "back side of the power curve". The floatplane was too slow with no power on. If it was "back side..." power would have been fully on.
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  #77  
Old 04-30-2019, 07:11 AM
506DC 506DC is offline
 
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Location: Fresno, CA
Posts: 38
Default Don't get behind the power curve

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2019/0...-fatal_20.html
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  #78  
Old 04-30-2019, 09:48 AM
Vac Vac is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Niceville, Florida
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Default It's all about energy...

I just posted some AOA and energy management training resources in the transition training thread at the top of this page. If you're interested in the back side of the power curve and energy management, you might find some of the subject matter helpful. There are embedded videos. Since the AOA system we are using is tone-based, even if you don't have an AOA system in your airplane, it's easy to follow along in the videos.

Cheers,

Vac
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  #79  
Old 06-05-2019, 09:41 PM
N91CZ N91CZ is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 506DC View Post
From the series of photos, this looks more like a stall than mushing along behind the power curve.
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