Here is a little safety trick for all you guys with
GPS.  This is particularly important for all of us
doing non aircraft engine installations.

Climb up to about 5000 feet AGL over your air port
and kill the engine. Note how far you can glide from the GPS
data for a 1000 foot decent at best glide speed in a straight line.

Then do the same for two 90 degree turns. This will give you
a feel for altitude loss as a function of distance when
making dead stick landings. It would help if you have
your landing field lat longs in a way point in your GPS just
in case. this will give you a glide ratio for your particular
airplane rather than assuming it is the standard for light
planes of around 7:1. 

It would be great if Greg Richter allowed specific glide ratio data
to be entered into his moving map program. If your engine quit
your moving map program could then tell you if you could make it
to a particular emergency landing field. Assuming of course the lat longs
are in his moving map program for all possible landing fields. 

Paul Lamar
 
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.              Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            http://www.linux.org