BlackWater wrote:Yes, getting comfortable and confident with applying nose down elevator pressure in a landing is something that takes a lot of time and practice. Have you practiced by running down the length of the runway up on your mains, with varying the speed and power? That exercise will greatly improve your confidence with planting the mains when the tail is up (buy up I am including everything from the tail-wheel 3 inches off the runway to a slightly nose-down attitude). The next exercise would be to do the same thing but on one main wheel. Spend a lot of time with those exercises (until they are boring) and you will be much more comfortable in a crosswind.
I'm also very big on recommending one or more low-pass or go-a rounds at any backcountry or unfamiliar airstrip. I could go on and on about all the benefits of this maneuver but in regard to this discussion, very often trees and terrain can be causing different wind conditions at different points in the landing environment, especially when some winds are involved it will really up your margin of safety. Fly what would be your normal pattern, approach and go around (departure route) and depending on the conditions fly it first at what ever is an absolutely safe height and then lower until you are fully confident about the conditions.

Those are some really great suggestions. I will go practice those routines.

I also agree with the go around strategy. My wife use to criticize me for it when I started flying tail wheels , but blasting in and doing a straight in approach often resulted in less than pretty landings. If you do a low pass you can a better idea about the runway and i can run through my airspeed/altitude key positions that results in more precise approach. Good advice. Thanks again.




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niente qui

dogpilot wrote:Lots of ways to get on the ground safely. I learned to fly the 185 in Honduras, during that "Contra" thing. My instructor, El Perro Negro, a 10,000 + hour 185 guy, nearly all on jungle strips. He taught me, the no finesse, fly a bit faster, plant it on the mains, push forward, chop throttle, put tail on ground, pull back on stick, stand on brakes. We tried to never go around, not a safe option. Lots of curious folks would try to put small holes in our aircraft or selves if we went around. Now this same technique was echoed by one of my Buds that flew Birddogs in Vietnam, two tours at Marble Mountain (shitty short runway not oriented to anything) and lived to talk about it. Bob was certifiable, which was proven when he flew his Bonanza under the Eiffle Tower back in '87.

https://www.airspacemag.com/videos/category/flight-today/under-the-eiffel-tower_1/

So bottom line, lots of ways to do it. I like to plant it in windy, gusty conditions. But then I had planting drilled into my psyche for years doing carrier landings. It works for me and a lot of others. There is not one way to do this, find what works for you and you are comfortable with and can repeat. For us, where things where less than friendly, we just got on the ground with minimum fuss or finesse and got the heck out of there. We where slightly more concerned with getting home without holes than anything.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the internet is a great instructor. I recently learned to do brain surgery from some Russian you tube videos, so if you have some kind of pesky tumor in the old melon. Stop on by and I'll take care of it.

Nothing replaces a good instructor and practice. It take 400 hours at this to be good enough to kill yourself and 1,000 to actually be good and safe at the same time.

Thanks that is a pretty cool response. I have heard lots of stories from guys that say they know a guy that knows a guy that was flying Iran contra. Makes taildraggers seem a lot cooler. American made is my favorite Tom cruise flying film.

I am at 500 hours, so I guess I am halfway to being safe. Just need to keep at this. With 10 hours being about how long it takes to get the endorsement, I was getting frustrated since I had gobs more hours than that still not where I wanted to be. Focusing on 1000 hours as a target helps me reset expectations. Thanks.




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dogpilot wrote:Nothing replaces a good instructor and practice. It take 400 hours at this to be good enough to kill yourself and 1,000 to actually be good and safe at the same time.

True that!

If I was to give one piece of advice for gusty crosswinds in a taildragger, it would be NO FLAPS and keep your speed up and wheel it on.

But that won't make much sense without proper instruction as to why you should do so.

I forget that stabilizing the apparent brisk walk rate of closure all the way to touchdown on the numbers slowly and softly is the same as keeping the airspeed (which I don't pay attention to) up in strong headwind component. Yes, my groundspeed will be less than no wind, even zero at touchdown, but even stopped there may be enough relative wind, enough airspeed, to fly the wing in low ground effect. This amount of headwind component makes wheel landing absolutely necessary.

