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Old 01-16-2010 | 04:57 PM
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Villa
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From: Wilson, NC,
Default RE: Gnat - I'm running out of props!

I assume you are landing with the engine stopped and that you try to land as slow as possible without stalling. Just before touchdown, at what angle is the prop, as seen from the front like, when you start the engine? You are looking for it to be horizontal at that point. The wind will be trying to turn the prop in the same direction that it was running at, but engine compression should stop it in the horizontal position. You should be able to decide if the prop must be moved a little clockwise or a little counterclockwise. Just make a little sketch and figure it out yourself. Some people may have convinced you that this plane is easy to fly. It is cheap, but making a smooth landing with it may be very difficult, since the plane does not have a conventional air foil. I probably would be breaking props on it, and I have SPADS in which I have never broken a prop in say 5 years. Occasionally I have discarded a prop because it had dug into the dirt hundreds of times and had a lot of small nicks in the tip. My SPAD Bi-Plane, as an example, will slow down to a stall and then gently kiss the ground because it will fly all of the way. In two years it has never made a bad landing and never broken a prop. The Gnat simply stops flying and drops, and the point at which it does this is hard to determine. Others will contradict me 100%. You decide.