You seem to be describing just normal behavior, Tony. Different
meteorology day-to-day, effects of widespread updraft-downdrafts,
etc. Although mythical things have no precise definition,
"on-the-step" I understand (from the lore) is two different angles of
attack in level flight, one high drag the other low, but identical
lift. To get there, you must dive down to it and level out. The
problem, though, is that if the higher A of A produces the same lift,
raise the nose and you won't climb -- just go back down off the step I
guess. Setting aside the flyability issue, an altitude-holding
autopilot wouldn't work at all, and hence the opinion of the S-Tec
autopilot people in my original post I found rather relevant.
What I will bet on is that, on a dead calm day, you can't fly the
aircraft level at any other than one A of A at a given power setting.
It may indeed be be faster than yesterday (or less fuel burn at same
TAS), if that day was turbulent, more humid, or in higher pressure.
If you can, let me know. Dr. James Randi (randi.org) still has his
standing offer of a million bucks for any scientifically demonstrated,
paranormal phenomenon!
Regards,
Fred F., A063
Tony Krzyzewski wrote:
>
> That's easy - throttle back, lift nose, level nose and power up again - this
> time using a lot more fuel than you did before.
>
> While playing with the flight characteristics I made several runs around
> 115 - 125 knots as I was getting varying results from day to day. Some days
> the aircraft would require considerably more power to achieve the same
> speed - over 1" of manifold pressure for the same result at the same
> normalised atmospheric pressure. In the end I noticed that the aircraft will
> settle into a 120knot cruise at two different visual angles with the most
> efficient feeling as if the aircraft is flying nose down.
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