RV-12

Flight Data

All four attempts to return to the 4301 ft runway easily made the runway (see above).  See the reasons below.

Flight Analysis

Takeoff distance                                              Typical

Difference between climb and glide angle  Large (2.2 degrees)

Altitude lost in turn                                         Very Small (208-275)

The dashed grey line coming from the 4,000 ft. runway distance is set at the glide angle of the plane. Any time the plane falls below this line, without power, it is not possible to return to the runway (4,000 ft is used as our standard way to compare planes).

In this case, since the climb angle was much larger than the glide angle, and the altitude lost in the turn was small, the plane could easily stay above the dashed grey line the entire flight.