Sport Pilot Talk

Warmi is one (or more) of these, all of which have one word in common:
Student Pilot
Sport Pilot
Recreational Pilot
Private Pilot
Commercial Pilot
Airline Transport Pilot
Remote Pilot

Congrats on your solo!

Merlinspop wrote:
Congrats on your solo!

++

My instructor's way of teaching is very similar to that of drseti, since he considers any landing where I have to resort to adding power , a failure.
Thus , all my landings , including these today , were pretty much always idle abeam numbers and glide my way thru to base/final.

Harder than a basic long final, power-on descent , especially with any sort of crosswind, but more fun at the same time.

Obviously, I approve.

Congrats on your solo! I realize I'm a newbie but if you have to add power, you have to add power. I thought the goal is a safe landing.

Well, I'll revise my standards, and say that having to add power in a landing is a failure only if you have no power to add.

drseti wrote:Well, I'll revise my standards, and say that having to add power in a landing is a failure only if you have no power to add.

Forum needs a "Like" button.

rcpilot wrote:Congrats on your solo! I realize I'm a newbie but if you have to add power, you have to add power. I thought the goal is a safe landing.

Well, obviously if we need to add power and we have power available (which thankfully so far has always been the case ) ... we do so

I guess his thinking is more along the lines of : don't make it into a habit fixing your power-off landing glide setup with , well, more power.

Congrats on the Solo, hoping to do the same very soon depending on weather. Just did my Stage Check and passed

joey4420 wrote:Congrats on the Solo, hoping to do the same very soon depending on weather. Just did my Stage Check and passed

Thanks and have fun on yours.

In my case, I was quite nervous while taxing/talking to Ground/Tower but once I got rolling and up there , I was just too busy and concentrated to even remember about worrying ...

Warmi - congrats on your solo! That is a major accomplishment!

In terms of having to add power on landing... that's what my CFI called a "high performance landing." Great when you have the power available (e.g. soft field landing), but bad practice to use it as a crutch to landing as you may not always have the power available to you as DrSeti and others have stated. At this formative stage of training, you want to be able to build up the skills and coordination to know approximately what height you need to be assure landing without the need of power.

drseti wrote:Obviously, I approve.

Question for drseti ....

I was browsing your school's website and noticed that you are using Evektor SportStar , which does indeed look very sporty ...
The place I am training at, used to have an Evektor but they sold it cause , according to them , nobody wanted to fly that thing in Chicago's summer weather and everyone opted for Remos Gx ( their other plane, with doors out ) instead.

How do you guys handle this rather nasty problem of having to fly in what is essentially a green-house

( asking cause I am thinking at some point about getting a plane and a low-wing was by first choice, but now, the whole story about green-house planes in Chicago weather gives a pause )

I have a Zenith 601. It has small vents on both sides of the canopy as well as air vents on the sides of the the fuselage ahead of the cockpit that during flight, let in enough breeze that it's not uncomfortable. On the ground is another matter. I have something to leave the canopy open a crack while I taxi and do my run up but it still can get a bit toasty. Of course they make sunshades that people swear by but I've not used one yet.

Depending upon the specific model of SportStar, Evektor has offered four different types of cabin cooling:
Two round, rotating vents in front of canopy
Two sliding glider-type windows in sides of canopy
Two Wiemac style vents at sides of instrument panel
An airbox heat/cool air outlet on front cabin floor, controlled by bowden cables.

In addition, two different types of sunshade are available, one fixed, the other flexible.

Yes, on the ground it gets damned hot, unless you taxi with the canopy open (this is authorized). In the air, depending upon which cabin venting system a given plane has (I've owned two different models), should be no problem.

If I were ordering new, I'd specify the wiemacs, plus the sliding glider windows, plus the floor-mounted airbox, plus the fixed or move able sunshade. Right now, I have just the fixed sunshade, the wiemacs, and the airbox.

My take on canopies...

The rewards outweighs the drawbacks.

In our Sky Arrow, one can bake in the sun - especially the pilot:



But the view is amazing enough that I can live with that:



1) On hot days we taxi with the canopy open, closing it right before takeoff.

2) In the summer months we usually climb to smoother air where its also cooler - usually 6,500' or more if we're going somewhere, winds permitting.

3) I utilize suction-cup sunscreen to cut the glare on my iPad and maybe help out with skin cancer.



To each his own, but I happily put up with the downsides for the feeling of airiness a canopy brings with it.