Given that the warrior is meant as a basic aircraft / trainer etc, I very much doubt it has bad enough visibility (to the point of unsafe, as you seem to describe) for the vast majority (I don’t want to set myself up with a >99.9% here) of pilots not to be able to terrain at their altitude (in level flight).
This would essentially mean not seeing the ground when taxing / taking off.
I also very much doubt that in a climb to avoid terrain, someone who was sitting a bit too low wouldn’t move their head to check what they were trying to avoid in the first place – I do still think they would be able to see it.
It could be a factor. When flying in the mountains and climbing against rising terrain, it’s a good idea to set one step of flap to lower the nose for better view ahead. I haven’t flown the warrior in such a setting I would need to look fwd for terrain, so I don’t know how it reacts, and in the Cub the view is no issue at all. In the WT9 Dynamic it’s pretty much a must, or you won’t see a thing straight ahead.
LeSving wrote:
When flying in the mountains and climbing against rising terrain, it’s a good idea to set one step of flap to lower the nose for better view ahead.
Is this in a training manual somewhere? If so could you post it in order that I could see for myself this recommendation. I just gently lower the nose by pushing the stick a notch if ever in that predicament.
we were impressed there were rock walls to the right and to the left almost during the entire climb
This is a really critical point.
In all normal GA planes, the limiting AoA for getting any climb rate is about 10 degrees. The stall AoA is around 15.
And at 10 degrees you see bugger-all ahead of you.
I have often done this, to outclimb some buildups which are near the aircraft ceiling (and they often rise at ~ 100fpm as you fly towards them, so often you don’t actually outclimb them, so TKS has to be used) and at 10 degrees AoA you cannot see ahead from the seating position. You have to prop yourself up with your arms a little, to see whether the stuff ahead is the top, or there is more taller stuff behind it.
Obviously a tall pilot would see further, but tall people are not often found in these planes because they bang their head on the ceiling.
This is another reason why you need to climb to the altitude required to pass through the entire canyon before you enter its entrance.
At cruise speed your AoA is 2.5 to 3 degrees, only.
it’s a good idea to set one step of flap to lower the nose for better view ahead.
The problem is that any flap setting reduces your angle of climb. So the improved “picture ahead” is a fallacy.
You could get an even better attitude by going to a landing flap – and have no rate of climb at all. In fact, if anywhere remotely near the ceiling, you will be sinking rapidly.
Peter wrote:
The problem is that any flap setting reduces your angle of climb
Exactly. This ‘trick’ of using flap to see ahead in a climb will kill your performance in a lot of ac types/situations.
For visibility I prefer to turn a bit or lower the nose for a couple of seconds every now and then.
Antonio wrote:
Exactly. This ‘trick’ of using flap to see ahead in a climb will kill your performance in a lot of ac types/situations.
It will kill you, not your performance…..
BeechBaby wrote:
It will kill you, not your performance
Even both!
It seems that the only use of flaps if you are about to hit something is to reduce the speed at which you arrive at it, so less damage (or perhaps no damage) occurs. That’s why they are used for landing, forced landing, or ditching.
However I can imagine a scenario – not applicable to this accident – where you find yourself between two canyon walls and having to do a very tight turn, and have loads of height under you. Then going to full flap would enable the minimum radius turn to be made, albeit with a substantial height loss unless your speed was reasonably high.
I don’t quite get that climb discussion. He was high enough, no need to climb and had a wide valley to his right, around 2 o’clock which he should (and easily could!) have flown into. A quick look at the map would have confirmed that. Instead he flew straight into a mountain which would prob90 have pretty much filled his window. To me this makes absolutely no sense.
BeechBaby wrote:
It will kill you, not your performance…..
It may help with a slow flight for PFL or tight turns tough but definitely “positive flaps” are not you “climb friend” once you float in the air…
