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Low wing versus high wing

@Peter wrote,

I reckon this higher fatal ditching rate for low wing is due to the majority of low wings flying are single door types

Perhaps also because, as noted above and with some notable exceptions, low wing aircraft are faster – and stall at higher airspeed – than their high wing counterparts.

Many of us perceive higher cruising/landing speed as an advantage per se, despite the potential safety consequences which go beyond the obvious increase in real door-to-door journey times.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

Jacko wrote:

Myth 2: If I Have to Ditch, I’m Better Off in a Low Wing Than a High Wing Airplane

Also low wings and RGs land faster, I don’t see many of them in STOL competitions
Entry ticket is usually one door high wing, these will ditch or flip better IMO

Last Edited by Ibra at 11 Mar 10:28
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom
All good arguments in favour of high wing, but in this age of social inclusion we must respect and support the low-wingers, trans-wingers and non-binary-wingers among us.

Burt Rutan was equally openminded, back in the early 1980’ies. At the time I read about this non-binary-winger and all of its 18 horsepower and thought it was really cool.

huv
EKRK, Denmark

My dad built and flew a Dragonfly, which was a scaled up two seat version of the Quickie. It was a nice flying plane, with the exception of having an exceptionally flat glide ratio coupled with the difficultly in implementing drag producing devices with that wing configuration. That made landing an issue anyplace where you might have a hill or even a road at the approach end of the runway. To get it down, my dad used to put it in a full rudder side slip for the entire duration of final approach. It would however do something like 145 mph indicated on 3 US gph with two very comfortable people on board.

It was very safe aerodynamically, I was in it one time when the VW engine (fuel system) quit, we had a safe glide to slow speed forced landing. Another time the ignition failed at 500 ft on the upwind over a densely populated area and my dad (who was not a greatly skilled stick and rudder pilot) was without any other reasonable choice able to turn back to land with front wing sequentially stalling and unstalling all the way around, completely safely.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 14 Mar 18:18

Silvaire wrote:

my dad (who was not a greatly skilled stick and rudder pilot) was without any other reasonable choice able to turn back to land with front wing sequentially stalling and unstalling all the way around, completely safely.

I sometimes wonder why this type of design never took off in mainstream airplanes. The only canard I’ve ever flown was a C182 Petersen Katmai conversion and the stall characteristic were nothing short of amazing.

The main issues with canards are long take-off distance due to zero elevator authority until airborne, difficulty (although not impossibility) of implementing aerodynamic glide path control, and longitudinal CG range.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 14 Mar 18:47

Here it is, black on white – statistics show that high wings have less fatalities than low wings:

AvWeb safety statistics

Here’s a bit of a curiosity: Figure 5 also shows the wing position of each aircraft—high, low, or mid (typically canards). Note when a speed range has both low- and high-wing airplanes: The fatality rates of the high-wing airplanes are almost always lower.

Why is this? A high-wing airplane generally surrounds the cabin with a structural cage. As long as the occupants are prevented from bashing their heads into that structure, a high-wing airplane probably offers better protection.

Last Edited by AdamFrisch at 14 Mar 18:55
Here it is, black on white – statistics show that high wings have less fatalities than low wings:

I would not conclude so firmly. Yes, the high wings may offer better protection in case of tipping over etc., but what the numbers say is that accident severity is fairly well related to cruise speed. In fact, figure 5 shows that high wingers are right on the average line.

Figure 4 shows some high wingers with low fatality percentage, and low wingers being worse off, but 3 of the 4 low wingers are the C172, the C150 and the PA18, airplanes with very low wing loading and low stall and cruise speeds. C210 with its high wing loading are right up there with the heavy low wingers.

The Diamond DA40 is mentioned but not included in the figure. It is right down there with the C172, despite having higher speeds and wing loading. That, and the Columbia/Corvalis, are two designs that are statistically safer than other types with similar performance. I do not think it has much to do with how the wing is attached, but I would guess it is rather its flying qualities, good visibility and well though out crashworthiness.

I have never seen any evidence that wing position makes a statistical difference for safety and this source does not qualify either.

huv
EKRK, Denmark

It turns out you can have both!



Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Looks like the worst of 2 worlds. The only advantage I can think of is saving hangar space. I must be missing something, please enlighten me!

Private field, Mallorca, Spain
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