Best ride in turbulence: Single engine

Alexb2000 said:
Is that universally true, does say a Lancair IV (35lb.) ride twice as good as a V35 (17 lb)? Doesn't wing design, yaw tendency, wing flexibility, also play into it?
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Yeah, there's a lot to it besides wing loading. I've never flown in a IV-P but I have flown an Evolution. My recollection was that it felt it hit the bumps a lot harder than in the Aztec, but we were going faster, too. It was a nice flying airplane, remarkably docile. Also had the benefit of extreme range with the piston engine and 160 gallon tanks.
 
My T-6 rode great in turbulence, the Avenger even better. The TBM Avenger is a great family airplane. Seats 6 and has over 3000lbs of payload with full fuel. It burns a little fuel (65gph in cruise) but what the heck you can take everything you want. And as a bonus you can drop a 500lb bomb on you're annoying neighbor. Don
 
THe turbocharged Commanders do pretty well, but you want to be at 16,000+ for the best possible ride. I've still gotten beat up a bit even at 16/17,000 or above. And you still need to watch for rotors.

Ted DuPuis said:
Hand fly. The AP will typically try harder to keep you on course and by hand flying you can let it float around a bit more. I always kick off the AP when I hit hard bumps and have passengers. They appreciate it.
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To add to this, you really can burn out a servo if you keep altitude hold on and try to tightly control things in mountain waves or a lot of turbulence. And depending on the AP, you can come close to a stall in a steep downdraft if the alt hold tries to "nose up" to get you back to where it thinks you should be. Better to request a block altitude & kick the alt-hold off.
 
I do typically ask for a block altitude if the turbulence gets bad and I have passengers that care. More often I use it for ice avoidance, though.
 
I've heard (never flown one) that the Bellanca's with their wood wing handle turbulence really well. Is that true or just owners justifying having to call Terminix every 6 months to treat their airframe?:D
 
kgruber said:
Probably something like a short wing Piper.

Tri Pacer
PA28 with short Hershey bar wings.

Does helicopter count? R22
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They are so slow, instead of head jarring jolts, you get more of a cork floating in a rough ocean feeling
 
bbchien said:
No. Not Mooney because of relatively light wing loading. But that's characteristic of what you get when you engineer a piston single to stall at 60 knots and stil be able to make some airspeed.
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If we are discussing certified vs experimental - exp will always win in this category. I'd love to own a low wing loading single like a lancair - but i'd also want a BRS on that plane as the engine-out prospects are not as good.

I've noticed that the mooney M20J has a max structural cruising speed of 175 knots (top of green arc) but Va is all the way down at 105-110 knots. That's a pretty wide gap - I wonder what engineering went into achieving those numbers. Really strong frame and good flutter resistance I suppose?
 
Again, the Malibu does well as long as you slow it down. In most cases just climb out of it. I really need a yaw dampener though, the tail will wag and make people sick in the back seats. I had a complete YD system for it once, but my wife wasn't bothered by the problem. I put it in someone else's Malibu.
 
yakdriver said:
My T-6 rode great in turbulence, the Avenger even better. The TBM Avenger is a great family airplane. Seats 6 and has over 3000lbs of payload with full fuel. It burns a little fuel (65gph in cruise) but what the heck you can take everything you want. And as a bonus you can drop a 500lb bomb on you're annoying neighbor. Don
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I will remember that, and have revised my "you will buy me this airplane if you want more than two kids" list:lol:
 
In my experience:

Best: Bonanza A36

Worst: Diamond DA40
 
dell30rb said:
If we are discussing certified vs experimental - exp will always win in this category. I'd love to own a low wing loading single like a lancair - but i'd also want a BRS on that plane as the engine-out prospects are not as good.
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Just one correction - Lancairs have a very high wing loading. And yes, a BRS would make sense - those things have the glide ratio of a brick.
 
dell30rb said:
If we are discussing certified vs experimental - exp will always win in this category. I'd love to own a low wing loading single like a lancair - but i'd also want a BRS on that plane as the engine-out prospects are not as good.

I've noticed that the mooney M20J has a max structural cruising speed of 175 knots (top of green arc) but Va is all the way down at 105-110 knots. That's a pretty wide gap - I wonder what engineering went into achieving those numbers. Really strong frame and good flutter resistance I suppose?
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There is this whole maximum stall speed for singles that certified planes need to meet. Does limit things some
 
A perhaps underutilized strategy is time of day.

For convective turbulence, starting at dawn will buy you a lot of relief.

Wish I knew how to do it... we invariably get going around noon.
 
Bill Watson said:
A perhaps underutilized strategy is time of day.

For convective turbulence, starting at dawn will buy you a lot of relief.

Wish I knew how to do it... we invariably get going around noon.
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YES. Those 7:00 AM flights have always been the best. The air in the summer is so cool and smooth!
 
Bill Watson said:
A perhaps underutilized strategy is time of day.

For convective turbulence, starting at dawn will buy you a lot of relief.

Wish I knew how to do it... we invariably get going around noon.
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From today's two flights so far, Arrow > 172, though I spent twice as much time in the Cessna due to wind direction:mad2:

If conditions don't change I can add a Katana to the list later today, that should be "fun":rofl:
 
Bill Watson said:
A perhaps underutilized strategy is time of day.

