My Landings Suck

[MBDiagMan]

It's a short field landing, forget grace, plop in on and get on the binders. :wink2:

That's what i was taught and it works well. I don't know if the brakes lower the nose wheel or if I beat them with relaxing the back pressure to assure the weight is on the wheels. I suspect it's about a tie.

Just be sure to land on the mains, I'm currently 107hrs of riveting into repairing someones laps in attention

Don't try this in a taildragger.

Doc

 

[Geico266]

Don't try this in a taildragger.

Doc

Or an LSA.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Don't try this in a taildragger.

Doc

Or an LSA.

Works for me.

In my taildragger LSA.

But it has Matco brakes...

The 120 I used to fly (with Cleveland brakes) required a little more finesse, but you could drag it down pretty quick. 'course that was back in the olden days when I still knew how to fly.

 

[Skylane81E]

Don't try this in a taildragger.

Doc

Depends

Do you care about flying it again very soon?
There are some advantages to a training wheel

 

[Tom-D]

Don't try this in a taildragger.

Doc

totally depends upon the aircraft. many will simply slide to a stop.

I once landed my 170-B with the parking brake set.. good thing I was not doing a wheels landing.

With 6 folks and a couple barrels of fuel in a Beaver you couldn't get the tail to come up by applying all the brakes it has. Otter Same Same.

 

[Skylane81E]

Yeah, I hear ya. I just don't want to treat her like a rental trainer!

We still need that modified bumper sticker from the automotive workd:

"Fly it like you stole it!"

Ooh, or is that...

"Fly it like you STOL it!"

I like that one!

Did I notice that you mentioned running out of elevator on landing from time to time?

I just noticed a minute ago that starting in 1981 they upped the travel 2*.

Just found it interesting

 

[Fearless Tower]

totally depends upon the aircraft. many will simply slide to a stop.

I once landed my 170-B with the parking brake set.. good thing I was not doing a wheels landing.

With 6 folks and a couple barrels of fuel in a Beaver you couldn't get the tail to come up by applying all the brakes it has. Otter Same Same.

Actually, in any tailwheel, as long as the tail is still flying, you can apply fairly heavy braking (maybe not necessarily the parking brake) during a wheel landing without nosing over. In light airplanes, the catch is that you need to know exactly when to let up or you will nose over when the tail is ready to come down.

 

[Tom-D]

Actually, in any tailwheel, as long as the tail is still flying, you can apply fairly heavy braking (maybe not necessarily the parking brake) during a wheel landing without nosing over. In light airplanes, the catch is that you need to know exactly when to let up or you will nose over when the tail is ready to come down.

That's exactly how you break tail wheel springs, but you are right, if you have enough speed to hold the tail up, you have too much speed to allow the tail to go over the top.

But your tendency to brace your self as you go up, using the brake pedals is very strong, and most newbies will simply stand on the brakes.

You will find that the larger the aircraft the heavier the tail is and they have less tendency to nose up.

getting the tail to come up using the brakes, is a factor of traction, that is why grass is much more preferable

 

[Dr. O]

That's strange Kimberly because I have been flying longer than you and it is my take off that is getting worse... My landings are divine... What am I doing wrong?

denny-o

 

[Sac Arrow]

That's strange Kimberly because I have been flying longer than you and it is my take off that is getting worse... My landings are divine... What am I doing wrong?

denny-o

Probably too much. Properly trimmed for takeoff, most airplanes will fly themselves off the runway.

 

[Fearless Tower]

That's exactly how you break tail wheel springs, but you are right, if you have enough speed to hold the tail up, you have too much speed to allow the tail to go over the top.

But your tendency to brace your self as you go up, using the brake pedals is very strong, and most newbies will simply stand on the brakes.

You will find that the larger the aircraft the heavier the tail is and they have less tendency to nose up.

getting the tail to come up using the brakes, is a factor of traction, that is why grass is much more preferable

Very true.

 

[kimberlyanne546]

Probably too much. Properly trimmed for takeoff, most airplanes will fly themselves off the runway.

Yeah, on my 172 check out with the CFI he kept doing touch and go's and would raise the flaps to 10 and ask me to do power, carb heat, keep centerline, etc and before you knew it the plane took off all by itself, I didn't even need to rotate.

 

[kimberlyanne546]

That's strange Kimberly because I have been flying longer than you and it is my take off that is getting worse... My landings are divine... What am I doing wrong?

denny-o

I don't know? I'm not a CFI. How bad could your take off be?

 

[sdflyer]

The FARs don't say what's necessary to fly safely, they say what's needed to fly legally.

Really? There are so many useful things you can do using airspeed indicator and E6B

 

[denverpilot]

Did I notice that you mentioned running out of elevator on landing from time to time?

I just noticed a minute ago that starting in 1981 they upped the travel 2*.

Just found it interesting

That is interesting. I don't think I've ever run out, landing, but the STOL makes it so if you flare high you won't have any elevator left for the mistake. Power is the only option then. Lots of drag. Lots of downward direction.

The non-STOL would be moving faster and you'd "arrive" instead of land but the wing would still be producing more lift across the entire span. When we're that slow the stall fences on top start "singing". You can hear that you're slow, and you know the only thing controlling descent rate is power at that point. Hauling any further back will just increase it.

It's much easier with the STOL to get way behind the power curve.

I think adding more up elevator to ours would just increase the likelihood of a tailstrike if you weren't dilligent with the airspeed. Especially loaded aft-CG.

Once you're on the ground you can run out of elevator very easily before the nose comes down with even a minor headwind. Then that heavy O-470 out front overcomes the tail's downforce and it goes plop.

Maybe that's why they added a couple of degrees, to give you the ability to lower the nose gracefully at very slow speeds.

Land faster and "fly" the nose down, it's no problem at all. But, I still only get that right about 1 in 4 landings anyway, so ... Dunno.

I run out of up *trim* all the time, though.

Most landings are already full-up on the trim wheel, but if you made that trim tab bigger, a full-power go-around would be quite entertaining.

You don't run out of trim if you drag it in with power either, which is a commonly used Skylane technique for "land-o-matic" landings.

I have problems with that. I don't want to end up short of the runway if I started from a position within easy gliding distance in the downwind and lose the engine.

That may just be my 10 or so hours in gliders talking there, but it seems silly to go out three miles and fly an airliner approach with power if there's no operational need to do it.

'Round here the stupid pattern gets larger and larger and larger the more aircraft are doing T&G on 35L at KAPA. There's times when one could plan and fly a cross-country from base to final, I swear.

 

[azure]

Landing the Cardinal with its stabilator is... interesting. I always get a little nervous flying with my CFII since in the club planes he checked me out in, he always teaches a very nose-high attitude at touchdown and will really get on your case if you don't do it his way. It's understandable since there have been a few times when club members bounced off the nosewheel and I believe they've even seen some strut damage from that. But if you land my airplane that way you are very likely to end up crowhopping down the runway or porpoising, or worse. When I'm flying with him in the Cardinal I can feel him tensing up at my flat sight picture and getting ready to grab the controls. So far he's restrained himself. And yes, even with the apparently flat attitude, we always touch mains first.

Actually I STILL tend to raise the nose too much sometimes, and get into funks where I get three landings for every one for a while. The key is to apply gentle pressure in the flare, NOT to think about getting the nose up at all costs. The correct sight picture really does look almost flat. If you can't see over the nose, you might have to add power or even go around.