What would you do - if you saw this happen?

RyanShort1

RyanShort1

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RyanShort1
Ok, so I personally saw this happen today...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HESv85DYHA

The Cub in the film is one that I regularly fly. I usually carry a pretty elaborate handheld radio/intercom rig. Another instructor was on board at the time and only had the intercom, but was following good traffic pattern procedures.

What would you do if you saw this? Especially, if you saw the Cessna 152 proceed to park nearby?

Ryan
 
What's wrong? As long as the 152 can stop short (or clear off the runway) of where the Cub was in case the Cub wiped out and couldn't clear, it's all good.
 
What would I do? I'd probably say, "Gosh, it surely is windy today."
 
Well, the cub was using the grass, and the 152 using the hard surface. I imagine the 152 figured he was being safe by giving the cub about a runway length before landing. I'm not a fan of people breathing down my neck on final and rollout, but I think this one is more a matter of opinion. Not close enough a call for any confrontation.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Well, the cub was using the grass, and the 152 using the hard surface. I imagine the 152 figured he was being safe by giving the cub about a runway length before landing. I'm not a fan of people breathing down my neck on final and rollout, but I think this one is more a matter of opinion. Not close enough a call for any confrontation.
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Agreed.

:yes:
 
I would ask them both why they used so much runway.
 
flyersfan31 said:
Well, the cub was using the grass, and the 152 using the hard surface. I imagine the 152 figured he was being safe by giving the cub about a runway length before landing. I'm not a fan of people breathing down my neck on final and rollout, but I think this one is more a matter of opinion. Not close enough a call for any confrontation.
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The Cub was NOT on the grass... and had been in the pattern for a while while the instructor helped the student learn to deal with crosswind landings.

Ryan
 
Even though the cub driver had power on and was fooling around by needlessly dragging the landing out or otherwise playing about, and likely fully aware of traffic waiting behind him - the runway was his, and you certainly could not report him for that.

Honestly I am not a fan of reporting people for stuff, not sure why we all seem to get our police suits on when we get to the airport. Heck, if we did the same in our cars we would never get our blood pressure into the normal range.
 
No bent metal, no foul. Didn't look all that terribly suspenseful to my eye.
 
Excellent wheel landing by the cub pilot. This is something that tail dragger pilots need to know and can be very useful in soft field landings and special conditions.

As to the other aircraft.....part of me thinks he was not that unsafe..part of me thinks ...if either had to make a "go around" for any reason (or both of them) then there could have been a problem. The windsock shows the wind from the left (and little of it) and that is the initial low wing direction..later the cub changes to low wing on right....looks like it was training and practice.

As a rule, I give instructors and students a little extra room if I know they are in instruction mode. Yes ..I allow one car length for every 10mph on the freeway, so why not give the full runway to another aircraft?
 
"to an even greater degree than the sea, the air is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect"
 
As I commented over at the Red, I think I would have attempted to do as did Rayn: try briefly to educate the guy that a Taildragger may ground loop in front of you at any time, and then stuffing up the Cub's derriere would not have been a smart thing to do.

Nothing Illegal. Maybe I'd invite the guy for 0.3 Taildragger familiarization so he could see that the outcome is not necessarily assurred.
 
Yeah, but it looked like the Cub was far enough down the runway that the 152 could stop short of him even if he did ground loop.
 
If that scares you then don't try to land at OSH.:hairraise::dunno:... Geez.
they had tons of room and the 152 could have stopped way before the cub did anything stupid.... IMHO.
Ben.
 
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If I was in the 152, I would have elected to go around, or not even be in that position by extending my downwind.
 
So what'd you do?

For the record IMHO: no need to be that close behind another guy. Cub guy should fly with radio if beating up the pattern (you make it sound like one was avail for checkout), 152 should've extended his downwind, etc.
 
Well, first off, I thought it would be fun to ask..

Second, the rest of the pattern was part of what precipitated the (minor) concern I did have. The guy was on the 45 converging and appeared to see the Cub very late and alter course to parallel and extend the downwind. Then he does this. I don't think it was horrible decision making, but it raises some issues I think aren't well understood especially by guys like the 152 guy.