For convective turbulence, starting at dawn will buy you a lot of relief.

Wish I knew how to do it... we invariably get going around noon.
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Worst I have hit was Kansas in the early afternoon, asked my passenger if he preferred low, bumpy and fast or high smooth and slow.

My dad being a tough old bird said he would rather spend less time in the bumps than more in smooth air, so we stayed down around 1000agl an got beat up.
 
Skylane81E said:
From today's two flights so far, Arrow > 172, though I spent twice as much time in the Cessna due to wind direction:mad2:

If conditions don't change I can add a Katana to the list later today, that should be "fun":rofl:
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Took a Beech 77 instead of the diamond, I have a new low water mark for performance in the chop.

I think I'm going to have a nice lump on the top of my head!:rofl:
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Hand fly. The AP will typically try harder to keep you on course and by hand flying you can let it float around a bit more. I always kick off the AP when I hit hard bumps and have passengers. They appreciate it.
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This. In strong turbulence my autopilot is WAY more concerned with staying on the magenta line than I am.
 
I will suggest that the 210 rides pretty well in turbulence, and still has a fast enough maneuvering speed to get somewhere. I am surprised that Wayne Bower did not chime in about the 210. Wayne?

Wells
 
206 loaded up with fuel and PAX, if still too rough, slow down some, also works for most planes.
 
The Canards all ride extremely well in turbs.
 
Alexb2000 said:
I've heard (never flown one) that the Bellanca's with their wood wing handle turbulence really well.
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I've heard this too. One report I read said that you can see the wing flexing in the turbulence.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I've heard this too. One report I read said that you can see the wing flexing in the turbulence.
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^^This^^ I saw an honest 3-4 inches of deflection over the tehachapis flying into a 40kt headwind. It was like watching a glider wing.
 
The tips on a 310 bounce a bit over bumps as well.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
The tips on a 310 bounce a bit over bumps as well.
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Do you find that filling the tip tanks provides a smoother ride? The 310 seems to have HUGE tip tanks, and as Ed said, the physics work out.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Do you find that filling the tip tanks provides a smoother ride? The 310 seems to have HUGE tip tanks, and as Ed said, the physics work out.
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All Twin Cessnas (with tips) have 50 gallons in each tip, so that's 300 lbs a side. Because the tips are the mains, you pretty much always fill them, at least you want to before the wing tanks. Since fuel return is back to the tips, you also can't leave them full. You have to burn about an hour out of them before switching to wing tanks or else you'll be dumping fuel out of the plane.

So what that means is that I don't really have an answer for you on the tips. I've never noticed a particular difference in how the 310 handles turbulence based on fuel loading, but I also have practical limits to how I can load the fuel, especially since I typically need more fuel than the plane can hold. I do know when the plane is heavy with passengers/luggage it both lands better and seems to hit bumps more like a Cadillac than a Corvette.
 
Tom-D said:
The Canards all ride extremely well in turbs.
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Interesting, I wonder why that is? Maybe because both lifting surfaces are working in the same direction rather than opposed?
 
bbchien said:
Turbocharged ANY single.
The rough air ends at 15-16,000.
Buy a good, LARGE, oxygen system. This adjustment was necessary to the success of GA as a family mobility tool.
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well, that and FIKI.
 
Most of time in the West if you are smart - once you get turb slow down - not so much for the slower transition into rough patches of air but to have some known power reserve for the inevitable waves ...
 
comanchepilot said:
well, that and FIKI.
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Depends on where you live. In my neck of the woods I would only be able to fly 364 out of 365 days due to ice. Thunderstorms are another story, but usually you can fly around them. I do not recommend flying through them. I just need an airplane with an engine that goes whoosh instead of putt, and I could fly over them.
 
Alexb2000 said:
Wow, the worst commercial ride of my life was leaving Denver as well.
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Worst commercial flight I ever had was approach to Las Vegas.. People were throwing up left and right and those mountains appeared to get closer and further away by thousands of feet in mere bounces.
 
supernovae said:
Worst commercial flight I ever had was approach to Las Vegas.. People were throwing up left and right and those mountains appeared to get closer and further away by thousands of feet in mere bounces.
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That's rare, usually I see a lot of people throwing up on the departure out of Vegas, hummm.
 
DavidWhite said:
Depends on where you live. In my neck of the woods I would only be able to fly 364 out of 365 days due to ice. Thunderstorms are another story, but usually you can fly around them. I do not recommend flying through them. I just need an airplane with an engine that goes whoosh instead of putt, and I could fly over them.
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To do that reliably you'd need an SR-71.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I've heard that the 421C/402C/414A all ride better than their tip tank predecessors as well. Most people I've talked to said it had more to do with vortices off the tip tanks, which never made a ton of sense to me but I also never looked into the technical aspects of it. Although the tips do block view somewhat, I do like the way they look. The biggest hassle is correcting every line guy who thinks that the mains are the inboards. "No, on a Twin Cessna the tips ARE the mains." :)
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LOL, yep, that's why I indicate 'outboards' or 'inboards'.
 
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