The point I am trying to make, using either power/pitch to touchdown or the round out and hold off, is that we don't need to increase relative wind by flying a faster groundspeed than normal. God has naturally increased our airspeed through the headwind component. The airplane requires less pitch attitude to maintain a nice slow groundspeed because of the increase in headwind component. In strong winds taxi becomes extremely difficult because at near zero groundspeed, the tailwheel on the ground creates too much angle of attack yet the vertical stabilizer and fuselage cannot hold much side load.

I had an epiphany at 0400 after cathing and finishing the last post. Words mean different things based on the orientation of both speaker/writer and hearer/reader.

For many years my orientation has had no need of numbers. My altitude was high enough to go over what I couldn't convientily miss horizontally, my speed was as fast as possible on takeoff and enroute and as slow as possible on short final, and my heading was to the desired target.

I will try to apply some estimated numbers to the OP's questions about gust spread and crosswind conditions. First as crop duster at 100 or so and pipeliner at 200, I didn't use a normal pattern. Rather, I gave way to all. Second, Runway 36, in no wind, meant a quarter mile final to heading 010 from left base or heading 350 from right base to minimise tail exposure to any fast traffic on long final.

So in the strong gusty conditions we have been talking about, the target would be the upwind big airplane touchdown zone marking in moderate crosswind but moved back closer to the numbers in really strong crosswind.

Airspeed should not be a number here. It is rather a comfortable flying airplane approaching the near downwind corner of the runway at what appears to be a brisk walk (normal headwind component) and like just crawling in strong headwind component.

Going straight down the runway with more than normal airspeed and less than normal groundspeed is just fine. My different orentation just had a hard time realizing this was possible. Stabilized apparent rate of closure would also be possible, but I generally just land with much less than apparent brisk walk rate of closure and therefore less groundspeed and greater angle to the runway in strong gusty conditions. Yes, I wear the throttle out.

Great last two posts, Contact.
The last post is really a good description of the process for me.

The word "cathing" threw me for a bit, until I re-read the next sentence. I mentally oriented it to "crafting", as "cathing" scared me :>)

--Bill

Great last two posts, Contact.
The last post is really a good description of the process for me.

The word "cathing" threw me for a bit, until I re-read the next sentence. I mentally oriented it to "crafting", as "cathing" scared me :>)

--Bill

contactflying wrote:I had an epiphany at 0400 after cathing and finishing the last post. Words mean different things based on the orientation of both speaker/writer and hearer/reader.

For many years my orientation has had no need of numbers. My altitude was high enough to go over what I couldn't convientily miss horizontally, my speed was as fast as possible on takeoff and enroute and as slow as possible on short final, and my heading was to the desired target.

I will try to apply some estimated numbers to the OP's questions about gust spread and crosswind conditions. First as crop duster at 100 or so and pipeliner at 200, I didn't use a normal pattern. Rather, I gave way to all. Second, Runway 36, in no wind, meant a quarter mile final to heading 010 from left base or heading 350 from right base to minimise tail exposure to any fast traffic on long final.

So in the strong gusty conditions we have been talking about, the target would be the upwind big airplane touchdown zone marking in moderate crosswind but moved back closer to the numbers in really strong crosswind.

Airspeed should not be a number here. It is rather a comfortable flying airplane approaching the near downwind corner of the runway at what appears to be a brisk walk (normal headwind component) and like just crawling in strong headwind component.

Going straight down the runway with more than normal airspeed and less than normal groundspeed is just fine. My different orentation just had a hard time realizing this was possible. Stabilized apparent rate of closure would also be possible, but I generally just land with much less than apparent brisk walk rate of closure and therefore less groundspeed and greater angle to the runway in strong gusty conditions. Yes, I wear the throttle out.

Thanks Jim for all your time and effort. Much appreciated. Bought your book and reading through it now.

I had another related question for the group, which I am sure will draw lots more f suggestions to seek instruction, but here it goes.

