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RV-6 vs Lightning revisited

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vettin74(at)yahoo.com
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Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:54 am Post subject: RV-6 vs Lightning revisited

Lightning Group

   

  The Flight i did was a RV-6A with 0-360 and fixed pitch 3 blade prop......we were full fuel and 410lbs pilots and 20lbs junk in the back....... Take off roll in the RV I would estimate to be about 750 feet ( i belive this airplane has more of a cruise prop)......climb rate settled in at about 1000 FPM at 115mph...took it up to about 5000 feet since this is where i did most of my testing with the prototype lightning.....set the aircraft up for a cruise about 70% power and found that we would move along at about 160mph IAS around 173-175 TAS......I noticed that at speed the ailerons were still very light and that the slightest bumb of them would move aircraft to an unwanted direction...the owner has a wing leveler installed just for that ..he stated that the autopilot was almost a given with the RV because of the light ailerons and pilot load during XC.....The Lightnings ailerons "heavy up" with speed due too the plan  form of the wing and aileron design....this allows the pilot to do other things with out having to constantly fly it..or have an auto pilot.....At 70%power with the prototype Lightning  in same conditions our cruise will be 156-158IAS with a true of a liitle over 170mph TAS.....so very close...and climb at gross will be 1100-1200fpm at 110 mph ...keep in mind that this is the prototype Lightning  and it is not the prettiest bird nor is it the cleanest and i would expect that customer aircraft would be able to meet or exceed this easily...as far as the pitch feel Both aircraft ...at all speeds are Identical as far a I can measure or tell...a nice light feel... not twitcy or unruely but what you would expect from a high perfromance machine.....I performed several stalls in the RV and found that it did verly similar things in a stalled situation except that the RV stalled about 8-10 mph higer in the flap up or flap down configuration.....I than set the  power for about 140mh IAS and played around ...some Wingovers and steep reversals ..and many other manuvers..and found that at this speed the aircraft seemed near identical if you werent looking inside you would not have known what you your were flying except a darn good plane....Next were some landings.. I did notice that coming in to teh pattern the RV slowed much quicker than the Lightning ..so when flying the Lighning something to be aware of.......in the Pattern the RV perfomed as i expected ... I used 100mph on downwind ...90 abeam numbers 1/3 flap ..80 on base with 2/3 flaps ...and final 70mph full flap all the way to round out.... the Lightning is 10mph slower in all cases....The slower speed of the lightning allows for a much shorter landing  than the RV...about 500 feet down and stopped with the lightning with out trying real hard.......alot of problems occur during landing for pilots and i find that hte Lightning is very easy to land and  that the RV is again so similar ...except for the higer speed.....that if you can fly the RV you can fly a lightning......So first i would like to say that i loved flying the RV and given the chance again i would do it....Why fly a lightning instead???? well it is only slightly slower than this particular RV  i flew......I will typically burn about 5.5 an hour in the lightning versues 10gph in the RV......so cost is lower... the Lightning will get you into the air in the time that you can build an RV wing....price for a good VFR machine is 60-65K...you could do it for 55k but with all the new EFIS systems who can resist!....and if you need to fly sport...well the lightning is light enough that it can be flown this way also......Please feel free to ask more question this was my flight in a nutshell ..and would be happy to sahre more.

   

  Nick Otterback



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deuskid

Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 26
Location: St Louis, MO

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:38 am Post subject: Re: RV-6 vs Lightning revisited

Nick - 



Thanks for the write-up.  I for one appreciate it.



John

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