Jerry Eichenberger wrote: > > Has anyone ever seen a D with the greater elevator travel? I realize that the reduced travel is required because of the increased gross weight, and not giving enough travel to allow it ti stall. > Assuming that you're not afraid of a stall, what's the problem with increased travel? It seems to me to be safer to be able to control the airplane better, than to be so singularly focused on avoiding a stall. Anyone seen an STC or 337 approval for a D to have more elevator travel?
Yeah, I've seen them with the incorrect up-travel. It's very easy to reset the up elevator travel to be illegal. But there are consequences: 1. You could get an uncontrollable stall at a bad time, unexpectedly and low. 2. Your insurance would be void though maybe you could fight them if you could prove that the elevator travel had nothing to do with the accident. But the Feds would still violate you seriously. 3. Your A&P / AI would probably (given the nasty enforcement actions I've been hearing about) get violated, fined, lose his license and livelyhood or at least have his insurance cost triple. This is sufficient reason to not do it because that's too great a penalty to impose on someone who is probably innocent and has no practical way to know that you put one over on him. (I guess he could hit you with a civil suit for everything you've ever owned to make up for his losses.) If you can persuade the AI to actually do it for you then he would be getting the penalty justly. Now to why you would want to do it? With 13 degrees of up travel you land 5-10 mph slower. If you have a brake failure or some other types of landing accident that the faster landing with 9 degrees travel might allow the accident to happen. But it'll be a low-speed accident, I would bet, and you would probably walk away from it. Remember: you have complete control of the landing and the flare if you keep the right margin of airspeed above YOUR PLANE'S minimum flying speed as you come down final. You could probably get approval to convert back to a 415-C with 1260 lbs but I wouldn't want to. I'd guess you could never get legal approval for 13 degrees of up travel with the 1400 lb gross weight. The FAA has already done the flight testing for this and judged it to be not-safe. FAR BETTER than any of the above is to buy a split elevator or get yours converted. The split elevator is set with 20 degrees of up travel and will allow you a low landing speed, no controllability problem at max power, full legality at 1400 lbs gross weight. This is a major alteration and would certainly require a 337 and field approval. Scout out the FAA wienies in your area first -- though this is a no-brainer-good-idea, I've actually heard of a stupid FAA dork who turned it down for a guy. -- Ed Burkhead East Peoria, Ill. N3802H, 415-D
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