On 17 Jun 2006 22:53:18 -0700, "Andrew Sarangan"
wrote:


It is not the approach speed that make the wreckages look so
horrifying. It is their abrupt stall characteristics and the fact that
composite materials melt and vaporize when under fire. I have seen a
Lancair after a wreck and I could only identify the metal pieces.
Everything else was gone.

Some where around 95 or 96 my wife and I flew the Deb down to visit
her folks at Dade City FL. We landed and kept the plane at Zypher
Hills. This was over the Christmas holiday week including New Years
week end.

Early one morning a Piper Cherokee tried to make it in to Tampa Bay
Exec. There was a lot of morning ground fog and he hit the power
lines about 2 miles short of the runway. The only thing recognizable
was the engine and prop. Even then the prop and all of the accessories
were molded around the engine as if they had been clay.

As I understand the rest of it rolled up into a ball and burned. The
couldn't even recover the instruments. Needless to say it was a fatal.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


P S wrote:
I received some marketing brouchures from one of the best
selling "composite plane" on the market, with an invitation
to take a ride. Well, I was tempted until I found out how high
the Vso is. The plane goes in on final at 80 kts.

Which means, 80 kias is the speed you use for emergency
landing.

No wonder pictures after pictures of the wreckages of such
plane look so horrifying. Oh,, it is all pilot errors, since
the computers onboard have added such unprecendented
situation awareness, so that even incompetent pilots can
fly at ease.

The testmoney's printed in the brouchure are amazing. And they
reflect the intelligence of the owners, as well as the perceived
intelligence of the future buyers by the sales organization.
[This is a negative statement. So please read the previous
statement again, if you didn't get it.]

Can anyone share the thoughts on why the 80 kias speed for
emergency landing is not bothersome ? [The chut is for the wife,
now lets hear the reasons for the husband pilot.]

Of course, when you are not good enough to build such a thing,
you tell buyers, "you don't need it".