I have mixed feelings about the thing. On the one hand, I would absolutely have wanted my students to give the Cub a bit more space, on the other hand, I've personally landed on the same runway as two other planes, as part of a formation flight. Of course the difference there is that it was planned. If you had seen some of the previous landings (this one was by the instructor it turns out) I would have had concerns that the student might groundloop the Cub in front of the 152. That is a particularly sensitive issue with one of my friends, who had an L-bird ground loop in front of him at an airshow, with fatal results. In this case, the instructor was doing a deliberate and extended crosswind demonstration to the student, and personally I think he was doing a good job. He's an excellent pilot and I respect him a lot.

On the positive side, I think in some ways, a go-around could have been equally hazardous, because the 152 pilot wouldn't know if the Cub was going to just land long and taxi back, or take off again (touch and go) and the Cub wouldn't know he was close behind him. The Cub did go to a full stop, but every previous landing had been a touch and go.

Several of you have mentioned that the 152 guy had lots of room. That's fair, and this guy DID get it stopped quickly, and did a great job, but what if you had a brake failure, or something else happen... I've had a completely unexpected single brake failure in a 210 that ate up a lot more runway than I thought since I didn't want to pull hard to the side.

I did talk briefly to the 152 pilot about the issues with NORDO traffic, because it's a real sticky point lately, but I don't think he made a necessarily bad call to go ahead and land. Everything was polite, and no harsh words were exchanged.

I reply to a couple of other points: The other instructor did not have a radio available, and does not typically use one. This is one reason whey I dislike the ATITPA guys attitude so much... just because you don't hear 'em, doesn't mean they aren't there. I've also personally had a handheld go out in the pattern because of having to use it so much, and that leaves me NORDO as well (I have three batteries, but if we have a long day, that can even become a challenge).

Ryan
 
RyanShort1 said:
just because you don't hear 'em, doesn't mean they aren't there.
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Very true. I did a lot of pattern work with other NORDO taildraggers (we had a radio) while getting my tailwheel endorsement and it was very eye-opening for me. I remember thinking "Holy crap, they really are out there, and they're not going to have any idea what you're saying." Good lesson reinforced.
 
Why do people fly without radios? Is a simple handheld radio really THAT expensive?
 
ajstoner21 said:
Why do people fly without radios? Is a simple handheld radio really THAT expensive?
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Shielded magnetos, harnesses, and spark plugs are. I flew a NORDO Fly Baby for about seven years. The few times I tried to use a handheld, the headset was like two popcorn poppers strapped to my ears.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Fearless Tower said:
Why were they both touching down left wheel first in a right x-wind?
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The winds at 5C1 shift a LOT... what you see on the windsock may not be what they were feeling. The other Cub instructor is good, and if he was landing on that wheel, I trust his judgment.

Ryan
 
EdFred said:
I would ask them both why they used so much runway.
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Maybe it was gusty? If two pilots are both taking "so much runway" it may be they knew something about actual conditions not apparent by a momentary view of the wind sock in a 46 second video.
 
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flyersfan31 said:
Well, the cub was using the grass, and the 152 using the hard surface. I imagine the 152 figured he was being safe by giving the cub about a runway length before landing. I'm not a fan of people breathing down my neck on final and rollout, but I think this one is more a matter of opinion. Not close enough a call for any confrontation.
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I perfectly agree with sc freiburg. If the 152 would have seen that cub gets in problems he would have had the option to go around. As long as a go around is possible without any danger (and if -as in this case- the runway between the twpo planes is sufficient) I don't see a real danger. Whether it wouldn't be more wise to fly more defensive (e.g expand your downwind) is another question.

Rgds
Stephan
 
Looked like the Cub instructor was showing the student "ok, now look, we're on this wheel, now on this one, watch what happens .. now we're on both, that's good... let's go get a soda"

I say that because my tailwheel instructor did the same thing - we flew down the length of about a 9,000 foot runway so I could watch the changes that happened w/ some very small control inputs. first on this wheel, now on the other...

The 152 looked pretty close to me frankly, and I would have thought he might want to go around until the plane was "clear of the rwy" but he didn't and I spose he had room to stop in time if the Cub had trouble........ But, Murphy happens and I would rather have seen the 152 go around to the right side of the rwy and come back in or to have waited in some way to land.

Glad that he was amenable to your chat.
 
RyanShort1 said:
It's not really convenient at all to have to use one, and frankly, even my setup sometimes doesn't work well...

Ryan
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I'd believe that. On my private pilot checkride, my DPE was an old guy who didn't believe in headsets, so I had to do my private pilot checkride without my headset, using a handheld mic and the overhead speaker. Realistic distraction?

Eitherway, it was quite a PITA.
 
