Yup, any wing can stall. ----- Original Message ----- From: William R. Bayne To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 7:08 PM Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] Stall warning in Ercoupe
All, I'd like to acknowledge an unintended inaccuracy in what I said earlier. I said the Ercoupe DOES NOT STALL, and that is not true in the absolute sense stated. I stand corrected. There are different ways to approach a stalled condition in a coupe and I, for unknown reason, fixated on the traditional "full stall" landing and the word "landing" was not in Kevin's question at all. My bad. Kevin, Lee and Ed are all 100% right in their stall discussions, so what I said was not what I meant. ;<) A properly rigged 415-C or CD absolutely and categorically can not stall "power off" (at idle or near). In level flight, cutting power and SLOWLY moving the wheel back to the stop will cause the plane to gradually increase vertical descent with the nose nearly level to a VERY high rate and minimum forward speed. Push the nose down to build forward speed again to 60 or 70 mph and the rate of descent returns to "normal. Coupes can and will stall "power on". It is possible to get the nose high enough to feel the "burble" that Ed Burkhead describes with two in the plane; and one coupe I flew would actually break rather nastily to the left under such circumstance. I don't think it was properly rigged. A coupe will also "whip stall" with forward speed over 55 mph if the yoke is moved back to the stop fast enough that the plane's nose rises beyond "normal flight attitude before the "break". Most probably put the trim in the "Land" position (nose high) and control descent rate with power while landing. If forward speed is maintained between 60-70 MPH, all is fine. At lower forward speeds, only power holds the plane out of a stall. Should the engine quit from 100' or so until touchdown a hard landing can result. If the same person is in the habit of aiming to touch down "on the numbers", there can be insufficient forward momentum and insufficient height to trade for such momentum to make the pavement or clear a runway fence. The drop resulting from such transition (from powered to unpowered descent) is a "whip stall" too close to the ground for recovery...a very dangerous situation not worth the visit. Best regards, William R. Bayne .____|-(o)-|____. (Copyright 2009) -- On Jan 14, 2009, at 16:02, [email protected] wrote: THis is Kevin's original post. Kevin asked: Has anyone heard that the belly of the Ercoupe was purposely designed to flutter and make noise as a stall warning device? And that people over the years have put stiffeners in this area to make it stop in the believe that it was a design and in doing so disabled the stall warning? How could the "belly" of the plane flutter? I’d think that formed aluminum like that would be quite rigid. Don't think there is anything about spinning in the post. I know that Ercoupes can and do stall, they just don't spin or come right out of it. Many planes have a stall warning. Now that is a warning not telling the pilot he is in a stall or spin, just a warning. I have not heard that the belly functioned as a stall warning, if it does "Great", if it doesn't "GREAT" either way Kevin doesn't deserve to have his post demeaned or criticized. And doctor, over to you! Post should be read totally and not interperted as one wishes, but as written. This forum is here to assist, not bolster one's self esteem by demeaning someone else's innocent question that was asked hoping to get some revelent information. I have been in a coupe that stalled and due to incorrect rigging (my opinion ) it fell off to the right in a dive. If the belly does vibrate as a warning when one is nearing a stall, that is wonderful even if it was not specifically designed to do so. It would alert a distracted pilot that he was a bit too slow. So fellows lets read posts thoroughly and only then answer them with the desire to help the person asking the question and not to criticize them or to demonstrate how much more we we know than someone else. Lee Browning ____________________________________________________________ Bills adding up? Click here for free information on payday loans.
