Lancair 360

[whoop_whoop_pull_up]

I am currently having an internal debate with myself as to whether getting a lancair 360 is too much risk. From what I've read it sounds like a very unforgiving airplane.

I like the airplane but I am worried that I am getting swayed by the performance figures and not taking to account the airplane flying characteristics, ie high stall speed, possible unrecoverable stalls, etc.

Any thoughts? I am considering building one btw. Thanks!

[Bill Greenwood]

I would look at this in 3 ways
1. What is your pilot background, experience and skill level? Do you have training and time in high performance light singles like this? If not will you get some training in type, after all a Lancair is dual control and lot's of them around so training should be available. Do you you have the tempermant to be patient and careful in a plane like this?
2. What is the safety record of Lancair, I am sure the statistics are out there if you look for them. I have a friend that ownes one, he is a retired airline pilot. I have a little time in them. I know it is fast and efficient, pretty light on the controls.I don;t think I have ever done a stall in one. but I don't think they have a bad safety record.
3. What kind of flying will you be doing? This is a fast cross country airplane, probably not as easy to fly in IMC as some.
Unless the plane haS some bad feature, safety depends mostly on the pilot skill and even more so on the pilot's judgement and if he operates so as to minimize risks/
Plenty of people fly safely in high performance planes like a P-51 or T-6 which require more than a 172, but of course give back more in return.

[Todd copeland]

They are a perfectly safe airplane when the pilot flies them with respect for their performance. What you need to ask yourself is what kind of pilot are you? Are you disciplined? Are you a pilot who easily gets bored in a cessna 172, or is it enough to keep you busy keeping up? Can you live with the unlikely event of a power loss in flight with a much higher landing speed than your average trainer? The lancair so and Glasairs aren't inherently dangerous aircraft but they are much less forgiving of poor pilot skills.

[Bill Greenwood]

I took my own advice and looked up Lancair safety on google, and find there are concerns going back as far as 2008-2009.
3% of homebuilts but 16% of fatal accidents , not just hangar rash.The 360 is a fast airplane partly because of a small wing and a small tail.
It may approach for landing faster, and be less stable and not have as good a feel in pitch, and be less stable in yaw.
It may be overcome by a more capable pilot who makes sure not to get too slow, but there is also talk of retro fitting a larger tail. If it was me, I would buy one with the larger tail or maybe go to an RV, which is slower but probably more forgiving.
One landing accident I noticed was a pilot who lost control of pitch after touchdown, but a key factor is he was using only 10* of flaps. If a plane already has a small wing, and a higher landing speed, it probably even more needs full flaps to slow down and add drag and lift.
I don't think this is the type of plane for a low time pilot who trained in a 172.

[jjhoneck]

Interesting that this topic pops up today, as I just got a cockpit tour of a Lancair 360 yesterday from one of our hotel guests.

He LOVES the plane, but admits that it has some quirks. He claims it is possible to inadvertently put high G loads on the airframe by over-controlling. He tossed out "6Gs" as an example, which may have been the beer talking.

He uses 100 knots for an approach speed, which is obviously far faster than average. We use 85 knots for downwind in our RV-8, 80 on final, 70 over the numbers, by comparison.

The tail feathers on this plane are TINY. With that big engine (relative to the airframe) it's easy to imagine running out of elevator authority.

The cockpit is TINY. I am 6', 210 pounds, and fit in there like a pearl in a clam. You wear the airplane.

My conclusion was that the airplane was designed for one thing, speed. Everything else is secondary. If flown by the numbers, and if you're not a terribly big guy, it would be a fantastic plane to own.

Just don't get slow turning base to final.

[cub builder]

While I'm sure there are those out there that will dispute what I'm going to say here, IMHO, the Lancair 235, 290, 320, and 360 all suffer from similar issues that are fairly common in amateur built planes. They lack sufficient horizontal stabilizer, so tend to be unstable in pitch and are 100% hands on airplanes. That also makes is very easy to overpower the tiny stabilizer with the elevator with very little feedback to the pilot through the controls. That makes the plane very touchy in pitch and more difficult to land than the average plane, including planes that do land in that speed range as the controls get extremely light at slow speeds. It also makes the aircraft more difficult than most to control in an aft CG scenario. Some pilots believe the pitch instability makes the plane feel more sporty.

The Lancair series was an outgrowth by Lance Neubauer from the KR series, which suffered from the same issues. Lance built a KR-2 first. My KR suffered from the same issues. I flew it 500 hours before I cut the tail off and designed a larger tail for the aircraft, which made it a much more stable machine to fly.

-CubBuilder

[WLIU]

From the original post, I do not get any sense that that individual has actually flown in a Lancair. I will suggest that is the first step before going any further.

