Question about a Cub’s “diving landing.”

eetrojan

eetrojan

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eetrojan
Coming home to John Wayne the other day, we were on the 45 entry for 19L, following the local Piper J3 Cub that was on the downwind about to turn base. I don't remember his words, but the Cub’s pilot asked if he could have the big runway normally used by commercial traffic, 19R, and tower gave him the go-ahead to slide over to 19R.

As we continued our downwind, we noticed that the Cub stayed high (say 500-600 feet) until it was nearly directly above the threshold of 19R, at which point it looked like it was hardly moving, and then dove for the numbers.

Looked fun, but wonder what they were doing. A really SHORT field landing?

Any ideas?
 
Not necessarily a short field landing but maybe just staying high until a hard slip to the runway just for fun. I've done that many times.
 
I agree - likely a fun slip.
 
whifferdill said:
Yep, I love exploiting airframe drag for fun. :)

Trying to really stuff mine in from a few days ago - from 1100' AGL. Winds calm. If I had a CS prop, I could really make it steep. ;)

Cubs slip real nice too, just don't quite have the drag of the Fly Baby or Pitts.

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That's unreal! I'd love to have the confidence in my plane and myself to do something like that.
 
48dodge said:
That's unreal! I'd love to have the confidence in my plane and myself to do something like that.
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All it takes is a bit of training, a bit of practice, and an airplane that falls like a shotgunned duck in a slip. You can practice high, then persist with the slip lower and lower as you gain confidence.

My Fly Baby is open-cockpit, wire-braced, and doesn't have flaps or any conventional glide-slope control devices. When the engine fails, it has the glide ratio of a space shuttle. Hence, my near-invariable practice is to keep the altitude up on approach, then slip as necessary when the runway is assured.

About one minute in on this video, you can see what it looks like from outside the airplane....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp_t0lOJZME

Ron Wanttaja
 
Thanks for the videos! That does look like great fun.

On the Cub, it could have been a slip, but it definitely wasn't a turning slip. The winds were at about 10-12 kts, right down the runway. As initially set up, it was on the extended centerline with its wings level. It looked like it was suspended above the runway numbers, hardly moving if at all, like a kite tugging at the end of a taught string - and then it went into a steep descent.

I'm not sure if it was slipping when it did that, but it may have been. I didn't see it at the bottom of the descent because I got busy with my own landing.
 
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wanttaja said:
All it takes is a bit of training, a bit of practice, and an airplane that falls like a shotgunned duck in a slip. You can practice high, then persist with the slip lower and lower as you gain confidence.

My Fly Baby is open-cockpit, wire-braced, and doesn't have flaps or any conventional glide-slope control devices. When the engine fails, it has the glide ratio of a space shuttle. Hence, my near-invariable practice is to keep the altitude up on approach, then slip as necessary when the runway is assured.

About one minute in on this video, you can see what it looks like from outside the airplane....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp_t0lOJZME

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...

Excellent choice of music for the video.
 
I come in high over the city from the east and last time ended up needing to lose about 3500 feet between the railroad tracks and the runway 17. Idle power, full flaps pulled the nose up to 60MPH and shallow S turns lol. Worked like a charm.


 
There's a guy at my local airport who flies his Cub every day. I believe he claims he hasn't missed a day in 20+ years. I don't know if he ever leaves the traffic pattern. He is amazing to watch and gets about a dozen landings in an incredibly short amount of time.

He takes off on 28L, T+G on 5, T+G on 28R, T+G on 10R, etc etc. He gets to traffic pattern height then just idles and does a crazy-looking 180 turning slip to the cross run-way and repeats until he's done a T+G on every runway. It's really fun to watch on windy days when he'll be at TPA before he's even crossed the mid-point of the runway.

I can only imagine the grin on his face while he flies.
 
Timmer said:
There's a guy at my local airport who flies his Cub every day. I believe he claims he hasn't missed a day in 20+ years. I don't know if he ever leaves the traffic pattern. He is amazing to watch and gets about a dozen landings in an incredibly short amount of time.



He takes off on 28L, T+G on 5, T+G on 28R, T+G on 10R, etc etc. He gets to traffic pattern height then just idles and does a crazy-looking 180 turning slip to the cross run-way and repeats until he's done a T+G on every runway. It's really fun to watch on windy days when he'll be at TPA before he's even crossed the mid-point of the runway.



I can only imagine the grin on his face while he flies.
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I don't think I've ever met him, but I've seen the guy you are talking about and shared the pattern with him many times when I used to fly my 170 on my lunch breaks.
 
Timmer said:
There's a guy at my local airport who flies his Cub every day. I believe he claims he hasn't missed a day in 20+ years. I don't know if he ever leaves the traffic pattern. He is amazing to watch and gets about a dozen landings in an incredibly short amount of time.

He takes off on 28L, T+G on 5, T+G on 28R, T+G on 10R, etc etc. He gets to traffic pattern height then just idles and does a crazy-looking 180 turning slip to the cross run-way and repeats until he's done a T+G on every runway. It's really fun to watch on windy days when he'll be at TPA before he's even crossed the mid-point of the runway.

I can only imagine the grin on his face while he flies.
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Don't ruin it for him by posting. Our OK Wonder Boy will be calling the FSDO to report this as unsafe.
 
I doubt that was actually a "diving" landing. If he had had his Cub in a "dive" he probably would have hit 75, maybe even 80 mph. All of the air would have gotten sucked out of the cabin and he would have passed out. ;)
 
Silvaire said:
I doubt that was actually a "diving" landing. If he had had his Cub in a "dive" he probably would have hit 75, maybe even 80 mph. All of the air would have gotten sucked out of the cabin and he would have passed out. ;)
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Got a good laugh on that one, thanks! :lol:
 
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