Are you willing to compromise on handling?

[9 lives]

Elsewhere, discussion drifted into the topic of compromised (or otherwise phrased "appalling") handling in some common GA aircraft. I am very willing to agree that our very common GA aircraft, Cessnas and low wing Pipers, are lack luster when it comes to handling and control harmony. They are undeniably a compromise. Though, I have certainly flown even worse GA aircraft. The Cessnas and Pipers are also extremely successful. They provide utility, economy, and simplicity - at the expense of handling qualities.

I have probably only flown a few aircraft types which were truly a delight to fly in terms of handling, but they are not what I own - they lack the utility and simplicity I appreciate. Aside from some test flying, all of my flying is recreational - but I like to go places, and take people and things with me. So I compromise.

Do others willingly compromise away handling to get the type of flying which suits them?

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Good post. But I would add, why should a manufacturer compromise handling? Where is the upside?

[Genghis the Engineer]

All aircraft design is a compromise, surely.

And even defining "good" handling is very difficult. If you ask me as a flight safety boffin to define safe handling characteristics unlikely to lead a loss of control, and then ask me as a chap who enjoys his flying what characteristics I'd like to see, you're likely to get different answers.

Similarly, overly light pitch control that makes accurate control difficult is typically a result of a very aft CG - whilst at the same time improving cruise performance and reducing stall speed.


So, "Good" handling is in my opinion an impossible thing to define, as the specifics of handling qualities are just another feature of the complex set of compromises that are what aircraft design is all about.

G

[thing]

Depends what you mean by good handling. I fly because I like flying, not because I want to have to fight some untamed beast so give me 'tame' handling anyday. My flying unless it's doing something to keep current is invariably going somewhere with either a mate or two mates. I don't want something that loops with finger tip pressure or rolls with merely a glance in the direction you want to go. Having said that I can understand people who do want that sort of thing and would support their right to fly something twitchy.

Same with cars. Pal of mine has a TVR Chimaera that you would have to pay me to drive, it's a beast. I have an automatic all singing all dancing car that you just have to sit in and it virtually does it all for you. I like my aeroplanes to be the same.

[Big Pistons Forever]

When I am going out to do some aerobatics the "good" handling I am looking for is entirely different than the "good" handling I am looking for when I have 500 miles to fly in IMC which is entirely different than the "good" handling I am looking for getting the float plane safety onto rough water and a confined dock.......

[9 lives]

why should a manufacturer compromise handling?

Most likely, because the manufacturer sees a need. It would be a design choice, probably for either aerodynamic or mechanical reasons, maybe economical, or just quality control.

I asked Dave Thurston, who designed my Teal, and also designed the Lake Amphibian, some Grumman flying boats, and a WW2 fighter, why my Teal had such spongy and heavy ailerons. Particularly, compared to the fairly similar Lake. He told me that it was an aerodynamic design choice - a compromise. The short span, large chord ailerons of the Teal are so to be very effective at slow airspeeds, so you can lift a wingtip float out of the water early in the takeoff. Yes, they do that (and better than the Lake). They are fingertip light while planing on the water, which is nice, if you want to do a Step Turn. But, the large chord means that too much balance weight would have been required, so Vne is unusually slow, for flutter margins. So the ailerons are downright heavy in flight, but perfect on the water. It's not an aerobatic plane, so light in flight is not so vital. On the water, effective is really important. This does not matter for floatplanes, with two hulls, but is pretty important to balance a flying boat on one.

The Lake Amphibian has mechanical design choices: Push rod elevator control, rather than cable. It probably seemed like a good idea, nice crisp control in pitch - but... The push rods run under the floor, where a flying boat might have some water, which might freeze at altitude - locking the pitch control solid - and that has happened! I'd rather have sloppy cables, which I might bust loose. The Teal has the sloppy cables - Dave's learned design choice - lesson learned from the Lake

Cessnas use lots of cables, very few pushrods. Cable is simply cheap. Thousands of planes were sold cheap, which would never have sold expensive = more people fly more. They don't fly as well, but they fly! My 150's ailerons did get a bit nicer with the STOL kit installation, as it includes gap seals, which really do improve them - now you have to use the rudder to keep the ball in the middle!

The DA-42, which has fairly nice handling, has push rod ailerons - very nice! But not only did Diamond use cables for the rudder, but they went way cheap, and did not even use swaged terminal ends, just nicopress crimps and thimbles - several of them. The result was stretching cables and stretching thimbles with large rudder forces (like at Vmca), so when I was flight testing the Lycoming 360 powered DA-42, with 45 more HP per side, there was no longer enough rudder to achieve Vmca, simple 'cause of rudder control circuit stretch. The pedal moved far enough, but the rudder didn't, and I managed to actually measure it!

