Tom,

Thanks, that makes sense to me and I appreciate the replies and your time. I think what confused me the most is how they are marketed to people. They tout the lowered stall speeds first and foremost on their website, and roll the rest of what i would consider the real benefits to my airplane into one bullet point, "improved characteristics." Maybe you should write a few paragraphs and send it to them haha.

Your attitude prior to touchdown doesn’t mean you have to touch in that attitude or even keep it in that same attitude during the rollout. The tail-low wheelie has varying degrees of “tail low”ness, even to the extent that the approach attitude might exceed the three point attitude. I occasionally use this if I’m dragging it in and would touch tail first if I kept the approach attitude but want to land on the mains (I always try to land on the mains anyway). Just prior to touchdown, you quickly reduce the angle of attack with down elevator to land on the mains and make it a wheelie. If you look at the video and scrub ahead to 10:50, there is an example of this. It might not be the perfect example because the approach attitude isn’t tremendously nose high, but the technique is the same and the idea is conveyed.



Landing isn’t the only time the plane approaches high angles of attack, and I appreciate any margin of safety VGs might afford in other flight regimes. VGs also help you develop as a human being and teach you extreme patience when you find yourself putting on wing covers on a sub zero day with the wind blowing above about 15.

Squash wrote:Your attitude prior to touchdown doesn’t mean you have to touch in that attitude or even keep it in that same attitude during the rollout. The tail-low wheelie has varying degrees of “tail low”ness, even to the extent that the approach attitude might exceed the three point attitude. I occasionally use this if I’m dragging it in and would touch tail first if I kept the approach attitude but want to land on the mains (I always try to land on the mains anyway). Just prior to touchdown, you quickly reduce the angle of attack with down elevator to land on the mains and make it a wheelie. If you look at the video and scrub ahead to 10:50, there is an example of this. It might not be the perfect example because the approach attitude isn’t tremendously nose high, but the technique is the same and the idea is conveyed.

Landing isn’t the only time the plane approaches high angles of attack, and I appreciate any margin of safety VGs might afford in other flight regimes. VGs also help you develop as a human being and teach you extreme patience when you find yourself putting on wing covers on a sub zero day with the wind blowing above about 15.

Very well said, and I couldn’t agree more on all counts.

MTV

Thanks for the time and high-quality replies, guys. All this makes sense and will give me good stuff to fantasize about at work. I've been pretty well committed to learning to fly the shit out of it in stock form before putting any mods on it. Might make a good Christmas present

The latter part of this thread has been interesting to me. my perspective has been quite similar to Plvssr's. I keep getting told I need to add VGs to my BH but I haven't been able to figure out how they will benefit me. I don't see any value in increasing the AOA the airplane will fly at and I'm not lacking any control authority at low speed. I land so significantly tail first that I need to figure out a new technique and it seems adding VGs would only make it harder. Perhaps if I were a better pilot I'd see the value.

Squash's post has got me thinking and it lines up almost exactly with what Battson has been trying to tell me. My main hitch is how do it utilize the technique of pitching down right before touchdown without having big squishy wheels to soften the impact? Getting really slow requires a fair bit of positive AOA so the pitch down would be significant conclusion with an abrupt touchdown.

Tail low wheelies are easy but the standard techniques to do them result in higher landing speeds than I'd like when attempting max performance landings.

Plvssr wrote:.....learning to fly the shit out of it in stock form before putting any mods on it......

Good idea!
A lot of people want to start putting mods on their new airplanes right away,
without learning whether or not they even need them.

Why would pitching down right before touch down be desirable?
You are either trying to hit a mark in a competition or you are burning up usable airstrip and it’s time to get it on the ground and on the brakes.
Let the tail wheel hit first, it don’t hit hard and then roll out on the mains. Bout as slow as you can get?

Take this FWIW, because as anyone who has been around here for awhile knows, I'm no tail wheel pilot--at least not a very good one. But I have plenty of experience in different 172s (and other Cessnas) going back to the earliest ones with zero mods and no cuffs to the more recent ones with the factory leading edge cuff. While there are similarities in the airplanes of the same general "build", there's a variance--airplanes are hand built, and that leads to variances. Book figures are just that, book figures. This one might stall at 47 knots, that one at 48, the next one at 46. This one might have pretty fair roll control into the stall, while the next one might not. There are just too many variables to say that every one of them will be benefited the same way by the addition of VGs.

I found some interesting comparisons about 15 years ago, in a discussion with my then hangar neighbor about our respective airplanes' performances. His 172N had VGs and the factory cuff. My P172D has droopy Madras wingtips but otherwise the wing is stock, pre cuff. Mine also has flap gap seals and the same extended dorsal fin of later models. We both had 180hp conversions, his with a fixed pitch prop and mine with a CS prop. The biggest differences were our respective 172 experience. At the time, he had about 200 hours, most in his airplane, and I had just short of 2000 hours in a variety of airplanes but only about 50 in my airplane.

He was proud that with the VGs his approach speed was down to 65 knots! Wow! But mine was already at about 65 mph (57 knots) for normal landings--roughly the same speed that I have used for 172s and 182s for years. He was now using the lower airspeed in his POH, when he could have been using it all along. He still wasn't accounting for the lower weight of flying alone or with only one other, though--the book speeds assume a gross load. So I think the difference was strictly experience.

I will say that the deeply drooped tips on my airplane give it more roll authority at slower airspeeds, but I can't quantify that. I can't tell that the flap gap seals do anything at slower speeds, but they do improve cruise speeds, adding about 5 knots/6 mph to the indicated airspeed from before I had them installed.

I have little bad to say about VGs other than that they make it hard to install wing covers, and they make refueling a little more risky to hands and arms. Do they really help? Maybe a little. Are they worth installing on the average single? Maybe a little. Are they worth it to me? No. But far be it for me to say that others shouldn't install them on their airplanes.

Cary

Terry wrote:Why would pitching down right before touch down be desirable?
You are either trying to hit a mark in a competition or you are burning up usable airstrip and it’s time to get it on the ground and on the brakes.
Let the tail wheel hit first, it don’t hit hard and then roll out on the mains. Bout as slow as you can get?

Because that little wheel back there wasn’t designed to meet up with a BAR (big ass rock) the size of a cantaloupe at forty five mph, while a 3000 pound airplane presses its weight on said little wheel, not all its weight, but.

FYI, Squash is not talking about landing on paved surfaces with nice stripes to show you where it’s SMOOTH and where there are no BARs.

So, you approach a potentially rough short strip with the airplane operating in the region of reverse command, which in a Cessna, puts the tailwheel lower than the mains. You get close, you’re VERY slow, and just before the tailwheel touches, you relax back pressure and allow the mains to plop on, followed quickly by nose down pitch to KEEP that little wheel off the surface, and to permit you to see what you’re landing on.

By approaching behind the power curve, you’re slow enough that at the touch, the airplane is all done flying, even as you lower the nose, thus “sticking” the plane.

Requires some skills.

MTV