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Thread: Piaggio p180
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Old 24th Feb 2008, 19:32
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SNS3Guppy
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
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I don't know how impressive Piaggio says the airplane is. It's an airplane. It goes from A to B. It has benifits and it has drawbacks. It has no antiskid, and carbon brakes that heat up and begin to grab...and which don't work well until they're warm. A lot of pilots flat spot the tires at some stage.

The airplane is fast, but has a small wing; it's total surface area between the three lifting surfaces (forward wing, main wing, and horizontal stab) is about the same as a cessna 182. Whereas most airfoils on light airplanes experience airflow separation around 25% chord, the piaggio sees it near 50%. While not a true laminar airfoil, it has laminar characteristics. Any disruption of airflow over the wing, including flying through a cloud, causes an airspeed loss and a loss of lift with airflow separation. the airplane doesn't fall out of the sky by any means, but the control column moves back and forth about two inches when flying through fair weather cumulous clouds, and it can lose about fifteen knots when in sustained visible moisture (or with any leading edge or upper wing contamination, from rain to peeled paint, insects, frost, etc).

It's an airplane. Most who fly in it seem to like it very much. Make up your own mind; go check one out.
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