And then there was a manufacturer, who though they designed fairly well, failed to enact good quality control, which resulted in the brand new plane I flight tested on skis being miserably dangerous to fly at slow speed - it spun, no matter what you did near the stall. But, before it got back to the factory to find the problem, the pilot (whom I had warned of this flaw) spun it into the death of two of them. it was manufactured that way.

So I'm with BPF, desirable handling characteristics are different, based on the type of plane, and what you're doing with it.

[piperboy84]

I suppose me flying a taildragger is a large compromise, I give up cheap insurance, generous xw capability, limited resale market and easy taxiing primarily to pick up rough field capability.

[9 lives]

I'm with you Piperboy, there's just a special satisfaction flying tailwheel aircraft.

SSD, I'm not knocking an original Chipmunk, not any other aircraft type, if that what the person would like to fly. I'm simply stating that different aircraft have different characteristics, and should be appreciated for what they are, not knocked 'cause they are not a Chipmunk! I am sure there are pilots who prefer to not own a Chipmunk, and that's fine too!

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Step, of course! Chippys are oily (so you have wear a flying suit or old jeans and jersey), noisy, short range, slow, they vibrate, they have no stowage space, they lose height during aeros due the fixed pitch prop and 145 bhp engine, and they are expensive to maintain.

I more than forgive it all that fro the pure joy its delightful handling brings - you strap it on rather than climb into it - you are a bird! It also looks pretty good (unless you stick a horrid flat engine in it!). Not for nothing is it known as 'The Poor Man's Spitfire'.

So yes, I happily exchange a lot of practicality for purity of flight. But then I'm a private fly-for-fun pilot; I'm not in the air transport game, not even the personal air transport game. I suspect many UK PPLs also fly for pure pleasure rather than more practical reasons.

[Jan Olieslagers]

As a microlighter, with no experience of said Pipers and Cessnas, and on top of that being a beginner pilot with only some 130 hours solo, I can only state that my Apollo Fox handles close to perfect - in fact she makes me feel I'd have to try very hard to fly her into hazard. Perhaps it is the better ratio of engine power versus max gross weight? (80 HP / 450 kgs)

But perhaps I do not know what I am missing. Anyway, there's one around who CAN compare, since yesterday - I am curious to see his view!

[9 lives]

I'm a private fly-for-fun pilot; I'm not in the air transport game

Me too, I've never flown a person for hire (other than jumpers in the 185 and 206).

the personal air transport game.

Ah, there's the difference. I like to put my wife, two Bromptons, and a bit of baggage in my 150, and set off for a far away place (Toronto to Freeport Bahamas, for example. Landing and a picnic on the beach along the way). I like loading the Teal with enough camping gear for a few days in a remote lake somewhere. I choose and use planes that way, and I enjoy flying them.

I suspect many UK PPLs also fly for pure pleasure rather than more practical reasons.

And that's fine too. Sometimes I take the 150 up for a half hour of loops and rolls, and never get more than two miles from home. They are certainly compromise loops and rolls, but they keep my skills sharp for test flying I do in even more poor handling aircraft. I don't loop and roll, nor even spin the Teal - that's not what it was designed to do. That's it's compromise.

But generally, I use each plane the way is was intended to be used by it's manufacturer - neither was built to be nostalgic. When I last flew the Tiger Moth, I felt very nostalgic, but I did not take it more than gliding distance from the airport - I know much too much about Gypsy engines for that! The circuit was my compromise, 'cause that's what that plane was designed to do. I would fly it further, if someone else came along bringing more oil.

Yes, I have a diesel car. 143,000 km, and yes, I have never added any oil since I bought it - indeed, I can't remember the last time I opened the hood. No one sees my drive by in my VW wagon, and has a nostalgic thought. I don't care, it gets me where I want to go, carrying all my people and stuff dependably. I remember being offered an MG to drive a while back. Ooo, this will be fun, I though to myself. Not really, it was a horrible ride, with terrible cornering. My VW Golf would have out performed it in every regard other than nostalgia. For my nostalgia fix, I have 1100 Dinky, Corgi and Matchbox Toys on display in my office. There were companies who knew how to make a quality product for a mass market - but now kids want toys to watch, not push.....

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Step - I think you mis-read what I wrote about diesel cars.

[Piper.Classique]

Hmm. I drive an MGB and fly a super cub. The MGB is just about good enough to use for serious driving, Just about fast enough with a tweaked engine and corners just about well enough with tweaked suspension to use as a practical vehicle. Just about easy enough to maintain by myself. But it brings a big silly grin to my face all the time I am driving it. Same with the cub, really. Only it does really well is short field take off. But does everything else well enough and brings a big silly grin to my face.
I can always hire for a long trip but usually I end up using the cub or the MG.
Says it all, really.