I think I was working a few years back with instructor no. 4. He was a 3-point guy with a citabria. Instruction was going well and then we came upon a gusty day. He said he was up for it and I thought, as suggested on here, this would a good training experience with a CFI to keep an eye on me. He really preached airspeed control. Well, how that worked out for me in gusty conditions that day was chasing airspeed with larger than normal pitch changes. On final one time, we got a big gust when we were about 100 feet AGL that I chased with nose up pitch and then the wind died. I describe the experience like Wile E. Coyote suspended in mid-air waiting for gravity to kick in.

My instinct,built from prior instructors flying our cub, was to shove the nose down and add power to get airflow over the wing. We hadn’t stalled but airspeed was dropping and we were nose high. My CFI about climbed out of his skin and yanked the stick back. Later, he said if you are about to stall, you never reduce angle of attack because AOA is lift and shoving the stick forward is giving away lift you need and lose too much altitude before recovering. In one regard, this makes sense. On the other hand, the stall recovery procedure I was taught was nose on the horizon, full power, reduce flaps if you have ‘em. How do you all come out on this scenario?

In addition after this event, I now shoot for a target speed (pitch) but then try to hold the pitch rather than airspeed in gusty conditions. I let the airspeed climb or drop as the gusts hit or slacken. Sure there are some scenarios where this may be problematic too but it seems to work better for me even though it’s not exactly what I learned from any of my instructors.







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The stall prevention and stall recovery problem, where landing is concerned, is that we desire preventing and failing that, recovery. In that respect, you reacted correctly. But the problem is that to land slowly and softly we must stall or at least mush well.

To little attention, in stall practice, is paid to mushing prior to stalling. First, it is decievingly dangerous because no break signals a problem. Second, it leads to accident investigators thinking a downdraft slammed an airplane into the ground when the pilot was just trying to maintain altitude with elevator. Third, it is overlooked as a desired result of a decelerating power/pitch approach (an apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach) on short final to touchdown.

Depending on the weight of the airplane, 100' may be too high to begin a mush. In the windy and gusty conditions under discussion here, no mush is necessary or desired. Regardless, elevator is not the solution at 100' on short final. We must control balloon with power reduction. This is difficult if the throttle is already closed. The throttle should not be already closed at 100'. If we have closed the throttle, we have forfeited the most effective balloon/sink control. All we have left is elevator, a very effective airspeed control on approach and a very poor balloon/sink control on short final.

The best way to get comfortable with very slow flight, well below Vso, is to hover taxi down a long runway. This is how we find the airspeed (don't look at the airspeed indicator, it is not accurate at this speed) at which our airplane actually stalls in low ground effect. This speed is not in the POH, but it is the relevant speed. This speed is difficult to learn using the round out and hold off technique.

So if we are truly decelering on short final in no headwind component, we may encounter mush on short final. This is good. Add more power to touchdown on the numbers slowly and softly. In a downwind component, we will encounter a mush. In a medium or stronger headwind component we will not encounter a mush and will have to wheel a tailwheel and will have to flair a bit to protect the nose gear on a trike.

Using the slower than 1.3 Vso airspeed, on short final in gusty conditions will requirea lot more throttle movement. With gust spread of 15 or more, balloon may require closing the throttle and then adjusting. Mushing may require full throttle and then adjusting.

How do we know we are slow enough on short final? We pull back on the stick a bit and sink. How do we test for zoom reserve, which we don't want on short final? We pull back on the stick a bit and zoom up. Getting the wrong response to elevator movement alerts us to where we are speed/elevator wise. Gusts mess with this if we are incorrectly attempting to mitigate gust problems, balloon/mush, with elevator.

First, we need to use elevator to decelerate on short final to touchdown. Apparent rate of closure gives us the visual cue. Second, we need to add enough power to arrest the greater sink rate this slowing causes. Third we need to mitigate gust spread problems with throttle movement and not elevator movement. Fourth, we need to leave the aileron alone except to lock wing level or in sufficient bank to stop drift. Longitudinal alignment, centerline extended between our legs, is dynamic proactive rudder movement only regardless of where the wing is.

Except to set up the approach way out at 1.3 Vso, the airspeed indicator has nothing to do with this process, especially in a strong headwind component. Forget stalling. We're not likely to stall trying to get up to the runway in a gale. Mush? Yes, we would like that on short final. No, we're not going to get it in a gale. Let's just be as slow as possible when we wheel it on or flair to protect the nose gear.

