"NO WAY THIS IS GOING TO WORK" I said to instructor Adrian Eichhorn in the right seat. "Skeptic!" he retorted. "You wait and see." Configured at a pattern altitude of 1,000 feet agl with gear and flaps down, power set for 80 knots indicated airspeed, I watched the approach end of the 5,500-foot runway disappear under the nose of the Beechcraft Bonanza. I followed Eichhorn's command to push it over for a normal descent angle. I used the throttle to maintain airspeed, and soon we touched down on the first third of the runway. "Bonanza's a slick airplane, but when you get it slow and dirty, it's like a brick," he said. And he's right. Clever parlor trick, but what's the point? Plummeting from pattern altitude to the runway on short final is not exactly normal operating procedure. But it is a great demonstration of the ability of the airplane and how you can use its performance to the max if you need to.
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