Stemme S12 in Michigan this Saturday, May 20th (KOZW) @ 4 pm

On 5/24/2017 9:03 AM, bumper wrote:
snip

Stemme ground handling is in a class by itself, making operations at even busy towered airports the same as with a power plane - blends right in.

snip

bumper


Except in tight places. Taxiing in yesterday, I found the FBO had
parked a fuel truck about 77 feet (my span is 75') from the propeller
spinner of a Cessna. It was extremely slow taxiing between the two
using the shadows of my wing tips and the obstacles to maintain
separation. Of course, I could have folded the wings or taken an
alternate route.
--
Dan, 5J

On Wednesday, May 24, 2017 at 8:39:24 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:


Except in tight places. Taxiing in yesterday, I found the FBO had
parked a fuel truck about 77 feet (my span is 75') from the propeller
spinner of a Cessna. It was extremely slow taxiing between the two
using the shadows of my wing tips and the obstacles to maintain
separation. Of course, I could have folded the wings or taken an
alternate route.
--
Dan, 5J

Dan,

There is that. Been a couple of airports, Once at an airshow due to close aircraft parking, and then at Pine Mountain Lake, CA with an embankment too close to the taxiway. Stopped and folded the wings. Didn't happen often. Much more difficult on some early S10's with no winglets - the winglets, like you shadow example, help with depth perception for clearance.

The opposite problem would occur too. Once parked IFO my hangar without the 90 degree turn, as the adjacent hangar at Napa was open and had a bunch of people milling about. A lady in an SUV comes driving up right towards me, I had shut down but not opened the canopy. She clearly was not slowing and had not seen my wing. People in the hangar were screaming at her to stop - - and she did, just feet away. I could've used a defibrillator on myself if I'da had one handy.

I always hung orange steamers on the wingtips when parked on the ramp. Cord, lead weight, fluorescent tapes.

bumper

On 5/24/2017 10:13 PM, bumper wrote:
snip
I always hung orange steamers on the wingtips when parked on the ramp. Cord, lead weight, fluorescent tapes.

bumper

Now THAT is a capital idea!

--
Dan, 5J

With its dual main wheels, the Stemme can taxi on a very narrow taxiway
since the wings are always level. In crowded areas, however, the wing
span can be a problem. That can be solved by having the wings folded in
congested areas.

On 5/23/2017 3:11 PM, Andrzej Kobus wrote:
On Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 1:26:01 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Maybe I'll get the boys to bring the Ionia Arcus over to the Howell airport and see how it taxis. No question that the ArcusM is a phenomenal sailplane.

Thanks Dave.
The only issue for these big birds is availability of wide taxiways. I am lucky that from the hangar to a runway I have probably 150-200 feet wide path. I have a wing tip wheel so all of my wing needs to be on the taxi way. Some airports don't have taxiways wide enough for a 21 m ship like mine. So there is always a reason to put on the 18 m tips. Arcus has a wing wheel a few feet inboard from the wing tip and that will probably solve the narrow taxiway problem. The wankel will also easily cruise to a destination at low power settings with no heating up issues at all. You don't need full power for cruise. You would exceed speed limit for the airframe if you tried to maintain a level flight with full power.

--
Dan, 5J