I just hit the "like" button!

Thanks everyone for the comments!

contactflying wrote:I like the slow apparent rate of closure on the approaches. I don't like a wing down near the ground. Rudder (wings level) turn or energy management turn. I saw a good energy management turnaround in the valley.

Hold the phone - are you advocating a hugely out of balance rudder turn, right at stall speed, just a few feet off the deck? Sounds like a recipe for a wingdrop stall...?

I must be misunderstanding you?

I know you don't intend it and you have plenty of power to overcome load factor in the turn, but the rudder turn is better than putting a wing into the ground or something on the ground. With low powered or heavy airplanes we may have to be in ground effect to rudder turn. Where there are no obstructions the rudder turn is useful to line up with the landing zone after a crooked approach. It is also useful on takeoff to stay in ground effect and rudder turn around obstructions.

I was just looking at the one approach where you had to make a low level turn to line up on very short final. Either gravity thrust or engine thrust to overcome the load factor in a coordinated turn is fine, but both speed you up when you are trying to slow down. You had plenty of room, but it is just a bad habit to use coordinated turns on final. Ailerons, other than to keep the wing level, make it trickier to line up and they put a wing down near the ground.

On takeoff, we expend more energy (zoom reserve in the form of airspeed) going over obstructions than rudder turning around them in ground effect when possible.

Your flying skills are very good and your airplane very capable. Things sometimes jump up on us when hot, high, loaded, etc. If we always fly like we were overloaded and the conditions are hot and high, it is less likely things will jump up on us.

contactflying wrote:Either gravity thrust or engine thrust to overcome the load factor in a coordinated turn is fine, but both speed you up when you are trying to slow down. You had plenty of room

That I agree with. Yes, fortunately there is enough room there to allow time to bleed that speed off again once lined up.

I almost said this in the last post - my least favourite thing is rolling out of a turn so close to the threshold that there's no time to slow right down. I like to touch down at touchdown speed, any faster doesn't make for a good, short, safe landing.

I was always taught to stay very well coordinated when I am slow, to minimise the risk of a wing-drop stall.

Ground effect, especially low ground effect, makes up for the slowness.

When high, coordinated is best. However, ailerons mess up pilots alignment with some wing wagging. Once lined up the best way to keep longitudinal alignment is with rudder while holding the wing level with aileron. Same if we are crabbing in a crosswind until close and then slipping. The directed course is easiest to maintain with rudder whether between our legs or out one side of the windscreen. Rudder is also the best way to maintain the localizer on either ILS or the light bar on Satloc in the crop field. No crop duster will ever make coordinated turns in the field while in low ground effect spraying.

Try cruising down a long runway in low ground effect and moving the airplane from center to left side of the runway and back to center and then to the right side of the runway with rudder while holding the wings level with aileron. Progressively make slower runs and go around or land. When you get slow enough to land, really slow, look to see that the airspeed indicator is on the peg.

You might never need the extra energy and you might never put a wing into the ground. Either can ruin your day. I know.

contactflying wrote:...... it is just a bad habit to use coordinated turns on final. ......

There is no sweet spot with any of the four controls. Because of adverse yaw, the aileron is the poorest control for longitudinal alignment or even wings level in cruise. It will cause dynamic wing wagging even when coordinated with the rudder. The rudder is the best control for longitudinal alignment and even for keeping the wings level in cruise. Just as in a side slip for a crosswind, we maintain the longitudinal alignment with the rudder. We maintain wings level, or appropriate bank into the crosswind, with aileron.

The Air Force understood this when they gave the bombardier a rudder trim only for the final run over the target. Yes the wing changes a bit when the rudder speeds one wing up and slows one wing down (yaw), but not nearly as much as if they had given him aileron trim as well or tried to bungee the two. The rudder is our best fine tune control for longitudinal alignment.

Over many years of instructing, I have found the use of coordinated turns on final to be a big problem for students. They will dynamically maintain the center line with continuous left and right turns. This works until close. Now they have a wing down when going over the wire or near the ground. Also, they have a hard time timing the dynamic turning to come out level just as they touch down. The 1.3 Vso stabilized approach just aggravates this common error because they are still dynamically finding the center line during round out and hold off.

The idea that coordination of aileron and rudder is always necessary is false. A classic example is when we have to go under a wire and, on our present directed course, a wing will hit a pole. We simply push the rudder away from the pole while keeping the wing level with aileron. Once away from the pole enough for the wing to clear, we push the rudder toward the pole while keeping the wing level with aileron. We will have the nose pointed at the pole a bit as we pass. Once beyond the pole, we push the rudder away from the pole while keeping the wing level with aileron. Now we are continuing on the same swath row and are not skipping a swath.

We don't need to be bombing Germany or going under wires, necessarily. We do need to examine what we indoctrinate into our students. As MTV has said somewhere, the use of "always" is almost always problematic.

Ha ha classic Zane [emoji23]
Looked like a great weekend Battson, I don't think I've ever seen Lake Wanaka that glass calm. Noticed a few familiar aircraft there at the Alabaster strip. [emoji106]

NZMaule wrote:Ha ha classic Zane [emoji23]
Looked like a great weekend Battson, I don't think I've ever seen Lake Wanaka that glass calm. Noticed a few familiar aircraft there at the Alabaster strip. [emoji106]

Yeah mate - sorry that you couldn't be two places at once, because the weather was probably the best I've ever seen it for three days running!
Lake Ohau was so still, you could see ripples from a boat at the opposite end.
Freezing cold though! Big Bay was the warmest place I visited all weekend, at 7 degrees.

