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Speed Canard Flight Excellent


Todd Sanderson

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I flew the Speed Canard home today from Kalamazoo, MI to Auburn IN. Distance was 60 miles and it took 23 minutes to make the trip. Initial data as follows: 24" MP and 2400RPM yielded 150 knots indicated @ 2000 ft MSL (weather was bad - had to stay low.) KLN90B GPS showed 149 knots GS. Takeoff is really simple: Push the throttle & prop all the way forward and less than 10 seconds later your doing about 65 knots. Slightly pitch the nose up, verify positive rate climb, raise the gear, and climb out 110 knots @ 1500 FPM. In flight handling is even better than my Velocity and just like a tail dragger the rudders must be used in a turn much more so than a conventional airplane. Landing is very straight forward. Slowly bring the power back to approximately 15" MP to get below gear speed of 109 knots, lower the gear, throw on the carb heat, and fly the pattern @ 100 knots. Again, you have to be on the rudders as the adverse yaw is tough to overcome at lower speed with aileron only. On final just start reducing the power slowly, trim the nose up, and softly place the machine on the ground without a flair. I had it trimmed just right and did not input any aft stick to land. Rudders lose their effectiveness around 50 knots, so you have to be ready on the brakes.

This probably is one of the easiest small planes to fly when you get used to the short throw controls and the erie silent running and no vibration in the cockpit. You sit nice and high in the cockpit with excellent visibility all the way around. Overall everything went very well for a plane that has set for over three years. I couldn't believe all the Nav/Comms, GPS, Stormscope, HSI/gyros, ADF, Argus 5000, transponder/encoder, etc. worked great. It was a joy to fly and makes me want to build a new Velocity XL-5 :cool:

Thanks for the all the help in this forum.

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Thank you. Something interesting I found today. My right quick disconnect for the elevator is rubbing against my KLN90B GPS rack. I need to lift the rack a little to get good clearance. Also, my plane flys 1/2 ball to the left on the turn & back indicator (requires slight left pedal to fly coordinated.) Would I correct this problem by bending one of the aileron trim tabs? If so, which one and what direction? Or is there another adjustment? I suppose I could read the maintenance manual, but that's work, you know... :cool:

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