Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Extra 400

Fantastic – and good music choice to go with it, very heroic ! I didn’t realise you could set a record in the descent. So far my max is 300kts, in the cruise though, and at normal cruise settings.

EGTF, LFTF

Wow! 341 KTS GS ! Even if in descent, impressive for a “humble” SEP!

I guess Galatea is no longer a “humble” SEP but more like the king of SEP’s!

Antonio
LESB, Spain

@Snoopy wrote:

Nice video, impressive groundspeed. I like the autopilot panel at the top of the glareshield. Is the copilot display a tablet?

It is an iPad pro with a 4G card and a FlightStream 210 interface. Garmin Pilot has become a very impressive piece of software. The other day I discovered that it now offers near-real time weather updates (rain, thunder, wind) as one of many overlays. Not quite an ADL but cool!
Installing a panel mounted iPad here was a big bet: I put my money on the fast paced evolution of tablet-based avionics, and so far so good…

AP in the center top is indeed very nice, this is standard E400 cockpit layout.
My avionics guy did not let me move the gear and flap switches higher back then, I should have fought harder for this… present position is downright stupid.

@boscomantico wrote:

OT, but what is involved in flying from Toussus to CH (or vice versa), customs-wise?

LFPN is a disaster. They have crazy ATC hours and when there is no ATC the airport is restricted to based traffic. On top of that they have a noise control system called Calipso and this requires you to go do a noise test flight if your aircraft is unknown, or suffer a ban during sensitive hours.

As Mooney_Driver wrote, the real ace in this game is Geneva: it has both French and Swiss Customs so for departure purposes at Toussus it may be considered an inner-French flight…
In fact, being based in LSGG, you are in Switzerland AND in the EU. No more customs misery…
One major drawback of Geneva : no IFR for SEP on weekends all winter. VERY dangerous…. AMHIK

@denopa wrote:

Fantastic – and good music choice to go with it, very heroic ! I didn’t realise you could set a record in the descent. So far my max is 300kts, in the cruise though, and at normal cruise settings.

300 in cruise is very nice speed. On this flight we did not achieve that. In fact Galatea was maybe 3 knots slower than usual for some mysterious reason….
Well then you know the thrill of riding a jetstream! :-)))
The music (in fact the whole video) was of course meant as a tongue in cheek thing ;)

@Antonio wrote:

Wow! 341 KTS GS ! Even if in descent, impressive for a “humble” SEP!
I guess Galatea is no longer a “humble” SEP but more like the king of SEP’s!

Yep, I was very impressed too. Was just hoping to reclaim the crown from a UK-based fellow E400 pilot :-)
The funny bit is that even at this speed, indicated airspeed was just barely entering the yellow arc… (188 KIAS).

Last Edited by Flyingfish at 05 Feb 21:01
LSGG, LFEY, Switzerland

The music (in fact the whole video) was of course meant as a tongue in cheek thing ;)

I’m envious anyway !

The funny bit is that even at this speed, indicated airspeed was just barely entering the yellow arc… (188 KIAS).

That’s what I noticed, that’s a great advantage vs the Mirage at 168KIAS. One of the many things Piper got right with the M600 is the increased VNO (250kias).

EGTF, LFTF

@denopa wrote:

That’s what I noticed, that’s a great advantage vs the Mirage at 168KIAS. One of the many things Piper got right with the M600 is the increased VNO (250kias).

The E400 airframe is really remarkable in the descent.
The relatively short wingspan makes for a very comfortable ride in turbulence, and I do not recall a single time I had to reduce rate of descent due to shaking.
Just cuts through turbulence like a knife and you can’t help a satisfied smile…
Really too bad Extra did not figure out a way to cut manufacturing cost. I made a back of the envelope calculation and it adds up to well over a million Euro….
Manpower alone was 16’000 hours!

LSGG, LFEY, Switzerland

You went for the top spot. Cool! Congrats!

LPFR, Poland

Heard this fly overhead in March last year with a 117kt tailwind. Pretty impressive too!

Nonetheless, congratulations on breaking your record!

EDLN/EDLF, Germany

Wow nice catch! 299 knots in a Cirrus must also be a record!
Flying home tomorrow, we plan on riding the jet stream of storm Dennis. The plan is to overfly and overtake the fast moving front and land before it hits Switzerland
This timing makes us to miss the “best” part of the tail wind: well over 100 knots. W’ll have a quartering tail wind instead…

This was one complicated weather planning session. I moved landing time from 1800 local to 1300 local based upon Wx.
I hope to avoid excessive icing exposure this way. FIKI or not, the less of this stuff the better.
Also expecting some turbulence…
This is one flight I would have rejected in the DA40…

Last Edited by Flyingfish at 16 Feb 23:01
LSGG, LFEY, Switzerland

We survived! Here’s is the video



And here is a great one which was taken in 1997. Must have been Walter himself given the slightly unusual attitudes



LSGG, LFEY, Switzerland

@denopa have you been able to improve your intercooler’s performance? Forgive my curiosity but I am very keen to get some reliable reference points on my quest to remove this limitation.
I find it strange that your TIT is a limiting factor in the climb. I am here making assumptions without knowing your engine:

TIT is correlated to EGTs which are really driven by mixture. If it were my engine, I would look for a way to feed it more fuel so as to reduce EGTs.
Ever considered this?

LSGG, LFEY, Switzerland
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top