Jeanie said:
Looked like the Cub instructor was showing the student "ok, now look, we're on this wheel, now on this one, watch what happens .. now we're on both, that's good... let's go get a soda"

I say that because my tailwheel instructor did the same thing - we flew down the length of about a 9,000 foot runway so I could watch the changes that happened w/ some very small control inputs. first on this wheel, now on the other...

The 152 looked pretty close to me frankly, and I would have thought he might want to go around until the plane was "clear of the rwy" but he didn't and I spose he had room to stop in time if the Cub had trouble........ But, Murphy happens and I would rather have seen the 152 go around to the right side of the rwy and come back in or to have waited in some way to land.

Glad that he was amenable to your chat.
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Right on.

Ryan
 
RyanShort1 said:
It's not really convenient at all to have to use one, and frankly, even my setup sometimes doesn't work well...

Ryan
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Ryan -- I've been very happy with my Sporty's SP-200 performance since I installed a whip antenna and powered it off a sealed lead acid 12v hobby battery -- 3-4 hours of listening, dozens of transmissions, and able to talk to towers 20 miles out.

Sometimes I forget to charge or bring the battery, and on a quiet morning I'll fly NORDO, but most times I have it and it works.
 
And then, sometimes you just need to land to get the **** out of the way. Different situation, I was the guy in the taildragger and there was a 152 behind us in the pattern, and a couple of other planes coming in for full-stop landings, at an airport where the only runway exit is in the middle of a 4000' runway. Since winds were basically calm, we were going to land, turn around, and take off in the opposite direction. Let the plane roll out to the end of the runway, turned around, and the 152 was too close in to do anything but sit at the opposite end of the runway. 152 went around. 172 was on final behind him. We were going to take off after the 172 cleared the runway, but he dallied enough that by the time he took the turnoff, the 152 was turning base to final again, so we had to keep waiting. 152 goes around again, bitching and moaning on the radio the whole time about that damn taildragger still being on the runway (Seriously? You need all 4000' to land that 152?) and we were finally able to get out of there.

In that case, I wish the 152 would have just landed. We told him on the radio that we saw him, we were waiting for him, and if he did end up needing anything in that last 1000' of runway, we'd already have headed for the grass and the adjoining cornfield if necessary, and we were parked at an angle to make that a quickly-executable option. (We also later found out who the 152 pilot was... NOT a student, in case you were wondering - but it turns out he loves to complain... Shocking.)

So, based only on what I see in the video at the top of this thread, I'd have probably gone around if I were in the 152 and there was any potential lack of separation - It's kind of hard to tell how much separation there really is in the video. However, there are also situations where it's perfectly safe to land with another aircraft on the runway. Hell, at Oshkosh, if you're landing on 36L - The other end of the runway is a crossing taxiway during show week. You also may well be landing with other planes on the runway. Hit your dot, slow to a reasonable speed, and get off into the grass ASAP. An unnecessary go-around at Airventure is likely to cause more problems than it solves.
 
dmccormack said:
Ryan -- I've been very happy with my Sporty's SP-200 performance since I installed a whip antenna and powered it off a sealed lead acid 12v hobby battery -- 3-4 hours of listening, dozens of transmissions, and able to talk to towers 20 miles out.

Sometimes I forget to charge or bring the battery, and on a quiet morning I'll fly NORDO, but most times I have it and it works.
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When I own my own taildragger, that's essentially my plan. Right now, I'm flying someone else's Cub, and other people get to fly it. I'm not free to install anything like that. I do get pretty decent radio performance with this: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/antennakit.php but there are times when it just doesn't cut it.

Ryan
 
Henning said:
Why not just get a plane that has electricity and a real radio?
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The performance of my handheld has been surprising -- It's equal to any mounted setup I've used. I've talked to PIT APP, and various Class D up to 20 miles out and have heard folks 100 miles away.
 
Henning said:
Why not just get a plane that has electricity and a real radio?
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Well, that's the bigger plan. It's all about $$$ at this point. I'm looking first for something I can afford - hopefully before the end of the year, if I can save enough pennies.

Ryan
 
ajstoner21 said:
On my private pilot checkride, my DPE was an old guy who didn't believe in headsets, so I had to do my private pilot checkride without my headset, using a handheld mic and the overhead speaker. Realistic distraction?
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Sheesh, I'm surprised the DPE had any hearing left!

You should have insisted on your authority as PIC to use your headset!
 
He was actually pretty hard of hearing. But, It was ok. It was a good experience.
 
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