Lancair 320

I prefer living chicken to dead eagles anyway ….

Jojo,
You are an instructor, you fly aerobatics and you have a real passion for aviation. Also, it is clear what you can and cannot do with this aircraft mission-wise, if only because of the valuable comments on this forum. So, you can handle this aircraft no doubt.
I’d say, follow the famous female intuition and go for it. And come to LESB soon and show that lovely bird to me on a nice VMC all the way day!
You mention sharing the plane. I’m assuming you have found a suitable partner and have talked things through thoroughly. Here’s where you need to make sure you two are compatible.

Oh, and i forgot to mention that although opinions may vary the plain truth is of course that the Lancair is almost as beautiful as a DA42 which is a good reason in itself to get one. I have this image of a spacecraft being in low earth orbit (you mentioned being a circuit rat) now igniting its booster and go for the stars!
OK, I had some great wine tonight, maybe I’m getting carried away a bit..

Until recently I shared a hangar with one of these at Denham. A very nice aircraft but the owner recently re-located to another airfield because he found EGLD’s 750m a bit too short.

Glide ratio is one thing, but what counts when the engine stops is descent rate and IAS. Paragliders also have a glide ratio of about 10:1, but the IAS is low, so the descent rate is correspondingly low. With 120 KIAS and 10:1 your descent rate is 12 knots. In a C-172 the descent rate is about 7 knots or less (considering a glide ratio of about 10:1) In a C-172 you will have twice the time to prepare for an emergency landing, and the landing itself will be much more gentle.

1:10 is about the same as a draggy Cessna airframe. How do a bad glide ratio and the Lancair’s rapid acceleration in descent go together? I was under the impression that the bad glide rate of the Cessna allows me to descent steeply with relatively low airspeed.

Doesn’t low drag coincide with a good glide ratio?

Well, you don’t optimise for best L/D, do you? The trick is, that although drag is low, the lift coefficient is quite low, too, because the speed is high and so is the wing loading. I was puzzled about the low L/D, too, but the optimization isn’t driven by high L/D.

Have a look at gliders in the open class. Those with highest L/D are good for weak weather and going far utilizing the whole day, but in speed competition gliding the wing loading is limited by the huge wing areas and limited weight. As a consequence, open class competition gliders get smaller again, allowing for higher wing loadings and thus faster races in good weather for central competitions and championships.

Cheers,

With 120 KIAS and 10:1 your descent rate is 12 knots. In a C-172 the descent rate is about 7 knots or less (considering a glide ratio of about 10:1) In a C-172 you will have twice the time to prepare for an emergency landing, and the landing itself will be much more gentle.

Nope. If it all goes quiet up front you fly and trim for best glide, which for most GA types is in the 70-80kt range. You don’t barrel down at 120kts. That said, I don’t know what best glide is for the Lancair 320, but would be surprised if it was much (if at all) out of this range.

If the engine is stopped and the prop is windmilling, the glide ratio will be nowhere near optimum. Then you come down at some relatively high speed like 120 kts, but before you get close to ground you slow a highly loaded wing to prepare for landing in a field at more like 60 kts. The plane then starts sinking like a rock because you’re left of the drag bucket. It’s not particularly important to me how easy the glide can be managed when the engine is running, but its pretty important when its stopped.

Nope. If it all goes quiet up front you fly and trim for best glide, which for most GA types is in the 70-80kt range. You don’t barrel down at 120kts. That said, I don’t know what best glide is for the Lancair 320, but would be surprised if it was much (if at all) out of this range.

Ir was said further up that the glide ratio of a Lancair was 10:1 at a speed of 120 knots.