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These pages are a collection of the ideas and impressions of the
Cardinal pilots who frequent this site. This information is anecdotal
and informal, and may not be completely accurate. As always, the Cessna operations and flight manual, and the advice of a certified flight instructor, should be your primary source of information regarding the safe operation of your aircraft. Contents:DescentFlaps come when? When to Drop the Gear RG specific Pattern work Two of the critical phases of the landing approach are covered in detail in two other sections of the operations pages. Check out the sections on descent and Normal Landing. You may also find interesting reading in the Crosswind page. There are a few things specific to the RG that will be covered here. Most are related to dealing with the gear itself or choices and options related to how and when to deploy the gear. Start your descent earlyThe descent page covers the basics of early descent, but the issues are magnified with the RG. With descent speeds that easily reach three miles per minute, you'll need to start down early from high cruise altitudes. My rule of thumb is based on the desire to maintain a 300 fpm descent from cruise, in part due to the sensitive ears of my family. So I figure, loosely, that I'll need three minutes for each thousand feet of altitude, and simply multiply. Cruising at 10,500, for a 850 foot airport, I need to lose 10,000 feet which will required 30 minutes. The GPS will tell you when you're 30 minutes out, but remember that you'll pick up speed in the descent and get there faster. Does one keep power on in the descent or power back? I follow a simple rule: I'll keep the power on as long as it's smooth, but will always pick airspeed based on the magnitude of the bumps. I figure I paid for all that altitude, might as well get it back as speed in the descent. Flaps come out when?With the higher cruise speeds of the RG it becomes more of an issues to know when to put out the flaps. The limit for the first notch of flaps is 130 knots, well below typical descent airspeeds. You may have noticed that I used the airport elevation for my descent planning rather than a pattern altitude. That's my hedge.. on the 1.3 degree slope that 300 fpm turns out to be, a levelout at pattern altitude will result in a slowdown that's just about right. As the speed comes through 130 knots I drop a notch of flaps, and the speed continues to bleed right into the pattern. I will be reducing power in increments as this all unfolds. When possible I use the theory of 1 inch of MP per minute, actually I do 2 every two minutes. The theory is that this is easier on cylinders, although the evidence is not clear. With practice you'll get your gear speed as you reach midfield on the downwind. If you end up with more speed and altitude than you can shed normally, try pulling the RPMs down a little. The MP will jump up, push it back out with throttle. Now you're running lower power at the same MP, and possibly getting a bit of braking from the prop. Well, probably not, it's not pushing the engine, but it feels better and goes down faster. When to Drop the GearThe gear speed for the RG is set at 125 knots, but after you've pondered the stresses on gear parts and their direct linkage to your pocketbook you may choose a different speed for the gear. Although I have not had any indication that higher speeds are hard on the gear, I choose 100 knots as my gear deployment speed. Usually the speed is coming down through 100 knots abeam the field at pattern altitude, and I drop the gear. Speed continued to come off, and I trim for 75 knots, the same as a Fg approach. A couple of things happen when you drop the gear. You will often catch a whiff of exhaust shortly after dropping the gear. For some reason dropping the gear changes the airflow enough to get a little exhaust into the cabin. CO detectors tell us that it's a small amount for a short time, and it either goes away or you get used to it pretty fast. And you're almost on the ground anyway. At about this time, the heater loses it's effectiveness, whether from the lowering airspeed or some anomaly of gear dropping I can't be sure. But I often boost the heater in the last 5 miles just to get pre-warmed in anticipation of that change. RG specific Pattern workAt this point, about to turn downwind, most things are about the same as the FG story on the normal landing page. Being an RG only adds a couple of elements. First, the GUMP check. I always check Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture and Prop when I first turn final, then look out for a wheel as my next action. Just over the fence I call out 'gear down, I have a wheel' and my wife usually answers the same. If her answer is different we have a situation! As a backup to this sequence, I also rest my thumb on top of the gear handle down final. If there is no place for my thumb I know something is wrong. I use one more trick... any time something odd happens in the pattern, either a balked landing, a change of direction, a lot of traffic, perhaps a formation low pass, I announce to myself that this is the time I'm going to forget. Statistically it's those unusual events that will trip you up. Two stories are appropriate here: A friend took his new Mooney out on a windy day. His passenger had a weak stomach, and when my friend did a go-around at his destination, the passenger lost it. On the next approach my friend moved the gear handle at the right time, but didn't realize until later that he had never put the gear up. His movement of the selector pulled the gear up rather than putting it down. That was a $75,000 error. Another friend was landing at night shortly after purchasing his Cardinal RG, and my checkout flight with him. He was thinking, critically, of my paranoia with checking gear as he flew down final. As he tells the story, his eyes looked out the window for the wheel even as his brain was telling him how foolish it was to check. Lo and behold, no wheel. Turns out his dead battery had an impact he did not anticipate on his gear functionality. So, my friends, check early, check often and check in many ways. You may still forget, but in the meantime you'll have a fighting chance to remember the gear. Once on the runway, more than one RG pilot has gotten to the end of the runway only to find that they can't steer off the runway. The problem is the mechanism that assures that the nosewheel is straight before being retracted. If you hold full back stabilator on landing, are a little rearward on your center of gravity and/or the nose gear strut is pumped up a little too high, this mechanism can keep you locked in a straight-ahead mode on the runway. The solution is easy, just a touch of brakes and down stabilator and the strut will return to it's normal, steerable state. If it does so with great difficulty you'd better check the strut inflation. That's about all there is to know about flying the RG. The extra effort is small, and the benefits are substantial. In my opinion it's the only way to fly! |