Testing your glide. Are people doing this?

On my IMC (instrument flying) rating renewal last year,
I took off (not in my plane, but a rented PA28)... when
I got to cruising altitude I levelled out, brought the throttle
back then leaned the mixture. The examiner said "There's a
man who owns his own plane."...he was referring to leaning
the mixture, something I'd always been taught to do from day
one of my training. He said a lot of renters fly around with
mixture fully rich all the time. Even a pilot friend of mine
commented that he never leans the mixture because he
"never flies above 2000ft".

Paul

"David Megginson" wrote in message
...
That's good to know. On balance, do you see any difference between
owners and renters?

"Paul Sengupta" writes:

On my IMC (instrument flying) rating renewal last year, I took off
(not in my plane, but a rented PA28)... when I got to cruising
altitude I levelled out, brought the throttle back then leaned the
mixture. The examiner said "There's a man who owns his own
plane."...he was referring to leaning the mixture, something I'd
always been taught to do from day one of my training. He said a lot
of renters fly around with mixture fully rich all the time. Even a
pilot friend of mine commented that he never leans the mixture
because he "never flies above 2000ft".

That's an interesting observation. On my first solo cross-country in
a rented 172 during my PPL training, I decided to rent the plane dry.
I made sure the tanks were topped off, leaned properly, filled up
again at my destination (even though I'd used only a few gallons --
school policy for student pilots), then flew back and fueled up again
on landing.

When I arrived back there was some consternation, since it turned out
that the club didn't rent dry to student pilots. They ended up
reimbursing me for the fuel I'd paid for and charging me the wet fee
for the plane. The manager tried to convince me that the wet fee was
a great deal, until I handed him the fuel tickets to show how little
fuel I'd burned on my trip. He asked me how I did it, and I smiled
and answered that I'd discovered a little red knob on the panel. Note
that at that time I would not even have thought of running lean of
peak -- I simply leaned to best power and enriched a bit, like my
instructor had taught me.

I wasn't going to make a big snit, but clearly the club assumes that
renters will always fly full rich. Nowadays, in my own Warrior, I
push the throttle to full for takeoff and don't touch it again until
I'm ready to land; in-between, I set power by adjusting the mixture
only, as recommended by the POH for best economy. I figure that if I
can make my engine run cooler, produce practically no carbon monoxide
(a major issue in a Canadian winter), avoid fouling plugs, *and* save
gas, what's not to love about running LOP WOT?


All the best,


David

("Trentus" wrote)
OK, this is going to sound really silly, but I'm not a pilot,
If planes glide so well, then how come they crash?
It would seem reasonable, that if they glide, and they have an engine
failure etc. that they'd glide them in, not leave smoking craters like the
news tends to show.
Am I missing something here?

From what I gather, one of the main reasons for some of these smoking hole
crashes is a malfunctioning switch, in the pilot's head, that says "Must
save this
airplane."

That switch needs to be set to, "Where should I put this (insurance
company's) plane down to safely dissipate the most energy, before those
forces get to us people?"

Runways, fields, roads, golf courses, high school soccer field, etc.

The question of coming down ....."is moot." You are coming down - now!

This is when the mental switch needs to be thrown from, "save the plane" to
"put it down safely - the heck with the plane."

The other big problem is "Low and Slow."

Low because you have little time to react. Slow - think your motorcycle
going slow and not being able to put your foot down. First you wobble then
you fall to the pavement.

--
Montblack
"Styled by the laws of nature.............Concorde"

Big planes glide much better than small planes. An airliner has about
twice
the glide ration that your Pathfinder does.

Well, the Pathfinder glides like a rock. ;-)

But is that true of all airliners? I guess I would have thought that a
600,000 pound un-powered jetliner wouldn't glide very well.

Of course, the odds of losing all your engines are slim. But then who would
ever believe that they would run the Boeing 307 out of gas?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Trentus" wrote in message
...
OK, this is going to sound really silly, but I'm not a pilot,
If planes glide so well, then how come they crash?
It would seem reasonable, that if they glide, and they have an engine
failure etc. that they'd glide them in, not leave smoking craters like the
news tends to show.
Am I missing something here?

