Almost sounded like you were mimicking a blip switch when you landed.


Wheels

LOL.

Mike said that depending on how the aircraft was pointed the sound of the engine really changed.

At idle, though, she's really quiet.

He goofed up recording on his camera, but the other guy didn't and is going to upload what he has on his phone to me Monday or Tuesday, and I'll have some sexy stuff to make a video of.

Bunches of folks only ever show the good stuff where they grease it in, which is kind of sad. I tend to advertise the not-so-good, as it's more interesting and informative.

In this case, what screwed me up was overthinking my landing point. I was dropping like a rock, and throttled up to halt it - and thought maybe I should extend to land closer to the guys. And then thought that was dumb and I should just land. And, naturally, bounced it. Once I had the wheels down I glanced up at them and wound up a little off track of centerline, and instead of just pulling the stick back got cute with the rudder first.

The swishy-swish stuff after the tail was down, though, was purely for comedic effect.

Still, no wing scrub, no wheels bent, so it's all good in my book!

Good stuff !

Maybe it’s because I’m looking for it, but I still see anhedral in the video.

Old, that illusion is being caused by the fact that the Nieuport's upper wing has a slight sweep back to it. At least the real one does, anyway. I'm sure Dart's replica does, also. Swept wing jets will give that illusion, too, at some angles.

Yep, seven degree sweep, just like the original.

You weren't joking about the glideslope of a rock. I'm surprised that your "fat ultralight" doesn't do better in that department - i.e. it does look really steep without power?

Power off best glide is about a 10 degree down angle - if one goes engine out, look at what's below you.

I'll see if I can get my little screen capture program to agree with me and make a video of what CloudAhoy recorded during the "flight after repair" landing. It is instructive to see just why I bounced the heck outta the aircraft - hint: it is in fact all pilot error.

The entire aircraft is an exercise in how to induce as much drag as possible and still have it fly with a small engine and prop.

But she’s a pretty string bag ! And you are such a joyful adventurer.

I'm sure a lot of people look at your Airplane, Dart, and think, "Boy, I bet that's easy to fly, huh?" But with that small wingspan, flat nose, wires, struts...etc.. I'm not surprised that she glides like brick zeppelin. And I'm sure you're bouncing around a lot and dancing on those rudder pedals, right?
People thought that my Sonex looked like a handful. But it wasn't. I actually was surprised at how easy she was to handle. And being a taildragger I was just waiting for the day I groundlooped it. But I never even came close.
Speaking of that, how is that little Nieuport when she's back down on earth? Tap dancing practice?

Once she's down, she's down, and ground handling is very straight forward. Like every tail dragger, one must be ready to put on dancing shoes at any time, though.

The thing I'm trying to figure out is rounding her out from that descent into a more gentle landing angle and attitude AND not going too fast at the same time. The days of mile long finals are done with this aircraft; they're not really helpful and it's not like one can see well out of the front of the windscreen.

With an aircraft like this the notion of "what did the panel say" is irrelevant. If you're looking at the panel you're about to do something very bad with the ground. This is all eyes up, looking at the horizon, the ground, and how the plane looks against them kind of aircraft.

But I cheat. Usually I have a little app - CloudAhoy - running on a tablet in the aircraft that tracks the aircraft via GPS, and even takes in reported winds to figure true airspeed. It's not 100%, but it's pretty darned good* and has been invaluable in figuring out the "V numbers" of the aircraft.

* CloudAhoy does not like really tight turns in the "simulated glass cockpit" mode. It just doesn't render 60 degree banked turns that make a circle of less than 700 feet. It also assumes one is in a nose geared aircraft, so while it's really good on takeoff, on landing it assumes that when one slows to a certain point the plane is level rather than tail low. It's super minor, but always takes me by surprise. It also will lose track from time to time, so one looks like they had lag on the server - in real life.

I'm not saying she drops like a rock when one pulls the power, but...

Here's a little something I put together for a possible presentation at my next EAA meeting (we're really desperate for content):

Would it be correct to say that these designs trade appearance for flying characteristics? Not a bad trade if so

Very cool. I just downloaded that app. Thanks for turning me on to it.

I see on your approach analysis that it only knows ground speed. I know you have been flying in light winds so the difference in airspeed versus ground speed isn’t all that great and shouldn’t throw that speed number off too much, but don’t forget to factor it in. If your groundspeed was 55 then your airspeed was slightly greater. So even more propensity to bounce and float.

I wouldn’t be to hard on yourself about landings. Unlike production aircraft you don’t have a POH produced by engineers and test pilots. That is you. So you are establishing approach procedures and power settings. And without flaps and trim, it is all less forgiving. So all you have to work with is power setting and flare. You are flying it to the ground. And this is the test pilot stage. Shaking things out.

Yeah, 600 is a lot of down. To me I would try initial aim point short of runway, round out to get a much lower sink rate, add just a bit of power (just a couple hundred RPM) and then go for your landing aimpoint with a flatter approach, and just fly her to the ground. You had the airspeed to have allowed for more pulling back without stalling. That would lessen the sink rate.

I found my Cardinal landings were better with just a couple hundred additional RPM above idle. A full chopped throttle made the bottom drop out and a plonk. Part of the Cardinals landing being different than a 172 is the different wing design on the early ones like mine. They had laminar flow wings that really lost lift at low speed. So the transition on landing from flying to dropping happened fast right at flare. So I had to change what I knew from training with the 172.

Yes, the constantly learning is part of the fascination of aviation. And the fun of it...as long as you don't break the airplane, and yourself. My Sonex was a whole new flying experience for me. ...Never had an airplane that I could fly upside down, before! And I had gotten use to lowering the flaps to full down on landing on other airplanes, mostly Cessnas. You don't do that on the Sonex. Not on mine, at least. It was like hanging two barn doors outside of the airplane. First time I did it, I had a landing the may have been a bit worse than Darts. The Sonex was still vibrating a bit as I was rolling to stop. Learning.
You're having way too much fun. Seeing all of this makes me want to go up again.

Thanks, y'all!

It really is a conversation one has with the aircraft, learning each other's language.

OG:

CloudAhoy does in fact account for wind - there just wasn't any of measure on that flight!

Here's a screenshot from my first cross country over to St. Clair County:



If one squints, they can see the little airplane on the lower right of the track, flying south before the turn back to the airport.

It takes reported winds from airport stations as well as NOAA and extrapolates, which is pretty cool. Not super accurate, but not bad - I couldn't argue with what it spat out.

On the course itself in that flight, note that I went around the large patches of forest, opting to stay over handy fields.

Humph, CloudAhoy looks like PlanG (kinda) for FSX and P3D

It would not surprise me if there wasn't some inspiration there.

Having a tablet with GPS and tilt sensors record while an aircraft is in flight and then overlaying it onto Google Earth isn't exactly rocket surgery - but what impresses me is how they grabbed the NOAA data on winds at different altitudes to do the airspeed calculations. They're not 100%, of course, but pretty good.

There's a host of ways to view a flight - over a sectional, a road map, Google Earth (including "3D" terrain), as well as bunches of data charts one can pull up.

It also knows when one is at an airport and does the designation for it.

I'm pretty stoked that Saturday's forecast for the airport is "Mostly Sunny," 67 degrees, and winds at 2 MPH. Wife better not have anything planned or I'm going to be one grumpy fellow.

Because I'm shameless...

Your taxi speed looked just about as fast as your high speed flyby.


Wheels