Mike Stirewalt wrote:
> .....Advising
> someone to "carry an extra 10% of speed" on their first landing is about
> the last thing I would ever suggest to someone getting ready to fly their
> KR for the first time.
I think it's pretty common to recommend a 15% increase over stall speed
for a first landing in a newly minted Experimental, but I said 10% to
avoid being accused of being reckless, and because we all know (as
Victor pointed out), the plane's stall speed is somewhat lower when in
ground effect (landing). Below is an excerpt from FAA Advisory Circular
90-89A "Amateur-Built Aircraft Flight Testing Handbook", which
recommends a first landing of 1.3x to 1.4x the predicted stall speed.
>>(12) On final approach, the aircraft speed
should be no less than 1.3 but no more than 1.4
times the recorded ‘‘first flight’’ pre-stall speed.
Homebuilt biplanes (high drag) should use an
approach speed of 1.5 x stall speed on landings.<<
Personally, now that I have about 4000 KR landings under my belt, I
touch down right at stall speed. In N56ML (the KR2S) about a third of
my landings have the mains touch slightly first, a third have the
tailwheel touch down first, and the other third are three pointers.
N891JF (the KR2) is not so easy to hit the tailwheel first, as it
doesn't have barndoor flaps, and the descent rate is higher in three
point attitude. I do this mainly because my home runway is short, and
more importantly, narrow. If I have a 6000' runway in front of me and
it's not windy, I'll land a little faster, but not much faster.
See
https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC%2090-89A.pdf
for the rest of the very excellent publication.
I took the morning off from work to go flying. I needed a break, and
it was a nice day, very calm and relatively cool. So I flew up the
Tennessee river and did two touch and goes at 7 airports along the
river. I'd have kept going but was down to 3 gallons of fuel....I
hadn't planned on flying that long!
One thing I was reminded of during all these landings is that in my
effort to stay honed for a potential deadstick landing, I have fallen
into the habit of ALWAYS landing with the throttle closed. I kill the
power when I'm beam the numbers on downwind, and glide all the way down,
using flap and slips to drop it on the end of the runway. What I was
reminded of this morning is that carrying a little bit of throttle ,
1300-1500rpm, makes the landing so much easier to control and glide it
onto the runway, but it also burns up a lot of runway in the process.
For a first flight, I recommend a little throttle and a long
runway....it's almost a guarantee that you won't flare too early and
drop it in like I did on my first KR landing. I was used to flaring at
C-172 height, and the KR is considerably closer to the ground. When I
realized I needed more power, I stuffed the throttle in and the engine
quit completely, so it dropped like a rock, testing the main gear to
5.5g's! I'll also mention that I had something like 60 hours on my
KR2S before I ever attempted a landing at my home airport's 2600' x 40'
runway, and I almost ran off in the swamp at the far end on the first
attempt! Flying out of a 6000' runway all the time will completely
spoil you, but it's also pretty easy fly a KR in and out of a 6000' runway!
Mark Langford
m...@n56ml.com
http://www.n56ml.com
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