GESchwarz
Well-Known Member
A significant percentage of aviation incidents occur in the process of landing which begin as a result of pilot errors or other variables experienced in the approach.
My desire is to design my plane with features that will help me mitigate some of these links in the accident cause chain. Of particular interest is the Spoiler/Speed Brake.
I believe that a good habit for a pilot is to utilize every landing as an opportunity to practice a dead stick approach. This calls for precision control and use of energy to reach the ground at a precise location, velocity, and glide slope.
Because hitting the numbers on the runway is easier with a steeper glide slope, and greater speed in the pattern is safer from an anti-stall stand point, I prefer an approach that is a little high and a little fast. This of course means that I’ve got to kill off some excess energy in order to achieve a stabilized approach attitude and 1.1X stall speed at touchdown.
I’m wondering if spoilers are just the tool to achieve this extra level of approach control. I’ve never used spoilers so I’m wondering if there are those who have that can provide some input.
The soaring folks use spoilers all the time. In the book “The Joy of Soaring”, by Carle Conway, he compares flaps and spoilers this way… “Spoilers decrease a wing’s lift whereas flaps increase it and the both increase drag…assuming no change in pitch attitude – opening spoilers causes the glider to sink while decelerating, whereas lowering the flaps causes it to balloon…conversely closing the spoilers will check the rate of descent while accelerating, whereas raising the flaps will increase the rate of descent.”
In the world of four-wheel drive off-roading, the experienced only use 4 wheel drive to get them out of trouble, not into it. Just as the 4x4 feature is a tool held in reserve, so too can the spoiler be used to correct problems in the approach. If all approaches are setup with half-spoiler, the spoiler can be used to augment the effect of thrust modulation in achieving or maintaining proper glide slope and speed. Ideally the spoiler lever would be aligned laterally with the throttle quadrant.
My desire is to design my plane with features that will help me mitigate some of these links in the accident cause chain. Of particular interest is the Spoiler/Speed Brake.
I believe that a good habit for a pilot is to utilize every landing as an opportunity to practice a dead stick approach. This calls for precision control and use of energy to reach the ground at a precise location, velocity, and glide slope.
Because hitting the numbers on the runway is easier with a steeper glide slope, and greater speed in the pattern is safer from an anti-stall stand point, I prefer an approach that is a little high and a little fast. This of course means that I’ve got to kill off some excess energy in order to achieve a stabilized approach attitude and 1.1X stall speed at touchdown.
I’m wondering if spoilers are just the tool to achieve this extra level of approach control. I’ve never used spoilers so I’m wondering if there are those who have that can provide some input.
The soaring folks use spoilers all the time. In the book “The Joy of Soaring”, by Carle Conway, he compares flaps and spoilers this way… “Spoilers decrease a wing’s lift whereas flaps increase it and the both increase drag…assuming no change in pitch attitude – opening spoilers causes the glider to sink while decelerating, whereas lowering the flaps causes it to balloon…conversely closing the spoilers will check the rate of descent while accelerating, whereas raising the flaps will increase the rate of descent.”
In the world of four-wheel drive off-roading, the experienced only use 4 wheel drive to get them out of trouble, not into it. Just as the 4x4 feature is a tool held in reserve, so too can the spoiler be used to correct problems in the approach. If all approaches are setup with half-spoiler, the spoiler can be used to augment the effect of thrust modulation in achieving or maintaining proper glide slope and speed. Ideally the spoiler lever would be aligned laterally with the throttle quadrant.
