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Old 3rd Sep 2009, 07:10
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Piper.Classique
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: France
Posts: 1,029
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Hi there
I fly a 150 cub, which is a lot heavier, also three axis microlights which come in a bit lighter, so my opinion may have some small value. In the cub I approach in still air at 45 knots, 40 with a trickle of power for short field, but my cub has great big flaps that go down to sixty degrees. Flaps up I use 50 knots. Up to five knots on the ground I don't add anything to that. Then I add half the steady wind plus all of the gusts, so if there was a fifteen knot wind gusting twenty that would be half of fifteen plus all of the five knot diference, less the five knots that I reckon is already accounted for, which is seven knots after I have done the sums. So five knots without the maths sounds about right, a trickle more if it's really rough. The POH is sodall use btw. It might be relevant to the aircraft as built in 1953, but as it now has different wings and a different engine it doesn't really apply any more. Beagle has a point about low inertia aircraft, but remember the speed can also decrease very rapidly in a shear or downgust, and a small increment of extra speed is handy to allow the pilot's reaction time to be less than instantaneous. In a gusting crosswind I use a wing down tail up landing with half flap, which seems to give good aileron reponse and still quite a lot of extra drag to shorten the run. It's a lot easier than trying to three point it while kicking off the drift and gives good rudder control through more of the rollout if the tail is up. Like you I fly without the dubious benefit of ATC, so have to judge from the windsock. I reckon if it is shredding itself to bits there is probably too much wind of any sort I do have the pleasure of a huge grass runway 80m wide and 700m long, a fair bit of curlover on approach on 05 in a brisk wind however. How small is your strip?

Oh, and my approach speed in the microlight (skyranger nosedragger) is the same as for the cub, but it bleeds off a lot quicker in the hold-off.
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