Landing the Turbo Otter

[markh]

I've been trying out the Turbo DHC-3 and struggling to get it down without bouncing. I thought it might be helpful to share my experiments. I can't see any way to embed a video, so you'll have to click here!

[wells]

Hi Mark,

I've seen your video. Here's a tip that might help. When you are on the ground, note where the top of cowl is. Notice how the line is parallel to the horizon. That is where you want it to be when you touch down. Being a STOL airplane, the attitude tends to be more nose down than "normal". This will result in touching down with either a higher airspeed or higher rate of descent. Just keep flaring until the cowl line is where it should be for the 3 point attitude. Let me know how it goes. It looks like you figured that out in your video.

The stall speed of 61 mph, corresponds to 8000 lbs gross weight, without the STOL kit
Stall at 7500 lbs = 59 mph
Stall at 7000 lbs = 57 mph
Stall at 6500 lbs = 55 mph
Stall at 6000 lbs = 53 mph

The STOL kit adds a measure of safety and the flight manual supplement only says that it "meets or exceeds" the performance given in the flight manual. So, it is up to you to test fly the airplane and discover how much of a safety margin there is. The recommended approach speed of 80 mph would be 1.3Vs at max gross weight.

[markh]

The stall speed of 61 mph, corresponds to 8000 lbs gross weight, without the STOL kit
Stall at 7500 lbs = 59 mph
Stall at 7000 lbs = 57 mph
Stall at 6500 lbs = 55 mph
Stall at 6000 lbs = 53 mph

The STOL kit adds a measure of safety and the flight manual supplement only says that it "meets or exceeds" the performance given in the flight manual. So, it is up to you to test fly the airplane and discover how much of a safety margin there is. The recommended approach speed of 80 mph would be 1.3Vs at max gross weight.

Thanks, I will check this out. The numbers are helpful (I assume these are for the landing configuration).