As fiftynineSC, Scottnt, and Battson pointed out, too much speed gave him problems. The apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach gave me a tremendous advantage with tailwheel students. I could safely allow their feet to go to sleep and let them discover learn the result: a ground loop. With that light crosswind, we touched down every time with too little ground speed to catch a wing or collapse a gear. They only had to do it once. You can lead a horse to water but a ground loop will get his attention.

Feel sorry for the guy. Beautiful 170. We all have days when we are not at our best.

gregwyatt wrote:Feel sorry for the guy. Beautiful 170. We all have days when we are not at our best.

Ain't it the truth!

Cary

Looks like it was enough to scare him off, incident was 1/17/17, airplane sold in June.

Flying in light or no wind may (or not) make the airplane last longer. It doesn't help the pilot at all. If we're going to fly tailwheel airplanes, we need to get the old dog somebody mentioned and just go do it.

Like Cary said, the controls are more effective with more airspeed. We have to slow down sometime, however, and speed will total the airplane in a ground loop.

Power/pitch on approach makes both slow speed and prop blast over the rudder and elevator possible. Aileron? We shouldn't be using it except to counter drift. Having to cut power is a problem, if we are doing the round out thing, but not if we slow more, requiring power, on short final. Dragging it in is more dangerous, but unnecessary if we wait until short final, where the rate of closure appears to speed up, to get really slow requiring more power.

I think its tough to judge the guy based on this video, for most of the interesting part you can't see the rudder or a full view of whats going on. Apart from too much speed it looks like a little more to it than the video shows as well, seems unusual to get a wing up like that from just a light cross wind with neutral controls. He did do well keeping it straight and damage to a minimum. Like Greg says we all have our days and hopefully a cameras not rolling.

I do hope I never have a record like that on public display. To err is human might be one thing of course but to relive it afterwards with a bunch of experts at your back is another. At least suicide is painless. But the poor guy will make us all better pilots.

I once saw a T-6 do one of those just about like that one. The wind was light and variable and the guy was on the ground, straight and slowing down when all hell broke loose and he put a wingtip into the ground. I have thought about it many times and the only explanation was that he just went to sleep or started fussing with the radio or something inside the cockpit. The wing was wrinkled from tip to root and he was so ticked off at himself that he started back to the hangar at full power.

Come to think of it my uncle wadded up his Pacer like that too. No excuse he later related; he was retrieving a chart from the floor on the right side during rollout. He flew Stinsons in Korea and had thousands of hours as a maintenance check pilot for a helo group in the army.

Shite happens.

contactflying wrote:.... ..The apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach gave me a tremendous advantage with tailwheel students. I could safely allow their feet to go to sleep and let them discover learn the result: a ground loop. With that light crosswind, we touched down every time with too little ground speed to catch a wing or collapse a gear.......

I don't know if there is ANY safe speed for a ground loop.
I've seen airplanes nose over from over-braking (a natural response to a ground loop),
even at a "brisk walk rate" of speed.
Seen them drag a wingtip at pretty low speeds too.
IMHO an intentional ground loop is dumb and reckless,
and a good way to fuck up an airplane.

IMHO; taildragger + crosswind + extra airspeed + dry asphalt = wheel landing. Bouncing a three-pointer on asphalt in a Citabria with the spring gear is an awful feeling, especially in a crosswind; I imagine it's the same for a 170 if you induce any side loads on the gear. Most of you probably have a lot more flying time than I do, but my cure for a bounced 3-pointer invariably seems to be full throttle application & a go-around, especially in a crosswind. And for what it's worth I think it's more intuitive to bury a stick in an upwind corner than it is to keep a wheel cocked into the wind on roll-out and taxi, at least for me ( Citabria vs. Stinson time). I'm not trying to be critical, just applying a little system safety to the thinking process. If I let myself get distracted by something inside the airpIane 'll often find myself inadvertently taking out some upwind aileron when sitting behind a yoke.

Thanks for sharing, that looks like a beautiful 170. It's a horrible feeling seeing your bird get dinged. This video is another reminder of why I love grass runways.

For you folks who are suggesting that a wheel landing is a bad thing in a crosswind, PLEASE go find a competent tailwheel instructor and get some quality instruction in wheel landings.

Any more, my default IN MOST AIRPLANES is a wheel landing, and certainly in a 170 that would be my first choice.

Last summer enroute to OSH, direct crosswind at 25, gusting. I put the cub in the grass next to the runway, and wheel landed it. Stopped, I held brakes and waited for three gents to walk my wings to parking. Sometimes, landing is easier than taxiing.

MTV

What MTV said is right on. Wheel landing was definitely my default. And we should slow down the same for wheel landing as three point.

When does the ground loop begin? It begins when the tail starts around. We really don't know which way the airplane will decide to go. In the air, the airplane is our friend. It generally does the right thing by itself. On the ground, yes if nose geared but no if tailwheel. Either is sensitive about turning. Adverse yaw really messes with it. That is why we keep the longitudinal axis pointed at the numbers with rudder only. Any drift correction can be taken care of with aileron only to keep the bank sufficient or to keep the wing level in no crosswind.

Back to tailwheel on the ground either in three point or just on the mains. The ground loop begins when the tail moves around sending the nose (longitudinal axis) left or right of centerline from the pilots point of view. There is only one way to get ahead of that, but it's going to seem wrong. To get ahead, we have to do it rather than wait on the airplane. Remember, the airplane is not our friend on the ground. By dynamic proactive rudder movement, rather than static reactive rudder movement, we get out ahead of the beast. By starting a ground loop left quickly followed by starting a ground loop right, left, right, left, right..., we bracket correct longitudinal axis direction rather than chase incorrect longitudinal axis direction.

Hotrod180,

You are correct. There is no safe ground loop speed. We land to the loader and ground loop around because we don't want to turn with a load. That would be very hard on main and tail gear. No, it is not really safe.

The Army Air Corps used a Stearman with no wings to give cadets ground loop experience. Some were torn up, but no wings had to be rebuilt. I didn't have a wingless Stearman so I just used Billy Howell's 7AC which wasn't very expensive at the time. Not all students have to actually experience a moving ground loop, but it certainly helps prevent later, more expensive ones. Most of my students moved the rudder dynamically and proactively all the way down final, on landing, and in taxi to the tie down. They never ground looped. Some not as fleet footed never ground looped. A few ground looped...once. We didn't damage Billy's airplane.

Contact added a point that I failed to mention,but should have: A wheel landing does not NEED to be performed at a noticeably faster speed than a three point.

But, nevertheless, you SHOULD be able to put a tailwheel airplane on the mains at most any speed and still keep it straight. Remember, that extra speed provides more control authority. My point is not to use more speed necessarily, but simply that speed had nothing to do with the outcome of this incident.

I use tail low wheel landings a lot, and they can result in very slow touchdowns.

MTV

I've seen it successfully (didn't say it was all that smart) done at the end of our old lodge strip with an underpowered and overloaded C140 with a tailwind on an aborted takeoff run. It was that or eat a tree on the end. Yoke all the way back and bring her around. No damage other than pride. Outcome would have been much different on pavement.

Stated another way, bouncing a 3-pointer in a crosswind in an aircraft with spring-steel gear is as much fun as running through a blackberry patch naked. My original point may have been misconstrued, I'm an advocate of wheel landings in crosswinds.

contactflying wrote:You can lead a horse to water but a ground loop will get his attention.

Can we please, PLEASE get this on a tee shirt with a backcountrypilot logo.