There is a general problem in the homebuilt world where pilots are seduced by the looks and performance of a number of airplanes and do not consider whether they have, or want to learn, the pilot skills required to operate those airplanes safely. In the Pitts world, which is a pretty low tech airplane, we see pilots build or buy one, fly it ONCE, and never fly it again.

The Lancairs in general have handling that matches their looks. They are happy fast and much less happy slow. They like a firm but gentle hand on the stick. And their systems can require more attention than a Cessna. Prospective pilots need to look in the mirror and honestly ask themselves whether they want to bring their A game to the Saturday AM breakfast run. If not, then there are airplanes better suited to those pilots. There is no dishonor in flying an RV or a Fly Baby instead of a Lancair.

Way too long ago, when Lancair was at Santa Paula, you could go out there and get an intro flight. Don't think that you can do that any more but I will hazard a guess that if you ask around EAA chapters in your area you might find a Lancair owner who will take you out for an hour if you buy the gas. That would be a wise first step.

Best of luck,

Wes

[rwanttaja]

Way too long ago, when Lancair was at Santa Paula, you could go out there and get an intro flight. Don't think that you can do that any more but I will hazard a guess that if you ask around EAA chapters in your area you might find a Lancair owner who will take you out for an hour if you buy the gas. That would be a wise first step.

Might also contact LOBO: The Lancair Owners and Builders Organization:

http://www.lancairowners.com/

The last time I compared the various types, the Lancair two-seaters had a lower rate of pilot-error accidents than RV-6s. There were some extenuating circumstances with the -6s, though.

However, assessing the accident history of two-seat Lancairs is a tricky process; the design has seen considerable evolution since the original O-200 powered version. Over the 15-year period of my accident database, there were 23 Lancair 360 accidents. Generally, I want to see at least 50 accidents before trying to draw definitive conclusions. With just 23 accidents, each one is worth over 4% of the total.

With THAT said, about 34.8% of Lancair 360 accidents were due to "Pilot Miscontrol," which is my term for stick-and-rudder errors. This is lower than the overall homebuilt rate of 38.6%. This is only eight accidents, though...one more would have put it about average. Three of the Lancair 360 accidents came out as "Unknown Loss of Control"; cases where the cause couldn't be directly attributable to the pilot's actions. It's certainly probable this was due to pilot error of some sort, it's just that the NTSB didn't have enough data to attribute it to a specific issue. One sounds like it could have been a mechanical issue. Here are the accident numbers: LAX01LA281, LAX06LA096, and NYC06LA136. The overall homebuilt fleet has a much lower rate of "Unknown Loss of Control" accidents.

Of the eight cases where the NTSB found fault with the pilot's control of the aircraft, they reference a stall in half. For the overall homebuilt fleet, about 18% of the Pilot Miscontrol cases referenced stalling. Again, the Lancair 360 has a small sample set, but it does tend to indicate a trend.

The Lancair line has a high fatality rate (e.g., number of fatal accidents vs. the total number of accidents) and the two-seaters are no exception. Remember, though, that the energy in a crash is related to the square of the speed, so fast airplanes will have higher fatality rates. Jay's comparison of the approach speed of his RV and a visiting Lancair is a good reference.

The short answer, of course, is that the two-seat Lancair line offers outstanding cruise performance, at the expense of requiring greater attentiveness and skill on behalf of the pilot.

Ron Wanttaja

[Infidel]

Yet we mut remember; 73% of statistics are generally wrong.

[Infidel]

Humor intended, typo wasn't.

[rwanttaja]

Yet we must remember; 73% of statistics are generally wrong.

...and 95% of them are made up on the spot!

Ron Wanttaja

[Bill Greenwood]

I believe that statistics can be very useful if they are gathered by someone who is not only qualified, but more importantly unbiased. So often statistics, even if true are used by someone who is trying to sell you something, either a used car or something you don't need, or get you to take out a loan on a credit card or vote for their political candidate.

But, to be specific on our subject, there are factual sources of airplane records. NTSB complies them, among others and AV CONSUMER and AOPA with the excellent NALL report does studies of them. There are airplanes that have shown safety problems, like early Learjets where 20% of them had crashed, and that is not a misprint. Also some problems in the past in Aerostars and Mu2s. Now an "expert", which is often someone who has a financial interest in selling one of these planes, may come up with some good reason to try to explain away the statistics. Sometimes the explanation makes some sense. Diamond 20 has a better safety record than Mu2, early Lear, Cirrus, etc., but pretty obviously part of it is the airplane, ( good stall characteristics) and often it may be the use. The majority of Diamond flights are dual with a CFI and if not at least planned in a training environment., whereas Cirrus, as well as Lancair may be flown cross country and even in imc or worse weather, and of course MU2s of often flown that way. So there is more exposure to weather. However, if you look at accident records of King Airs flown on business trips vs Mu2s flown by professional high time pilots on trips in IMC, one would be foolish not to see that the King Air has a better safety record.

