Elevator Turbulator tape question

(JJ Sinclair) wrote in message ...
Kirk,
I agree with you that competent, current pilots, don't inadvertently stall any
ship. But your statement that you like a crisp stall, got me wondering. How do
you like a crisp stall, in the pattern, after some hard maneuvering to avoid a
mid-air? How do you like a crisp stall, when on the rocks, and get hit with a
large tail-gust?

The stall I got in my LS-7, after adding zig-zag to the horizontal stab, was
the worst stall I have ever seen in any sailplane. I mean she went near
vertical on me. Don't care to duplicate that in the above situations.

PS, I suspect the zig-zag delayed the *normal* seperation on the stab, but when
it did seperate, I lost all the down force from the horizontal stab and that
gave me the near vertical pitching moment. The wing may not have stalled at
all. Now someone please feel free to tell me just how full of Ka-ka, I am about
aerodynamics.
:)
JJ Sinclair


JJ,

I like planes that have enough control authority to stall, not those
limited to just mushing along at a high sink rate. I absolutely do
not believe that it is safer to have a high sink rate while turning
base to final because all the stall symptoms are hidden - a stall
break will provide the cue to unload and recover. Anyway, the whole
point is to not stall unless you want to, whether you are mushing
along with the stick full aft, or recovering from a g-break; either
way for a while there you are a passenger - and as a pilot you
shouldn't get in that situation. And yes, I do practice stalls, and
fly fast steep patterns, and believe in spin training, and practice
getting slow in a steep thermalling turn, etc. I guess the difference
is I like control of the plane in pitch all the way into and back out
of a stall. Might be due to liking acro...and mildly disliking mushy
POS's like 2-33s, etc. On the other hand, I do like ASK-21s, and they
will not stall at normal CGs (except inverted, of course...). So
there are always exceptions.

If turbulator tape resulted in your tail stalling, that is a different
matter altogether. I have a hard time understanding it, especially
since other similar configuration glass have turbulated tails - but if
I go ahead and try it I will definitely check it out. So thanks for
the heads up!

Of course, there is a lot of difference between a 6 and a 7, so who
knows what will happen!

Kirk