Here is a little video from the other weekend, just doing some smaller gravel bars in a riverbed.

Pretty impressive.
How many bearhawks (plans- or kit-built) are completed & flying?
The only one I think I've ever seen has been pranged 2 or 3 times- the last time (nosed over) by the student pilot owner/builder, the other times by "experienced" volunteer test pilots.

Battson wrote:Here is a little video from the other weekend, just doing some smaller gravel bars in a riverbed.

Nice work. Sounds about like a 10-12 kt wind. (Just a guess) How much fuel/stuff were you packing around?

I don't know much about Bearhawks, but it looks like taller gear and bigger tires would give a more favorable AOA for those super slow landings. You're really getting in pretty short as is, with a lot of brake action I'm guessing? That first takeoff from the gravel bar, I'd have put the tail wheel in the water before starting the takeoff, just because. Is that at sea level, or close to it?

Is it an insult to say that the Bearhawk seems to be the Maule of the home built world? Lots of room, good at STOL, very cool

hotrod180 wrote:Pretty impressive.
How many bearhawks (plans- or kit-built) are completed & flying?
The only one I think I've ever seen has been pranged 2 or 3 times- the last time (nosed over) by the student pilot owner/builder, the other times by "experienced" volunteer test pilots.

For the 4-place, there are over 100 flying, with a lot more almost finished.
If someone nosed one over - they are worse than unlucky. The BH is very forgiving in that regard. Apart from the seal, the elevator overpower the brakes if there's any airflow over the tail.

Crzyivan13 wrote:Nice work. Sounds about like a 10-12 kt wind. (Just a guess) How much fuel/stuff were you packing around?

Good guess, there was around 12kts according to the AFIS broadcast before I left.
We had a fair load of fuel on, but not much gear. Just my wife (not counted as "gear") and all the usual tie-downs, tools, spares, back seat installed, etc. I didn't make any effort to keep it light.

courierguy wrote:I don't know much about Bearhawks, but it looks like taller gear and bigger tires would give a more favorable AOA for those super slow landings. You're really getting in pretty short as is, with a lot of brake action I'm guessing? That first takeoff from the gravel bar, I'd have put the tail wheel in the water before starting the takeoff, just because. Is that at sea level, or close to it?

Is it an insult to say that the Bearhawk seems to be the Maule of the home built world? Lots of room, good at STOL, very cool

Interesting comparison - it's clearly a complement The Bearhawk basically IS a homebuilt Maule with longer gear as standard, and a few other differences. Although I think we've struck our ideal tire given we fly a lot of cross-country, and must land tarmac during winter. I admit I would prefer 29's, but I seldom actually NEED them, the 26's do 90% of the places 29's would go.
What would help more is a bigger, softer tailwheel - for the reasons you state. The AoA goes about 3 degrees too steep on stall, so the tailwheel gets into harm's way. I recently had to reinforce it.

On the first landing, you can see the scratch marks right from touchdown, I can land with the brakes on for rocks or grass. It won't nose over.
No need to put the tail into the water though. If the 540 Bearhawk gets in - it can get out - usually in about 60% of the landing distance, no matter the load on board. The first take-off is a good example, compare the take off roll to the skid marks from landing.

Great posts....keep 'em coming!

That's great to hear your happy with your tire choice, I'm painting my 540 Bearhawk project right now and was considering different tire sizes. I agree with you about 26s doing 90% of 29s.

Great to see more pictures of a Bearhawk flying, especially in NZ, and gives me energy to keep working on mine! (After 5 long years! ha)

We had a nice winter break recently, and a good chance to rack up another 24hrs on the Hobbs!
This airstrip had DA around 5000ft, which is high for NZ.
It took a few passes to be sure we were in the right place, it was hard to find. Turned out to be no problem at all.


Here's a fairly rough spot we nipped into for a hunting trip, with 50% fuel and a whole lot of gear, including two full diving sets. The spot was less than 400ft in length, probably closer to 300ft. Fortunately the Bearhawk doesn't leave you feeling like you want more... the large rocks make for a bumpier landing, no matter what, but it's over fast.


I hope nobody here is greatly offended by hunting - its an important part of backcountry aviation culture and history here in New Zealand. The deer are an introduced animal, and there is no natural means of controlling their population, which otherwise grows unchecked. So this is a success, of course we eat them:


While out and about, we stopped in to see another friend who was also out hunting. Although we missed him because he was away fly camping for the night, at the time we landed.


This is another tight little spot we stopped at, about 300ft and slippery grass with little braking action. There was no possibility of overrunning the length without overturning the aircraft, so the landing had to be precise. Again no worries for the Bearhawk, but we kept it very light this time. On the rough and damp surface there is much less braking compared to the river stones. With two people with light gear and no extra fuel, we needed 150ft of the available length. There was very little wind. At least the take-off is never a problem with the IO-540!


Here's a little video of us landing in a neat little backwater. I am working on a longer edited compilation video at the moment:

This little clip makes a good case for why the Baby Bushwheel or other oversize tail wheels are worth having in the backcountry environment.

We also got the opportunity to land up on a ski field recently, which was a fun experience. Safe to say there's not a lot of control when you try to taxi downwind with a stiff breeze... and not a lot of depth perception either, when you are touching down on such a day with very flat-light.

You are having way too much fun Jonathan.

JamieG wrote:You are having way too much fun Jonathan.

Haha - thanks Jamie!
I still haven't been to your place - for future reference, is your house the one at the western end of the airstrip??