So what if you want to fly a Cirrus or a Lancair 360 or maybe a P-51? First you can be aware that the first two may not have the same feel of an approach to a stall as other planes. The Lancair is very light on pitch, worse when it is slow, and the Cirrus has spring loading to center the sidestick rather than increased air loads as you add gs to a stall.
The P-51 has stall warning, but it can be missed in some cases and like a T-6, if you stall it power on and cross controlled it is not as forgiving as a C-172.
So you can be aware of these caution spots and stay away from them, don't get too low and slow and too many gs and you may be able to fly safely. You can do high end training to be a better pilot particlarly in regards to these areas. But sitting at home and just ignoring statistics doesn't make them go away.
There are many cases where pilots may accept more risk to fly something that is more rewarding, i. e. like racing at Reno, but they should and do know there is more risk, and they try to train to deal with it.

[rrobut]

Properly piloted a great aircraft.However, get it wrong low level ( and that could be as high as 1000ft above ground) and you are dead. I have 2 friends and another acquaintance who died when things went wrong. one as a result of an engine failure caused by a maintenance issue.
Be very careful

Rob

[Mike M]

I am currently having an internal debate with myself as to whether getting a lancair 360 is too much risk. From what I've read it sounds like a very unforgiving airplane.

I like the airplane but I am worried that I am getting swayed by the performance figures and not taking to account the airplane flying characteristics, ie high stall speed, possible unrecoverable stalls, etc.

Any thoughts? I am considering building one btw. Thanks!

CAFE reports used to be easy to find on the EAA website. Had one on Lancair. Unbiased accurate info on the aircraft they tested. I can't find it right now, somebody will surely pop in with a link for you.

[danielfindling]

http://cafefoundation.org/v2/pdf_cafe_apr/Lancair%20320%20APR.pdf

[whoop_whoop_pull_up]

Thanks everyone I will be attending an eaa meeting and hopefully get some more opinions and thoughts on it. From what I have researched it seems that the higher landing speeds yield a higher fatality rate per accident. However in the lancair series what seems to the trend is not forced landings but rather pilot error( getting too slow and stalling). So if I do go this route I will definitely be doing a lot of dual with a qualified lancair cfi.

My biggest draw to the lancair is that it fits my mission and my building specs--I want to build a composite airplane.

[WLIU]

I will offer some non-technical advice. If you aren't sure that an airplane is for you, you have the answer. It is not. Every airplane that I have bought I looked at it and got that "I want it" feeling. Every one. In one case, I was not so warm about a particular ship but after a trial flight, I warmed up more instead of cooling off. Wrote the check. So if you don't look at the Lancair and think that you will be waking up in the morning looking forward to closing the canopy and firing up, look for the airplane will get you fired up.

A personal airplane is not a lifetime commitment, but it should at least start as something of a love affair.

Best of luck,

Wes
Pitts Special N78PS
Globe Swift N78041

[N91CZ]

While I'm sure there are those out there that will dispute what I'm going to say here, IMHO, the Lancair 235, 290, 320, and 360 all suffer from similar issues that are fairly common in amateur built planes. They lack sufficient horizontal stabilizer, so tend to be unstable in pitch and are 100% hands on airplanes. That also makes is very easy to overpower the tiny stabilizer with the elevator with very little feedback to the pilot through the controls. That makes the plane very touchy in pitch and more difficult to land than the average plane, including planes that do land in that speed range as the controls get extremely light at slow speeds. It also makes the aircraft more difficult than most to control in an aft CG scenario. Some pilots believe the pitch instability makes the plane feel more sporty.

The Lancair series was an outgrowth by Lance Neubauer from the KR series, which suffered from the same issues. Lance built a KR-2 first. My KR suffered from the same issues. I flew it 500 hours before I cut the tail off and designed a larger tail for the aircraft, which made it a much more stable machine to fly.

-CubBuilder

I agree partially.
Not all Lancairs are created equal, however. When the MKII tail came out, it dramatically changed the airplane. At the published CG limit it has as much stability margin as a C-172. I thought the RV6 was more sensitive.

[N91CZ]

While I'm sure there are those out there that will dispute what I'm going to say here, IMHO, the Lancair 235, 290, 320, and 360 all suffer from similar issues that are fairly common in amateur built planes. They lack sufficient horizontal stabilizer, so tend to be unstable in pitch and are 100% hands on airplanes.

Lancair resolved the pitch stability issues with the MKII horizontal tail. You end up with two entirely different aircraft depending on which horizontal tail is installed. See the link for a side-by-side quantitative comparison of the two stabilizer configuration on the Lancair 360.
http://www.n91cz.com/Stability/Comparative_Stability_Study.pdf