There is a tradeoff between time on target on the one hand and both cone of (tightness of) observation and apparent rate of closure with the target. A steeper the dive angle results in less time on target, a more circular and smaller cone of observation, and a slower apparent rate of closure with the target.

Think in terms of shooting rockets rather than reconnaissance. The steeper the dive angle, the tighter the shot group.

Come to think of it, the greater the glide angle on an approach the slower the apparent rate of closure with the numbers. In the energy management turn to target, however, the nose is well down and we are gaining speed rapidly. Both the airplane nose (between our toes) and our butt is on a vertical line to the target. As with the approach to landing, rudder only must keep wing level and the target between our toes.

Yessir,

For me, it is all based on approach and escape options. In this spot, I had the benefit of not having any obstacles on approach or departure. The steeper approach will lend itself to a slower forward speed, which should allow for a shorter rollout when needed. I like the flatter approach in situations like this to allow for a more stable escape. I don't have much experience in other planes, but my Maule will stand on its tail if I try to leave to fast after an aborted landing. It is not a comfortable feeling, with flaps in landing position, yoke full forward, trying to maintain airspeed, and looking for a soft crash site.

I see posts discussing the POV cameras causing pilots to make sketchy decisions for a social media gasp, but I disagree. I use the GPS overlays after every flight I record to evaluate wether I did what I told myself to do. The in cockpit are really a big help, and when I take the time to sync both cameras, it's even better.

Anyway, I appreciate the comments, I learn something new everyday on this site.

wtx, looks like you're having fun in the Maule.
if you make the approach with very little trim input (5/8" aprox on marker) though it takes a little bicep work you, but you won't get as radical "stand on tail" effect in a go around. Just before ground contact, you can run the flap lever from 48 deg to -7 deg which will glue you on the ground, prevent nose over tendency and allow heavy application of brakes.
A stalled steep approach will allow a slower approach speed but needs sharp judgement for round out to touchdown as there is no ground effect.
A judicial blip of power cushions the touch. This method is more for a committed landing.

wrxdragger,

I agree with your rational for the low descent angle approach, even going into ground effect prior to the landing zone. Give the energy management turns to recon a specific area a try. Work on these turns up high first and I don't think you will have any problems. I may try to get down with the local 172 and instructor before vaccinations if you wish. No hurry as far as I'm concerned. Be careful. Remember to level the wing prior to pull up.

After energy management turn to target, we are looking out the left front windscreen at the target only. We have slowed the apparent rate of closure with dive angle rather than going over low and maintaining altitude. That makes everything out the left window go by at a very fast apparent rate of closure. In front, when low level, we have the cowl in the way so are looking further in front of the airplane. When we pull up over the target we are staying low, but the rate of closure has now jumped. The best evaluation is in the dive on the target. By stopping the rapid rate of closure, it is amazing how clearly we can see the target even when up a few hundred feet. Again, it gets better and better so we don't want to get too locked in. Level wing to pull up.

The reason we don't just push over onto the target is that we increase airspeed much faster that way. Approach the target with the target under the left wing for a 90 degree or out the far left windscreen for a 45 degree approach. Use the airspeed energy of the dive wings level onto the target to zoom back up and slow down, allowing the nose to go down now, for a return to target. It is like crop dusting. Again, practice up high first.

Again, you're doing a great job.

contact

Jeremy, I remembered you told me these same words when I bought the Maule from you, and have done my best to follow your advice. I do keep the trim in Cruise configuration, but have not played with the full flap dump. I have learned to be more judicial on the throttle than when I first got the Maule.

Thanks, and this was a long time coming.

I have made these approaches many times since I first got the property and built the camp. I have many hours of video, with many, many passes trying to figure out if I could do it. I have also walked this path on our fishing trips, hell I've even walked it under a Whisky Moon.

I also spent many hours at my local airport making sure I could land regularly in 250' and hit my spot every time.

