Quote:
Originally Posted by daepp
When you say "it doesn't float" or "sinks like a brick" or some such, does that mean the gliding abilities of a bi-plane are poor?
I thought I had heard that a 152/172 could fly 10 feet forward for every foot of elevation it had. If true, is a bi-plane the same or worse than that? TIA.
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Sport Biplanes are made for aerobatics. As such, they usually have shorter wings. And being a biplane, they have two of them, and rigging wires, all making more drag for you.
A C172 should be about 9:1.
On the Biplane Forum, I see numbers thrown around that range from one guy stating his Ultimate 10-200 is about 5:1 (which is about the same as a skydiving parachute, I think) to a guy in a Pitts who said he only got 2:1 in a real engine-out scenario.
A brick is 0:1
When I was training in a Pitts, the instructor said, "If you can see your intended landing spot over the nose, you're not going to make it."
When I was training in a helicopter, the instructor said, "Look through the chin window.... that's where we are going to be."