Flying the Piper Pawnee

Don’t know if this was the same plane - very similar paint scheme - but this was one of the ones I ferried:

53545256802_854e50cb03_z.jpg


Most likely Opa Locka with my mother-in-law.
 
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Towed banners with Pawnees in college. The 180 hp was kinda marginal, the 235 was a lot of fun to fly. Pawnee definitely has a different site picture than a Super Cub with that long nose. Feels like your going up in an elevator during climb because of the site picture.
Have fun.
 
:yeahthat: and complacency. You can get very good a taking off, landing and towing operations.
While Glider pilots making dumb moves tend to injure tow pilots or worse, Tow pilots more often just damage the tow plane.
Seen/heard these events...
fast taxi, hit the brake and swing around into position, until he put the Pawnee on the nose.
Or chasing the plane down the taxi way after he got out for some reason with the engine running. He caught it but wasn't fun to watch.
Watched another pilot do that last year (not a tow pilot), but didn't catch it and the Tri-pacer took out hanger door. Just missed the tied down C-310.

As others said, If find towing fun, and the Pawnee even more so. I have done a fair amount of towing, but only a little in the Pawnee. But is and Easy fun airplane to fly with an unusual Sight picture. Well maybe pretty normal for Ag planes, but the Pawnee is the only Ag plane I have flown.

Brian
 
The pilot who taught me to tow gave me the "three ****s" rule: While towing, if you find yourself saying, "****, ****, ****," you'd better pull the release before the third "****."
 
Lindberg said:
The pilot who taught me to tow gave me the "three ****s" rule: While towing, if you find yourself saying, "****, ****, ****," you'd better pull the release before the third "****."
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I never got even to the second one…I was simply wondering why that idiot can’t figure out that his spoilers are extended causing us to climb at about 80 fpm instead of 1500 fpm.

He tried to climb on me, but I never quite hit the elevator stop with the stick, so I did t try to dump him.
 
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The Pawnee will lift the tail while taxi turning broadside to a stiff wind. Especially if the right side is exposed to the wind, you need power to push that big fuselage against the wind and then will rotate quickly once the wind is more from the tail. Power up to get around, full left rudder and riding the left brake. Between the wind, and the rotating prop blast, it gets under the right side stab/elevator and lifts the tail.

Watched an old tymer, who was taught to do run ups with the wind on your beam, so the wind does not impact prop speed on mag checks. He put the Pawnee on it's nose with that right side 15knt wind and the prop blast on the tail. Yes he had full aft stick. Required a new prop and engine rebuild.

I almost had the same happen to me. Left turn to get away from the fuel pumps, full left rudder, left brake, powered up and felt the tail lift. Power to idle and off the brake so the aircraft will roll. Wind was about 10-15knts on the beam.

mmm... so that's how that happened.
 
I finally got the checkout this weekend. Thank you all for the tips. The plane was more docile than I expected. I had a short familiarization flight and then a couple of tows. My first landing was actually the best. The next two were unintentionally tailwheel first. I should be able to get a lot of practice this summer.
 
Lindberg said:
I finally got the checkout this weekend. Thank you all for the tips. The plane was more docile than I expected. I had a short familiarization flight and then a couple of tows. My first landing was actually the best. The next two were unintentionally tailwheel first. I should be able to get a lot of practice this summer.
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That flat table in front of you is a great reference for the three point attitude. My first couple hours in the plane I found that the initial picture rolling into the flair seemed a little nose low based on that long flat nose and the three point was aligned with the nose being parallel to the ground. Of course this is all based on my sight picture in the seat and will be different for you, regardless that long nose is a great reference.
 
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We have two Pawnees, a C and a D model. One of them (I never remember WHICH one) has longer rudder horns, which require less rudder force when students are boxing the wake. They also fly a litle differently, but whenever I have a choice I always pick the one that's easiest to get in and out of the hangar . . .
 
And speaking of Pawnees, last year I had a very strange deformation of the left elevator that I didn't notice until pre-flight the following day. Now Piper is working on an AD for all Pipers using 1025 carbon steel (31,000 aircraft) due to spontaneous deformation of the rudder in two aircraft, one of which is shown below:

Piper rudder.jpg

I can't help but wonder if our problem after I towed might be related to the same situation. I didn't notice ANY unusual flight or landing characteristics that day, but I didn't do a formal post-flight either and just noticed it on the preflight the next day. While it looks as if the separate pieces twisted in the middle, the right elevator is normal and the left one is internally "twisted" inside the fabric, similar to the rudder situation shown above.


EL3.jpg

Rare occurrences to be sure, but the FAA is known to react "expensively" to those sometimes . . .







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