BeechTalk - BT

Username Protected · **Posted:** 28 Jan 2015, 11:49

Nate, if the crash landing is controlled and does not end up head on into the side of a mountain or a tree it is very survivable and most likely with very little damage to the plane and no injuries to the occupants. The key is maintaining proper speed control until touchdown and leaving the gear up unless you are over a runway.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 28 Jan 2015, 15:52

the answer is yes, you can purchase a CAPS system and install it on an experimental

Username Protected · **Posted:** 29 Jan 2015, 00:10

I know of one Lancair ES built by a shop in Oregon that successfully installed a BRS chute.

The keep your speed up approach works, at the point fire becomes the enemy. Know a guy that left a 100 yard skid mark in an open field in his legacy, had a post crash fire and is still in the hospital, accident was late October. You sit extremely close to fuel lines in the 360/legacy airplanes.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 29 Jan 2015, 06:12

Username Protected wrote:

The 360 is a fun plane. The Glasair III is 3x the fun and is a better plane IMO. The cockpit in the 360 is tiny. Any of the high wing loaded / high performance wing designs have excessive sink rates when slow. With the gear down in my Glasair and power off it is a 4000 ft per minute sink rate at 120 knots indicated. With the gear up it is closer to 1500 FPM.

You learn not to fly them slow. There is never a reason to be slow in these planes unless you want to permanently retire your flying career. They also require you keep the ball centered when maneuvering for landing. They are not as forgiving as your Bonanza.

With that said, I find the Glasair III extremely easy to fly and is by far the best handling plane I have ever flown and that includes my TS-11 Iskra that was nearly twice as fast. It is hard to describe the handling.

Todd,

Can you provide performance numbers for your Glasair III such as cruise, climb rate, range, etc. What is the configuration of plane; horsepower, total fuel, wing extensions, empty weight? Where are you located?

Hans

Username Protected · **Posted:** 29 Jan 2015, 10:30

[/quote]

Todd,

Can you provide performance numbers for your Glasair III such as cruise, climb rate, range, etc. What is the configuration of plane; horsepower, total fuel, wing extensions, empty weight? Where are you located?

Hans[/quote]

Hi Hans,

Main wing tanks tanks are 58 gallons and 68 gallons with wingtips on. This fuel is simply "ON" even with the tips on. There is no transfer pump. There is also a header tank that is 8 gallons that is considered your "reserve" fuel. This fuel is selected by moving the selector from "main" to "header." The header tank gravity feeds to the engine. So, you have 66 gallons with no wing tips and 76 with the tips.

I also installed a quick-remove 10 gallon baggage tank that uses a facet fuel pump to pump this fuel to the wings. It takes about 15 minutes for the transfer. So, with this tank you have 86 gallons if you require it.

Performance at gross: About 1600 ft of ground roll and 2800 ft to clear 50-ft obstacle (conservative). I personally do not fly out of less than 4k for many reasons.

You climb at 140 knots indicated which gives you about 2k per minute and you lose about 75 FPM climb ability per 1000 ft at 140 knots indicated. At 11k ft using WOT/2500 RPM you are burning 13-13.5 GPH with a TAS of 215 knots. I use 15 GPH as a total fuel burn average to be conservative, but it ends up being closer to 14.

IFR reserve range with baggage tank is 1075 NM and without is roughly 900 NM.

I think my empty weight is around 1700 lbs with a gross of 2600. It is a 300HP angle valve IO540 Lycoming with Lightspeed ignition.

Auburn, IN KGWB

**BTW, I'm expecting my new prop to give me another 5-7 knots in cruise and slightly better climb.

Adding a Lancair 320/360 to the fleet?