Apart from your naivete about the broadcast news industry, yes. Very big
planes are very heavy have a big potential energy load and land at speeds
over 100 miles an hour. Very, very hard to make it look pretty on anything
but a long flat surface. Little planes are very light and land at speeds
under 60 miles an hour. Very little energy to dissipate. A pilot current
in forced approaches can land them without much risk of injury anywhere with
a few hundred yards of relatively flat surface or something soft to absorb
the impact.

le moo

Careful, Jay. A BA 747 flew into the dust cloud from Mount Pinatubo and all
4 engines flamed out. He glided nicely for about 20 minutes until he got
them all to restart at some ridiculously low altitude.

And remember that glide performance has nothing to do with weight but to do
with wing design. And, if I remember correctly, a 747 or like glides just
about like a 172 does, it just needs a faster airspeed to do it, but does it
at the same kind of angle.

But on the subject of the glide ratios of cars, my Mercedes probably glides
a little better than the Pathfinder cuz it's all sleek and aerodynamic-like.
But the Integra's performance was horrible - it didn't glide worth a damn on
the roof!

Shawn
"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:VNwnb.51170$HS4.234123@attbi_s01...
Big planes glide much better than small planes. An airliner has about
twice
the glide ration that your Pathfinder does.

Well, the Pathfinder glides like a rock. ;-)

But is that true of all airliners? I guess I would have thought that a
600,000 pound un-powered jetliner wouldn't glide very well.

Of course, the odds of losing all your engines are slim. But then who
would
ever believe that they would run the Boeing 307 out of gas?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I got to cruising altitude I levelled out, brought the throttle
back then leaned the mixture. The examiner said "There's a
man who owns his own plane."...he was referring to leaning
the mixture, something I'd always been taught to do from day
one of my training.

I never leaned as a renter pilot. I thought that red knob was only there so
you could shut the engine down. (I remember my instructor pointing it
out to me, explaining its function, learning about leaning for the practical
test, and then virtually never touching the thing again.)

I also always ran at full throttle. When you're paying by the hour, wet,
there is simply no reason to do otherwise.

Funny how buying your own gas and paying for engine repairs changes your
perspective.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"David Megginson" wrote in

renters will always fly full rich. Nowadays, in my own Warrior, I
push the throttle to full for takeoff and don't touch it again until
I'm ready to land; in-between, I set power by adjusting the mixture
only, as recommended by the POH for best economy. I figure that if I
can make my engine run cooler, produce practically no carbon monoxide
(a major issue in a Canadian winter), avoid fouling plugs, *and* save
gas, what's not to love about running LOP WOT?

That's one great thing about owning. Lots of time to fool with mixture and
MP and prop settings. I save about 2 - 3 GPH over common "squared" power
and ROP settings. Also, when you fly a rented plane slower, and more
efficiently, you are penalized. The same style in your own plane costs less
while maximizing your PIC time. Dunno about the CO being a major issue
though.

le moo

I suspect that the Pathfinder glides about like any fixed gear single and
would be surprised if its glide ratio differed much from a 152 or Cherokee
6.

Jets have glide ratios of up to 20:1. They have no props, dangling gear,
exposed rivits, large openings for cooling ect. The 600,000lb airliner
comes down fast but it goes forward fast too. Remember weight is potential
energy.

My MU-2 has a glide ratio of about 12:1.

Mike
MU-2


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:VNwnb.51170$HS4.234123@attbi_s01...
Big planes glide much better than small planes. An airliner has about
twice
the glide ration that your Pathfinder does.

Well, the Pathfinder glides like a rock. ;-)

But is that true of all airliners? I guess I would have thought that a
600,000 pound un-powered jetliner wouldn't glide very well.

Of course, the odds of losing all your engines are slim. But then who
would
ever believe that they would run the Boeing 307 out of gas?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:VNwnb.51170$HS4.234123@attbi_s01...

But is that true of all airliners? I guess I would have thought that a
600,000 pound un-powered jetliner wouldn't glide very well.

They glide better because they have much less drag. They're slick and don't have
landing gear and other cruft sticking out (and what antennas and stuff they do have
are much smaller in ratio to the overall area).