STOL kits (Robertson, Horton etc) for the Cessna SEPs - do they work?

True (with the claims discounted) besides

small (<5%) increase in cruise speed and service ceiling

The consensus is that you lose cruise speed in the order of 3-4kt.

I wonder if @stolman is reading this

See this.

I have an R172k with a Horton kit and as far as I am concerned it does ALL that is claimed. Take off roll from grass with 1/2 tanks and just me can be as low as 120 feet roll. Landing is truly a doddle and below 40knots. I occasionally use a strip that is 240 metres long (no obstacle either end).

I have flown (quite a bit) a C182 that had the Peterson conversion, i.e. STOL kit and more powerful (260hp) engine. It certainly is an amazing machine to fly, essentially you shove the power handle forward and you’re airborne. Also remains incredibly maneuverable at slow speeds and can land on a dime. That said, I think it does lose some speed over the non-modded airplanes, at least the one I flew wasn’t faster than a stock 182 despite having 25 more horses up front.

All Israeli Airforce C206 were installed with the Robertson kits. The aircraft used to fly fully loaded into short (~500m) high alt. strip/s in the dessert

I have no doubt that all these kits will do exactly what it says in the flight manual but the limiting factor is the ability of the average PPL to fly the aircraft accuracy.

In the U.K. There seems to be a cultural thing that has pilots adding approach speed for “safety” reasons with the Vat ending up 10 or more knots above what it should be. Some of this comes from the the airline wannabes who see these airliner cockpit videos and think they should be adding all sorts of speed increments for the approach the results can be seen when aircraft float half way down the runway as the extra energy is bled off in the flare.

I guess I should not say too much as aircraft running off the far end of the runway keeps my repair business ticking over.

http://www.planecheck.com?ent=da&id=38609

A rare 182A for sale in Europe, particularly rare as it hasn’t worked the salt mines of parachute jumping (meat bombing). These are particularly in demand in the US where you are getting a 180 airframe for less than half the typical 180 price.

My confidence in spending the kid’s inheritance doesn’t quite go to feeding a 60 year old airframe, but with a range of engine STCs

https://www.avweb.com/news/maint/181623-1.html

and the ability to fit a 414 nose fork and 7.00 or 8.50 tyres,

the higher landing gear, 40 degree manual Johnson-bar flaps, Super Cub style screw jack stabilator trim and 1000 lbs useful load, this is a serious farm strip aircraft which can climb at 1500 fpm (with an engine STC) and cruise at 130-140 KTAS.

With an EW of 1650 lbs and 260-300HP the ability to take off short is self explanatory. Fitting them for light IFR is quite straightforward these days (GNC255 plus KL94).

Unfortunately you can pick up low time 1970’s 8.33 IFR equipped versions for the asking price, or less, of this old timer, but in the USA low time 182A and B airframes are very much in demand.

I owned N738LS a 1979 skylane turbo RG and flew it for 20 years. It had the Robertson kit with the wing tips
you could get the gear down, idle the throttle and slowly raise the nose to try to induce a power off stall
it would gentle settle down into a 35 MPH descent with minor rudder input and at about 300 f/m rate
great noise coming from the struts, you could make it sing. Landing roll at that configuration always allowed me to
turn on the first exit of all airports I landed in. Unfortunately (and this is common to all 182’s) TAS was always 155-160 at
the most. Eventually I got tired of taking so long to go west that I built a IV-P but there is always a special place in my heart
for that skylane, 2000 hrs in it and never bit me except for one severe icing episode that removed the paint from the leading
edges over Colorado at 18,000 feet but that is another story. Not the airplane’s fault neither mine, no forecast of icing before.