PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Height velocity avoid curve for fixed wing?
Old 6th Jul 2014, 20:38
  #4 (permalink)  
Pilot DAR
Moderator
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 63
Posts: 5,622
Received 64 Likes on 45 Posts
When the failure occurs, as long as you push forward hard, you keep your speed.
The speed you have, which with great skill, you might manage to keep, may be too little to allow an effective flare in the first place. But even if it is, you have retained this speed as you now enter a rather steep approach angle, now you have to accelerate the plane upward from that approach path to be near parallel to the landing surface. The steeper the approach, the more you have to accelerate "upward" away from it, the more energy you'd best have in reserve, which (in a plane) means more speed.

Your presence on this forum is good evidence that this can work.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I could not succeed in the Caravan. I had to feed in some power on the way down (which is even more difficult to accomplish than a piston plane). The authority and I agreed that compliance with the requirement could be found, because I could have walked away from the plane had I not, but I would have bent some landing gear if I'd not used some power.

I have glided other aircraft, both modified and standard, and repeated this characteristic. Happily, with a running piston engine, you can fix it on the way down, but it is the fact that I had to, which brings the HV avoid curve to mind for fixed wing too.

If pilots were flying with this always in mind, there would be fewer injuries in EFATO events, and people would completely give up the idea of a 180 turn back!
Pilot DAR is offline