Well, I was hoping that EGKB would accept my challenge, but it seems not...
DAR that's a very cool picture, of course you have to understand the context of what you're looking at.
Yes, some of my projects offer me facinating lessons - I still have so much to learn!
This project was the testing of the modified SM1019, which carried wingtip booms I had previously tested on a Cessna 206. They are used for magnetic survey of underground material.
Sorry about the super sized photo - I could not get Photobucket to resize this one....
I had no prior experience flying this type. I do admit that since I was 11 (decades before MSFS!) I dreamed of flying one of these - the photo in Jane's all the world's aircraft of it taking off on its tailwheel wound me right up!
During my checkout, I was expecting it to fly like a Cessna - nope, its pretty different! Totally different controls, extreme power to weight ratio for this type of aircraft, no stall warning system at all, 60 degrees of flap available,
and it is so cool to be able to back up on the ramp! (it
already sits on its tail!
)
The fact that this aircraft does not have a Canadian Type Certificate means that my test flying was not to support an STC, but rather a flight permit, which has a lower "bar". Add to that that the mod is not expected to affect pitch control much, so there was not much delving into that aspect planned.
As I got used to the plane, I would employ ever increasing performance takeoffs - in accordance with Flight Manual procedures (30 flaps). Once I put the survey operator in the back, and started wringin the plane out - it bit me hard.
I was going out of a very familiar grass runway, and just as I got airborne the nose pitched way up, the pull to get airborne was suddenly not at all what was needed. With no stall warning system, and the airspeed indicator barely indicating, this is not where I want to be decellerating! It took full nose down control, held for many moments to maintain the desired pitch attitude. As the plane acellerated, the pitch control could be moved toward nose up again, though was still a "push", rather than a "pull". This is the ideal set up for pilot indiced oscillation - nearly zero control force, through a wide control displacement exactly in the range you need to have the controls. There was no flying this plane by feel at slow speed, this was by recognizing the pitch attitude visually below 70 KIAS. Most helicopters I have flown have more pitch "feel" than this did!
After exploring this more, and discussing this characterisitc with two test pilot mentors, I set out to document this characteristic. The result was the previoulsy posted graphs of control force. 30 Flap will get you zero or negative control force below certain speeds. Also, retracting the flaps from full to none, will pass you through this range, and you've got to be ready for lots of control force change! This is a non certifiable characterisitc. I had the aircraft checked for conformity in the controls, and everything was as it should be. I am hardly an expert with this type, but no one could offer any advice to suggest that I had it wrong. I was just flight testing it in accordance with the accepted techniques.
I ended up writing advisory material for pilot training on this aircraft, and rode back seat to train the company chief pilot in what I had found. He confirmed all of it. My training material for this read:
"11.2.7 Pitch Control Forces
During flight testing, with flap settings from 30 to 60 degrees, and in particular at a more aft C of G, pitch forces were found to reverse in some cases. This was more pronounced with high power. This was most noticeable, and startling, right after becoming airborne on takeoff, when the pull force to break ground, might suddenly need to reverse to a push force to prevent the nose rising too sharply. Be aware that with the very low pitch control forces in the "null" spot between nose up, and nose down, the control forces are very low, so a pilot induced oscillation, or over controlling could easily result. It is particularly important for the pilot to recognize that with no stall warning system, and very light pitch control forces approaching the stall, that an accidental stall is very possible. "
I never did get to the point where I could not lower the nose with pitch control, but there were many occasions where prolonged application of full down pitch control was required to maintain control at all. As a new pilot, doing freedom of control checks before takeoff, I use to wonder how one would ever use the full nose down control available. Well, I have learned! I've needed, and held in, full nose down pitch control in the Cessna 185 amphibian, 206, 207, Grand Caravan and Twin Otter.
This goes to show that there is lots to learn, even for experienced pilots. The very experienced ag pilot who initially checked me out, ended up taking type training from me! And I had less time flying it than he did. I had just been doing a whole bunch of differing types of flying that he had not got to yet.
Normally EGKB, I would be apologizing for hijaking or drifting your thread. Not this time! You have yet to earn that much of my respect. Not that my respect is hard to earn - just about everyone else on PPRuNe has it, but you're a ways back yet....
Back before computers, when many of us were mentored into being good pilots, it was in person. We neophites were privilaged to breath the same air as the sky gods, when on poor weather days, pilots would chat in the club house. If we newbies were particularly inoffensive, we would receive the occasional invitation to the back seat, or with extreme luck, right seat. Our personality became a key element in success with this - act like an arrogant jerk, and you're probably not even in the club house again, much less the aircraft. I spent a lot of teenage time filthy on my back, scrubbing the belly of a plane, for the privilage of a ride in it...
Now, apparently, personality is much less a factor, anyone who can log on has a chance of being taken seriously and finding wisdom for nothing. And, some of us are putting it there for nothing. EGKB, have you any idea the cost of what I have written, were it to be a flight test report?
So EGKB, don't think I have written all of this to respond to you, so far, you are peripheral. However, I know that a lot of really worthy new pilots read all of this, and they win, because you stirred the pot, and made a specticle of yourself. There have been others of you before, and there will be more later. The PM's fly in the background, with us amusing ourselves about specticle posts.
I remember when I had six hours, how proud I was! I remember going first solo (first person in Canada to first solo a C 152, 'cause my club
had the first) how proud I was - I thought I knew it all! After a few hundred hours, I began to question how much I knew... After a few thousand I started to go for more training, to fill in blanks, and grow my skills. Now, I regularly exchange thoughts and ask advice of pilots who are sky gods to me - some here.
Six hours... Just put your hand over your mouth, and listen, read and obey lots!
Ahhhhh......