Saturday, February 25, 2012

Another Saturday

Canceled (Weather - wind). Pk wind 27032.

So, as I sit here reading magazines and listening to the wind howling between the houses rattling my vinyl siding, I wonder how a heavier plane would be effected by gusty winds. My wife asks if a Cirrus Sr20 would be flying.

So, my PiperSport has a wing area of 141.6 sqft. Legislated gross weight of 1320#s gives a wing loading of 9.3#/sqft. An Sr20 is 22#/sqft, a C172 is 15#/sqft. I'm light but so what?

F=ma

Which can be juggled around to be:

a=G/Ws

where G = gusts and Ws is wing loading. Therefore my PiperSport is impacted twice as much by a gust as an Sr20. It really is LIGHT sport.

3 comments:

  1. The Sundowner is @ 17#/sqft. No matter what it's not fun getting beat up in that kind of wind! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great blog. I'm happy to have found it. I own an LSA (Flight Design CTLS) as well and have flown 1,400 hours on it in 4 years. I've flown to 8 countries and 20+ states. Its a great plane.

    The Aviation Safety Magazine, September 2011 edition stated the following Wing Loading (lbs/sq.ft) for the following aircraft:

    Sportcruiser = 9.98
    Cessna 150 = 10
    Cessna 162 (Skycather) = 11
    Remos GX = 11.18
    Flight Design CT = 11.37
    Piper Cherokee 140 = 13.4
    Cessna 172 = 15.4
    Beech A36 Bonanza = 20.2
    Cessna 310 = 30.73

    As you can see the magazine gave the Sport Cruiser a rating a bit higher then your calculation....which is a good thing !

    As you can see all LSA designs have wing loadings similar to a Cessna 150........so they will all have similar wind characteristics.

    Anthony

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think it is a function of the FAA assigning a maximum stall speed to LSA. That forces the manufacturer to design a wing that will stall below 45kts at gross weight.

    ReplyDelete