First, we need to use elevator to decelerate on short final to touchdown. Apparent rate of closure gives us the visual cue. Second, we need to add enough power to arrest the greater sink rate this slowing causes.

This is what I do. Think of the elevator as an air brake, the more you pull the greater the braking effect. Power controls your pitch and attitude, combine the two together with the sweet spot where your plane is in a good sink, and you can get it in short with a safety margin. The adding airspeed proportional to gusts doesn’t work for me, we work off strips short enough to where you’re gonna run off the end if you do that in 20 gusting 30. Not to mention at 70+ landings a day, you’d be blowing through brake pads and boiling the fluid.

CenterHillAg wrote:

The adding airspeed proportional to gusts doesn’t work for me, we work off strips short enough to where you’re gonna run off the end if you do that in 20 gusting 30. Not to mention at 70+ landings a day, you’d be blowing through brake pads and boiling the fluid.

You're spraying at 20, gusting 30?

MTV

Spreading dry materials. Spray in morning until wind comes up and then remove booms, clip spreader on, fuel, clean windscreen, and fill hopper in forty seconds. Ground crews are amazing. Never flew them, but the big turboprops must have relief tubes.

mtv wrote:
You're spraying at 20, gusting 30?

MTV

Contact explained it, normal day in the rice world.

What are the "dry materials" --
insecticide, fertilizer, seed, ??

All those. Rice is heavier than fescue and goes down better, regardless of weight making no difference. Maybe shape.

As close to the worst tail dragger pilot on this forum, take my advice as a "for what it's worth" comment.

Any time an airplane bounces on touchdown, it's an indication of too fast a touchdown speed, whether it's a tail dragger, a nose dragger, a float plane, or an airliner. Now maybe there are other pieces to the bounce puzzle, too, but excessive speed is invariably a prelude to a bounce. Yeah, we're taught (and I taught) to add half the gust factor, but I'm still surprised at how few people understand that. 20 G 30 means to add 5 knots, yet I've had experienced pilots on BFRs add 15--"it's a 30 knot gust". No, it's a gust factor, which is 10 knots, the difference between 20 and 30, so half is 5--i.e., not much.

I'm also a believer in no flap or minimum flap landings in crosswinds. Those barn doors can do a real number in exacerbating the tendency to weather vane. Add 10 maybe, to lower the stall speed some, but as soon as you're adding 20 or 30 or "omigod 40", you're really reducing your ground control.

So there's my advice: slow down, reduce flaps, and then follow others' advice on whether to wheel land or 3 point it. And one other thing: all of us are students, just at different levels of experience and training. 500 hours seems like a lot, but it's not. There's much more to learn, really.

Cary

Cary wrote:As close to the worst tail dragger pilot on this forum, take my advice as a "for what it's worth" comment.

Any time an airplane bounces on touchdown, it's an indication of too fast a touchdown speed, whether it's a tail dragger, a nose dragger, a float plane, or an airliner. Now maybe there are other pieces to the bounce puzzle, too, but excessive speed is invariably a prelude to a bounce. Yeah, we're taught (and I taught) to add half the gust factor, but I'm still surprised at how few people understand that. 20 G 30 means to add 5 knots, yet I've had experienced pilots on BFRs add 15--"it's a 30 knot gust". No, it's a gust factor, which is 10 knots, the difference between 20 and 30, so half is 5--i.e., not much.

I'm also a believer in no flap or minimum flap landings in crosswinds. Those barn doors can do a real number in exacerbating the tendency to weather vane. Add 10 maybe, to lower the stall speed some, but as soon as you're adding 20 or 30 or "omigod 40", you're really reducing your ground control.

So there's my advice: slow down, reduce flaps, and then follow others' advice on whether to wheel land or 3 point it. And one other thing: all of us are students, just at different levels of experience and training. 500 hours seems like a lot, but it's not. There's much more to learn, really.

Cary

I really agree with all of this, Cary.

The sign of a non-current pilot is needlessly speedy approaches with long round-outs. Almost always a bounce or skip to finish.

The only contravening thing is not getting too slow in gusty conditions, as discussed above. I like to "fly it on".