REFLECTOR: Gliding Distance

Laurence Coen lwcoen at hotmail.com
Tue Jun 19 12:26:59 CDT 2012


Matt,

3500 feet and 30 seconds is 7000 ft/min ROD.  Bad, but not that bad.

Larry Coen
N136LC


From: Matt Bucko 
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 12:14 PM
To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list 
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: Gliding Distance


When Kevin Steiner lost his engine due to fuel fitting failure, he had less then 30 seconds before he landed.  His Velocity was about 5 miles west of Deer Valley airport around 3500 feet. He was prepping to land there.  Engine stopped, he made a right turn and landed in the Agua Fria river.  Well, there is never any water in Arizona, so he landed in the sand, rocks, brush and trees in the river bed.  Minimum damage, no injuries.  The point is.... it does not glide.  Your best glide speed looks like his.  
His prop was a 3 blade MT, fixed gear.

Matt

On 6/19/2012 9:26 AM, Brooke Wolf wrote: 
I am planning some overwater trips in the near future and the subject of gliding distance naturally comes to mind.  I have done some limited test flying with my airplane (XLRG w/Aerocomposite variable pitch prop).  The results of my gliding performance are not too good.  All tests were done around 6000ft with throttle at idle and wheels up.  Here are the results:

80 KIAS - 900fpm…….. yields a glide performance of 1.38 miles/1000 ft altitude
85 KIAS - 1000fpm……..yeilds a glide performance of 1.41 miles/1000 ft altitude
100 KIAS - 1250fpm …..yields a glide performance of  1.34 miles/1000 ft altitude

As you can see, 85 KIAS appears to be the best glide speed.

I know there may be a big difference in what I tested and what happens in the real world with a windmilling or stopped prop.  Have any of you brave test pilots done any testing with a windmilling or stopped prop?  What were the results?  What kind of glide performance did others get with throttle at idle?  Is there anyway to correlate throttle idle glide performance with windmilling or prop stopped performance?  What is the best way to stretch a wheels up glide on a Velocity?

I would like to get a discussion going on this and find what others have experienced.  Thanks.

Brooke, N108BG, XLRG-5, 145 hours


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