[Piper.Classique]

you could always try a Mazda MX5. All the open-topped fun of the 'B', but with superb handling and Japanese reliability and freedom from rust!

Yes, I have driven one. Lovely car, goes like the clappers of wrath but costs a fair bit more to buy. Can't afford it. Don't know what I would do if I could, but probably would keep the MG.

[mary meagher]

Don't do much power flying any more....in the US, the Cherokee or the Archer, and once a Beechcraft Sundowner, mostly renting a clapped out C172. In the UK had a share in a Raleigh Minerva. But for well tried and tested over the centuries (nearly!) it had to be a Supercub. With a 150 Lycoming. Let somebody else find out the shortcomings of the new types. I flew my Cub to Alicante, to get used to it, in the month of February, and it took 9 days altogether....After that excursion, GOFER earned its keep by pulling up gliders.

The best tried and tested training glider is the K13, evolved from the K2 and K7 when the wings were mounted midway up the fuse which gave much much better all around viz for both pilots. And the K13 will loop, spin, demonstrate negative gravity, and soar very nicely, thank you, with a 27 to one glide ratio. My competition glider, a French built Pegasus, with retractable gear and 15 meter wingspan, glide ratio of 40 to one, no vices, but it was labeled spinning not advised, so I didn't try any in the Peg. I still do spins to loose height on a nice soaring flight, just me and the suffering safety pilot in the front seat.....3 weeks ago it was still soarable in October! fabulous!

[9 lives]

From another thread, but seems worth the response here:

[SSD] That's daft where flying for fun is concerned; what's logical about spending lots of money going nowhere?

But it does explain your blindness to my viewpoint.

Circuits - lots of money going nowhere.

Yeah SSD is alluding to a viewpoint I sure don't understand. Not that I have to understand it, it really doesn't matter. But, I sense that SSD would like to look down on anyone who will accept any plane lesser than the Gypsy powered Chipmunk. Perhaps a Gypsy powered Chipmunk is very nice, but I know for certain that it will not meet my preferred expectations of flying. I can't hold hands with my wife as I fly it, my Bromptons won't fit in it, and if I land it at my favourite lake, it's done.

I celebrate and appreciate those who most enjoy a bimble and some aerobatics in a really fine flying plane, but they're not important enough to me, to give up the utility I like - I hope that SSD is not blind to my viewpoint!

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Something here means an awful lot to you, enough for you to drag a post across out of context from another thread and comment on it, again out of context, making all sorts of false allusions to suit a point you are determined to make, by whatever means you can.

We have a name for that sort of unpleasantness in UK - **** stirring.

I thought you were better than that, Step. But now I see you have played similar tricks with other contributors so perhaps the fault is mine in miss-assessing you. Consider yourself re-assessed.

[9 lives]

Consider yourself re-assessed.

Ahhh, finally...

drag a post across out of context from another thread and comment on it, again out of context

Was it in context in the other thread!

Something here means an awful lot to you

Yup. The notion that a person can be proud of their choice of an aircraft with non perfect handling, where it meets other needs they hold dear, and hope to have that at least respected, if not appreciated by other experienced pilots.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Actually Step, I've been wondering - obviously knowing well your background - that you even consider there's such a thing as "good" handling.

Handling, ultimately, can mainly be "fit for purpose" to a particular extent.

The purpose of-course, of a Chipmunk and a C150 are not the same, although perhaps overlapping. Therefore it would be impossible for the two to have the same handling, and the same level of fitness for purpose.

Just look for example (apologies to non flight testers) at the massive concern presently in the FT community about how to get handling "right" for air-to-air refuelling, with just about every FBW programme in the world struggling desperately to get that "right", or even to define what "right" means.

G

[9 lives]

Yes, Genghis, I have certainly flown some planes I liked for "nice" handling, so I guess they were "good", as long as my assessment was in the role they were designed for. I've certainly flown a few planes whose handling was not likeable in any phase of flight - so they would not get a "good". I suppose one element of "good" would be "acceptable" over a wide operational range.

The Piper Cheyenne II was nice to fly in a rather narrow operational range. At other corners (like approach, and over 20,000' altitude), it was not at all nice. It would not get a "good" from me. It ended up getting a stability augmentation system from Piper.

I once tested a Cessna 206 with a very hard to detect hidden pitch trim rigging error. It was a very short, near fatal control problem, which has occurred a few times since, and been well documented - one was Transport Canada's own C 206! The C 206 is a decent hauler, but not nice to fly - certainly a compromise.