The day I landed, the conditions were the best I had ever seen.
This is in West Texas along the Rio Grande, so temperature and wind are not very friendly. On this day the wind was slight and out of the correct direction and it was a cold dense day, I was alone and the fuel in the Maule was light. Even then I made several passes to verify I could do it.

It has been the most excellent adventure.

Many places in the desert we can just get down into as low as the tumbleweed allows ground effect and just hover taxi up to the desired touchdown point. In this instance we wouldn't want to dump the full flaps. Anytime, whatever the glide angle or glideslope, we can use power to touchdown, this excellent up down lever (throttle) can put us down very slowly and softly. I hate the terms glide angle and glideslope because they assume glide. Power pitch approaches are more power than glide. Depending on the headwind component, this may or may not be behind the power curve coming into ground effect. With significant headwind, hover taxi may be above (Vso out of ground effect.) Without headwind component, hover taxi is below (Vso out of ground effect.) Vso is also a poor term in landing because we touchdown below Vso unless we have a headwind component. We also hover taxi below Vso unless we have a headwind component.

As in many situations, the wind is our friend in short field work. Given the very slow stall in low ground effect numbers in small airplanes, zero ground roll is possible with some headwind component using throttle as the let me down slowly and softly on the spot control. Elevator is used to get slow enough to sink enough to bring the throttle fully into the realm of effective rate of descent control. wtxdragger has this concept under control. Yes, trim should remain neutral. When we get slow enough, we take some of the relative wind pressure off the controls. An indication of slow enough is that the ailerons no longer work well. So we use rudder to level the wing. Keeping the desired touchdown spot between our toes keeps the rudder active and at the same time keeps the wing level. Or in a stable bank into a crosswind. And yes, in a hover taxi to the desired touchdown point we would have to be in a crab until ready to use the throttle to lever on down to the surface. Now the change to side slip will not put a wing into the weeds.

wtxdragger wrote:< snip >
I see posts discussing the POV cameras causing pilots to make sketchy decisions for a social media gasp, but I disagree. I use the GPS overlays after every flight I record to evaluate whether I did what I told myself to do. The in cockpit are really a big help, and when I take the time to sync both cameras, it's even better.

Like others, I appreciate your videos. And I agree with you about using the camera as a tool for your own learning, rather than necessarily for "social media" reasons. I'm not good enough (certainly not as a videographer) that I see any benefit to others from publishing my videos, but like you I do use them to review my flights and learn from them.

Back in the "old days", I used to fly with one of those little Olympus tape recorders, with the earpiece plugged into the microphone port and inserted into the "cup" of my hearing protection. Worked perfect, and I could record everything said in the cockpit or over the radio. Used it for post-flight review when I was instructing (Army) – especially during field training exercises, when things were really busy... New pilots would become overwhelmed during combat simulations, to the point I would often have to step in and assist at least with the radios, and having the audio record would help them learn from the post-flight debrief.

After the flight, we would listen to the tape, and I would pause it just before the "miss", and I'd ask questions to refresh their memory of the events leading up to it, and what they were doing at the time... Then we'd continue listening, pausing whenever we needed to discuss something.

Every single person I flew with REALLY liked going over the recordings afterward, and to a man they always said they learned as much after the fact as during the flight itself. Using a video camera that shows the panel as well as the pilot's POV is my "modern day" reenactment of those old days. I may never post any of my stuff to the internet, but it's still a great tool for me, personally!

The new POV cameras are fairly simple to operate and the quality of the video is excellent. Main concern is to get the mount location and type figured out. I use the medium RAM balls, I think they are the C(about 1"), but I'm not sure. The balls make it easy to attach and remove the cameras, and easily change the direction of the view. As I've stated GoPro software is a pain, but I'm not into a full blown video editor, so it works for me.
I send them to YouTube just because I like to share them with family and friends and the file size is too large to text or email.

