Chapter Officers
President:
Bill Repucci
704-607-4572

Vice President:
Kevin Cromie
704-366-8529

Secretary:
Bob Allen
704-892-4095

Treasurer:
Sam Stewart
704-588-0776

Directors:
Bob Dobbins, Dale Ensing,  Tad Sargent, John Schroeder.  & Bob Thayer

Young Eagles
Coordinator: Scott Stout

Technical Counselors: Kent Ashton, Neil Stewart,  Dale Ensing,  Ron Murray, Ronnie Brown and Glenn Babcock.
Flight Advisors:
Dale Ensing & Ronnie Brown

Newsletter &  Web Page Editor:
Ronnie Brown
704.892.5122

2007

EAA 309 Christmas Dinner

Our Dinner will be at the Acropolis Restaurant in Cornelius on Monday, December 10. We will start at 6 PM with dinner being served at 7:30.
We will order off their standard menu and each member will be responsible for their own meal and drinks.
Please bring an aviation related wrapped gift of $10 per member, like last year for the always hilarious Chinese Gift Giving.  Please RSVP Bill Repucci at bill@repucci.com or call him at 704-607-4572

90,000 / 5280 (feet in a mile) = 17 miles
3.14 * 17 ^ 2 = 912 Square miles (Pi R Sq - You do remember that formula, don't you?)

Using the same math, if you have the same engine failure at 1000 AGL, you still have a 16 theoretical square mile circle in which to land. Now, using that 95 MPH Best Glide speed and figuring your decent rate goes up to an estimated 700 FPM, from 7500 AGL you will be on the ground in 10.7 minutes.  From 1000 AGL it will only take you 1.4 minutes to reach terra firma. With over 10 minutes to pick a spot in which to land from 7500' people still manage to bend metal or break plastic.  Why is this?

Denial slows reaction time for a lot of us.  "Oh, my engine couldn't have died" or some such thing.  In the 30 seconds it took you to get past that, you have lost some altitude, say 350 feet.  Now you are down to 7,150 feet.

Aviate
Next up, trim for best glide.  Do you know your best glide speed or do you have to look it up?  Did you ever actually test your homebuilt?  (BTW, my numbers are very close to what CAFE Foundation found.)  If you bought your homebuilt, did you even bother to verify the numbers the prior owner gave you?

Ok you are trimmed and are now coming down at that theoretical 700 FPM.  By this time you are down to 6,800 feet AGL and are starting to look around.  You will be on the ground in 9.7 minutes and your landing area is down to 750 square miles.


Aviate, that is what you have just done.

Navigate
Time to start looking for a place to land.  While looking out the windshield try not to deviate from that Best Glide speed, where is that airport?  The GPS said it should be just off the nose and five miles.  Hey, did you hit the "nearest" button on the GPS?  Did you program your GPS to give you only suitable landing spaces?  It would sure hurt to go off the end of a 1600 foot dirt runway when just a mile away there is a 5000 x 100 foot paved runway.  Did you just pass a runway, maybe you should turn around?  Make up your mind and turn towards the airport of your choice.  Once you have done that, don't second guess yourself and turn towards another landing site unless conditions dictate.

Good, you have just navigated towards your destination.  Say you have to turn around and this takes a minute and 700 feet.  You are down to 5,800' AGL.  Your landing will be in 8.3 minutes.  Plenty of time.

Communicate
What's that frequency?  If you had Flight Following, call them up and tell them what

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