You don't have to be going 140kts and 1000 nm from home to have fun in an RV, even without aerobatics.
Today I was out enjoying a fresh new oil change. I climbed to 7500' up through the white puffies to cooler air and contacted Approach since I would kinda' be in their way for the next 10-15 minutes. I got my squawk code and spent some quality time with my standard stick wiggle. Some lazy 8s, steep turns, accelerated stalls, slow flight, etc. Then it was time to go for some fuel. The puffy clouds were kind of like playing in a loose forest. It was going to take me a few minutes and a little maneuvering to get down. I decided to pull the power to idle, move pitch trim all the way nose up, and let completely go except for rudder. I remember doing a test during Phase I similar to this just to prove that the airplane was controllable in such a condition with no elevator or aileron inputs, but didn't really take it very far, just a proof. This time, I endeavored to take it from 7500', 7 nm out, all the way to the runway environment. I completely let go of the stick and didn't touch it. The rudder worked perfectly to control bank and direction of flight. With the power at idle and trim all the way back, the aircraft setup a very nice stabilized 59-63kt decent with very little pitch oscillation.
I maneuvered with my feet through a number of turns and course changes. Along the way, I tinkered with some flap and trim adjustments to simulate the ideal pitch angle and speed for a hands off touch down. That is a tricky deal since you trade a desirable slower speed for an undesirable lower pitch angle. Also, the quality of the rudder control in maneuvering (hands off) was a little more positive without flaps. I only played with 10 and 20 degrees of flaps. By now, I've pretty much got this figured out and am just entertaining myself on the way down. Once under the cloud deck (vfr scattered all the way) at around 3500', it was time to add in another control, power. I fed in just a little bit of power to begin to arrest the decent, and took out a little bit of pitch trim for about 75 kts. Still hands off, haven't touched the stick, navigating toward the airport. The aircraft is flying level. There are a few more pitch and speed oscillations in this mode that never completely damped out, but nothing too extreme. Mostly probably just reactions to the little bit of turbulence down low. I did some more tinkering with changes in power, speed, pitch, and maneuvering in this level flight mode on my way to the destination. It takes a while to get there going this slow
! Rudder and power easily flew me all the way into a close right downwind when I decided to terminate the experiment.
That was fun. Maybe next time, on a quiet afternoon, I'll try flying an actual stabilized approach all the way to a low approach and see what it would look like to actually level off for landing. I'm pretty confident at this point that I could put it on the runway with little more than a prop strike and maybe bent gear with the circumstances being the same. Obviously this little exercise doesn't address all of the other bad things that can happen related to control system failure like jamming or decoupling, but I had fun.
Today I was out enjoying a fresh new oil change. I climbed to 7500' up through the white puffies to cooler air and contacted Approach since I would kinda' be in their way for the next 10-15 minutes. I got my squawk code and spent some quality time with my standard stick wiggle. Some lazy 8s, steep turns, accelerated stalls, slow flight, etc. Then it was time to go for some fuel. The puffy clouds were kind of like playing in a loose forest. It was going to take me a few minutes and a little maneuvering to get down. I decided to pull the power to idle, move pitch trim all the way nose up, and let completely go except for rudder. I remember doing a test during Phase I similar to this just to prove that the airplane was controllable in such a condition with no elevator or aileron inputs, but didn't really take it very far, just a proof. This time, I endeavored to take it from 7500', 7 nm out, all the way to the runway environment. I completely let go of the stick and didn't touch it. The rudder worked perfectly to control bank and direction of flight. With the power at idle and trim all the way back, the aircraft setup a very nice stabilized 59-63kt decent with very little pitch oscillation.
I maneuvered with my feet through a number of turns and course changes. Along the way, I tinkered with some flap and trim adjustments to simulate the ideal pitch angle and speed for a hands off touch down. That is a tricky deal since you trade a desirable slower speed for an undesirable lower pitch angle. Also, the quality of the rudder control in maneuvering (hands off) was a little more positive without flaps. I only played with 10 and 20 degrees of flaps. By now, I've pretty much got this figured out and am just entertaining myself on the way down. Once under the cloud deck (vfr scattered all the way) at around 3500', it was time to add in another control, power. I fed in just a little bit of power to begin to arrest the decent, and took out a little bit of pitch trim for about 75 kts. Still hands off, haven't touched the stick, navigating toward the airport. The aircraft is flying level. There are a few more pitch and speed oscillations in this mode that never completely damped out, but nothing too extreme. Mostly probably just reactions to the little bit of turbulence down low. I did some more tinkering with changes in power, speed, pitch, and maneuvering in this level flight mode on my way to the destination. It takes a while to get there going this slow
! Rudder and power easily flew me all the way into a close right downwind when I decided to terminate the experiment.That was fun. Maybe next time, on a quiet afternoon, I'll try flying an actual stabilized approach all the way to a low approach and see what it would look like to actually level off for landing. I'm pretty confident at this point that I could put it on the runway with little more than a prop strike and maybe bent gear with the circumstances being the same. Obviously this little exercise doesn't address all of the other bad things that can happen related to control system failure like jamming or decoupling, but I had fun.
