Backcountry Pilot • Tailwheel landing tribulations

Tailwheel landing tribulations

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Re: Tailwheel landing tribulations

I honestly haven't read all the posts and someone may already have said this but when the wheels touch and you put the stick forward make a conscious effort to NOT move your hand! any bouncing will magically stop. the bounce comes from the pilot chasing and salvaging and generally making a cluster out of it all. Stick and Rudder, the book, even says let the stick go and just keep it going where you want it to go with the feet, the drag of the wheels on the grass will pitch the nose down enough to lower the AOA… it was all mentioned as an exercise in the book but I've done it with students and it does work as long as your touchdown impact isn't too shameful. I've found with students they come in with a misconception that a tailwheel airplane is so much more foot work. id say not so much, it requires PROPER foot work and some landings, when the stars align, require surprisingly little work! its the same with the landings! As grandpa said "just give it what it needs no more no less" simple but very true, if you crash on approach you didn't do enough, if you crash on a boinging landing its because you were doing too much. DONT CHASE IT!!! touch, put the stick forward an inch, and hold it there. Don't mess with the power trim or BRAKES at this point. sometimes too many tricks make it too tricky, less is more, slow is smooth, smooth is fast….
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Re: Tailwheel landing tribulations

Wow, blast from the past.
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Re: Tailwheel landing tribulations

Dynamic, proactive control movement helps greatly in learning both rudder and stick control. If we remain static and wait for the problem and then try to fix it, we will have much more trouble. If we put the nose just a bit too far left followed by just a bit too far right we will stay ahead of the airplane. If we push the stick hard forward, on takeoff when we have enough pressure airspeed to get the tail up, followed by a little back, a little forward, etc., we will unload the wing and have less worry about pushing the prop into the ground. For those just getting started, we wobble a lot learning to ride a bicycle. With bicycle or airplane, just make it dynamic. The amount makes little difference, if it is proactive and dynamic.

On the other stuff, follow the thread from the first. MTV well covers both three point and wheel landings.
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