182S Yahoo!

DrBenny

New Member
Normal/soft/power-off landings/VOR + GPS NAV (KLN89B)



First flight as PIC in the Cessna 182S. Thought I’d take it out and practice a bit! I'll admit I was a bit nervous for the first few minutes of the flight. Everything is so powerful and fast, and I kept myself nervous by trying not to think of the fact that this was my first time alone in the 182S (don't think of a pink elephant, and all that!).But, I had re-memorized all of the procedures last night. I chair flew patterns, emergency-outs, etc. I even prepared the flight--a short 21 n.m. hop over to DMW--as if it were a cross-country. In short, I overprepared. It worked.





As the flight progressed, I went through all the checklists, and nothing was coming as a surprise. I navigated using the three methods available to me--pilotage, VOR, and GPS. I checked and re-checked engine instruments. As for the power and fuel flows, I had that all planned, and everything worked like a charm. All that worry about leaning once I got to cruise--funny, but assuming I had leaned in the climb, the fuel flows were right where they should have been, without further fuss.It was a bit hazy today, and the return trip was into haze and sun making it difficult to spot traffic. I knew someone was headed my direction off of Frederick, and I spotted him about two miles away, announced that I saw him, and gave us some elbow room by moving to the right.



I had crosswinds on all of my landings, so I had some good practice. My first landing was about a B, but each one got better from there. All the touchdowns were good. Again, the best deal was to make sure I flew that pattern by the numbers, and did not accept anything but a completely stabilized approach. The more stabilized I was, the smoother, more business-like the transitions from level to flare to landing were. As evidence, on the first landing I wasn't as stabilized with my airspeed on the approach (there was a hill that descended to the runway, messing with my mind), so I had to monkey with the throttle a bit. After turning off the runway and reprimanding myself for not stabilizing, I flew a much better pattern which resulted in a much cleaner approach and landing. Like a lady, if you know how to treat her with respect, she'll treat you right!



Oh, and cruises were consistently at 130 kts.


YAHOOO!!!
 
What airport do you fly out of, MTN?

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All the touchdowns were good.

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Don't normally hear that from new 182 pilots
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When I fly the 182S (or the new 172), I fly out of FDK; when I do my IR training, it is out of BWI.

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Don't normally hear that from new 182 pilots

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That's odd. Even during the checkout flights, I NEVER had a landing that I would call bad. I did have some not-too-stabilized approaches, but even they ended softly enough. The 182 is a real pussycat to land, I think.

Oh, another thing about today--I got to practice a slam dunk. On one approach I was really about 300 feet too high once I turned final. My first impulse was to go around, but then I thought, why not try a power-off? If you don't like it, you can go around. So, I just cut power then and there, pushed the prop forward, went full flaps, and pitched for 70 KIAS. That nose drops like a rock without power!
 
Good work. Practicing that high approach is good ... you should be comfortable enough with your skills and the aircraft to know when you can correct a less-than-ideal approach ... if you can safely fix it (as it sounds like you did) then great ... if not, don't for a moment hesitate to go around and get it set up properly.

Glad you're enjoying the Skylane! They're good, solid airplanes, and I liked flying them ... about as stable and easy-to-fly as you can get in a high-performance airplane.

FL270
 
Good point about the go-around. Of course, we did a few of those in the checkout flights. The thing you have to watch for there is the INCREDIBLE tendency for the nose to point straight up. I almost felt that I shouldn't go full power on the go around (if I was doing it early enough); rather, I should go maybe to 23 inches, trim, then go full power and trim again.

Right. And the dirty little secret about the hi-perf Skylane is that it is EASY to land! The transition is not all that hard as I thought it would be.
 
Want a wild ride? Try demonstrating an elevator trim stall in one of those.

Power off, set up approach config., trim for hands off, then go full power without fighting the yoke forward right away.

YOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
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Oh, and P.S.: Make sure you've got plenty of altitude...
 
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Want a wild ride? Try demonstrating an elevator trim stall in one of those.

Power off, set up approach config., trim for hands off, then go full power without fighting the yoke forward right away.

YOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
shocked.gif
blush.gif
crazy.gif



Oh, and P.S.: Make sure you've got plenty of altitude...

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Will the nose have a tendancy to go straight down"
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This brings two thoughts to mind:

1) If you think you might go around, try to start it earlier. If you don't like how things look at 300' AGL, you can add power a bit more gradually than if you are in the flare attitude.

2) If you do have to go around with a blast of full power, RIGHT NOW, remember you are going to have to push like a mother to keep that nose at Vx or even Vy. Hopfully you have electric trim!
 
A cool trick my CFI taught me on those high approaches....take out some flaps and pull back slightly to avoid picking up speed....you will drop like a rock and then at 50-100 agl just put them back in (depending on how brave u are)....great way to lose lots of altitude...


-Falcon
 
I'm not that brave![ QUOTE ]
A cool trick my CFI taught me on those high approaches....take out some flaps and pull back slightly to avoid picking up speed....you will drop like a rock and then at 50-100 agl just put them back in (depending on how brave u are)....great way to lose lots of altitude...


-Falcon

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Configuration change at 50' AGL? BAD IDEA!

Better to go around...
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When I was a NIFA SAFECON bubba, we weren't allowed any configuration changes below 200 AGL. Unless you really need to, that's a bad time to start screwing around with flaps....
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I've heard of this before. You are too high to drop power, and go full flaps; you're even too high to add a slip into the mix. So you essentially put the plane into a coordinated incipient stall until a couple of hundred feet AGL, when you push the nose over real fast and add power.

I certainly am not brave enough to do this, and I don't think I'd ever want to, either.

Anyway, the 182 is good at dropping real fast without such tactics--just pull the power!
 
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