As I might soon become a real couper, a couple of handling/technique questions have been nagging me:
1. Soft field - the soft field discussion made me wonder; normally in a
tricycle
gear plane, for a soft field take off you lift the nose wheel ASAP,
and steer
with rudders. In a Coupe, there isn't a whole ton of rudder, but do
you still
do the same thing? If so, is there enough rudder oomph to stay
straight
as soon as the nose can be raised?
2. Landing: no flaps, no slips. Okay, what if you're too high? I know,
go around.
Okay, but suppose you REALLY need to land this time because the fan
stopped
on downwind? S-turns down final?
I mean, most of us learned to do dead-sticks by having some extra
altitude in
reserve and then dumping it on final via the flaps or (preferably)
a
slip. You don't
want to come up short, because there isn't any place to get more.
If
you were
right on the instructor often said 'hey, have you ever considered
that if you
put it on the numbers without flaps or a slip on a dead-stick, you
just as easily
could have under-shot?'
Ideas?
Alternatives?
Derisive gestures?
Greg
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