My first freezing rain encounter

wrote in message ups.com...
Geez, it's amazing how things become old wives tales. Only a small
number of the very first model 177s (original 1968 model year
airplanes) left the factory before it was noticed that with full flaps
and when slipping toward a landing the pilot could experience an
intermittent "tug" on the control wheel. It was traced to the airflow
over the stabilator in those conditions and the stabilator nearing the
stall angle of attack. It was decided to put the slots in the
stabilator to allow it to fly at a higher angle of attack. It solved
the problem. The ones in the field that didn't have them were modified
and all subsequent airplanes (rest of the 177s, all of the 177As and
177Bs) left the factory with the slots. It also resulted in removing
the recommendation against slips with full flaps from the Owner's
Manual.

Totally separate issue from tailplane stall in icing.
All the best,
Rick


Horizontal tail effectiveness and tailplane stall just the same...There were instances of landing gear damage due to
hard landings by folks running out of elevator that was attributed to this also. Don't get me wrong, the 177 RG (or no
RG) is a fine instrument platform and a fine flier.

BTW, I may be getting old but I am not an old wife! ;-)

Indeed, you are not an old wife, and are not old...age is a state of
mind g.

In fact, there were no instances of landing gear damage due to hard
landings in the Cardinal due to "running out of elevator" yet another
old wive's tale; the nosewheel damage incidents on Cardinals were due
to the extremely effective stabilator (Cardinal stabilators are
effective to far lower speeds than virtually any other general aviation
airplane, which is why they have the longest c.g. range of any four
place airplanes ever made). Pilots overcontroled in the flare - where
they were used to airplanes that lost elevator effectiveness at low
speeds, the Cardinal did not, and PIO was the result as pilots moved
the yoke fore and aft and the airplane responded very rapidly in pitch.
The upshot was that the pilot either went around or hit hard on the
nosewheel due to his yoke inputs. That's why any prepurchase
inspection of a Cardinal includes a careful examination of the firewall
for wrinkles to see if the nosegear has been smacked and the repairs
not done correctly. Source: Aviation Consumer Used Airplane Buyer
Guide and 1,500 hours in Cardinals as PIC and flight instructor as well
as NTSB reports on Cardinal accidents. Interestingly, Cardinal
nosewheel damage accidents started to decrease in the mid '70s when the
Grumman Traveler, Cheetah and Tiger series came out and had an
extremely effective elevator at low speed .... but also suffered from
nosewheel impacts and bent firewalls.

In the late '80s I was involved in a series of flight tests on
Cardinals for reasons that would take too long to go into here, the
interesting thing was that the airplanes could do some amazing things
and had much more responsive controls than others in the general class
- as a result, they could handle much stronger crosswinds than other
nosewheel airplanes and had some pretty amazing low speed handling
abilities, with pitch, roll and yaw rates that could be induced near
the stall that were much faster than the Cherokee 180/Archer, Cessna
172/182 and Beech Musketeer/Sierra series. The downside was that most
pilots weren't trained to handle a responsive airplane, which lead to a
higher than average incident rate, particularly on landing. You
probably know all that as you fly a 177RG, which has impecable manners
and is a ball to land in very strong crosswinds when everyone else has
hidden behind the hangar.

All the best,
Rick