I'm not lying in that I was proud of this series of landings, and wanted to share. I went through a lot of preparation to get to this point, and it made me really happy.

I do appreciate the input from the forum and hope that it helped someone in some sort of way. I know for sure that the knowledge I have gathered here is priceless.

Wow! What a strip! You ought to be proud to have honed your skills to get in there.
Your videos are great, and I know I not only enjoy them, but also learn a lot. Keep ‘em coming!

I really enjoy your videos too. I actually found your landing spot on google maps and am wondering if flying that close to the border you get hassled much by the law? Up here in Iowa I probably don't have a real good handle on reality down there.

Last century, but my energy management turns were over Mexico spraying onions in Texas. Green Broncos (Border Patrol) every mile or so below me.

We haven't had any problems so far.
We do stay on the Texas side, but might drift over the river ever once in a while in a bend in the river. Most of the time we're not right on top of the bluff, so it's not a problem.
We will normally land in Dryden, 6R6, for fuel and will run into Customs and Border Patrol Officers there. The conversation is mostly about the planes we all are flying, like all pilots do. They will ask where we're from and where we're headed.

Another video with a different approach.

The strip is at a friend's house, and splits 2 small peaks. The wind is normally from the SouthEast, and swirls around the peak to the East. A bit more speed is required, just to be able to respond to the gusts. The strip is plenty long, so I like to wheel land and keep the tail up until I get to the off camber section. The off camber pushes the plane toward the West, and with the normally SouthEast wind, the plane wants to head toward the header on the right. I DO NOT like this feeling, so I want to tailwheel on the ground when I get there.

I always keep an eye out for any kind of wind vane, today it was a couple old cows thinkin' they were bulls. The downwind takeoff required me to try and stay low in ground effect and build some air speed. Takeoff ground speed is 10 mph or so faster than landing ground speed.

I also included the instrument cluster on this video. It doesn't show a true vertical speed like the Garmin VIRB, but at least you can see the elevation. The data from the GoPro start all over each time the record button is pressed.

Another video, nothing out of the ordinary, just a landing at home. 2F0

The reason I'm posting is that there has been a lot of discussion about the MT Prop working as a brake. In this video, you can hear when the prop quits pulling and starts helping me to slow down and whistle. With the GPS of the camera it's easy to see.

During the low pass, you can also see why I now have an MT prop.

I haven't posted any videos in awhile, so thought I would share a couple.
And as usual, I have to tell y'all how cool the Maule is, can't help myself.

Landing on a gusty day at Home. 2F0


Landing on a friends hay field to film the testing of one of our Jetboats, and trying to avoid the ruts.


A couple landing playing around West Texas, waiting on it to get dark to get night current.

Had a last minute vector change.


Inside view of a tail low wheel landing and a long tail high taxi. Flying and Camping with some friends down the Pecos River.

And 1 more.

This video is a reminder of wake turbulence(or probably just prop wash), even behind a small plane. We were flying down the Pecos River and I was a 1/2 mile behind and above the Maule in front of me. The air was cold and dead calm, had been flying hands off with only slight rudder and power adjustments. Even passing around the small point above the river did not give a slight bump. As I dropped in behind the Maule in front of me, the prop wash was quick and rather violent, requiring full aileron and a quick firm rudder to stabilize.

Just be careful, happens when you're the most comfortable.

Nice power pitch deceleration at higher descent angle over the wire. This is actually easier than the low approaches because the apparent rate of closure doesn't increase as suddenly with higher descent angle. Very impressive shallow descent angle power pitch deceleration in the desert. We don't see the rate of closure increase suddenly because you anticipate it and decelerate just as it is developing. There is the advantage of entering ground effect sooner. Just a bit more power and a bit higher pitch attitude just after the wire will eliminate the little bounce at the bottom. Let her down slow with throttle like a helicopter approach. I learned the shallow approach first as a crop duster but found the steeper to be easier to teach with students.

Good stuff Jeff!