Split from Nanwalek, AK topic. -Z
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Gump,

I assume landing/takeoff from slick ice runway was done with tri-gear? How well does it work with a taildrager? How do you land a taildragger on slick ice when you need that little touch of brake to straighten you out, and all it does is start you sliding?

In general, how do you land a taildragger on slick icy runways with a crosswind?

Well, once in Saint Marys, during a strong crosswind that had a 207 pilot staying on the ground (brand new guy to the Delta), I just landed across the runway, and onto the taxiway. Departed opposite. Bottom line is, you land any way you can.

I landed at Bettles once on straight skis. Long runway, 7 knot crosswind. Well packed snow runway (the Navajos landed there all the time on top of the snow pack--airport maintenance does a great job maintaining that runway for all) had turned to ice in spring sun. All in all, a bad place to be in a straight ski Cub. Touch down, accelerate, and weather vane into the wind......

Fortunately, I didn't leave any pieces there that day.

The thing that is really scary on icy runways with a taildragger isn't so much the ice, but rather the spots on a runway that DON'T have any ice. I once landed a 185 on wheel skis, with the left brake locked up with ice (didn't know it till I landed), and slid down an icy runway till I hit a bare spot. BANG!! fortunately (and no thanks to my superior skills ) the brake freed up when the tire hit pavement, and the plane only slewed around a bit.

Ice is manageble in many situations, it's those bare spots that can grab ya.

And, don't forget to USE those ailerons in a crosswind for their adverse yaw!!!!

MTV

MTV,
What do you mean by this?

Touch down, accelerate, and weather vane into the wind......

Do you mean add a bit of power after landing for control?

degjr

I think what MTV was saying is sometimes no matter what you do it's not right and it's better to be lucky than good at times.
You know that by the superior skill that you just tried to use and everything you did didn't really do anything to help yourself, but you didn't bend anything!!!!
Sometimes when you land on slick ice it seems like when you set the tail down you go faster, at times on a big lake with slick ice and a little breeze you have to use power to get stopped or you just keep sliding.
One pair of Landis skis that I had on my J5 had breaks on them, a cylinder with a pointed steel shaft that went vertically down thru the ski and dug into the ice. Helped when screwing around on lakes.
I don't know how many different kinds of ice there is, but there are a lot!.
Have Fun and a Great New Year.
GT

What I meant was that, when landing on glare ice, which this was, when you touch down, you unload the wing (decrease lift). The creation of lift, by definition, creates induced drag. Kill the lift, you also decrease the induced drag. Since there is virtually no friction between skis and glare ice, upon touchdown, you actually accelerate some.

Which of course, is precisely what you DON'T want at that moment.

But, GT hit the nail on the head in my case--better to be lucky than good....

MTV

DEGJR wrote:Split from Nanwalek, AK topic. -Z
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Gump,
In general, how do you land a taildragger on slick icy runways with a crosswind?

Like the guys said, there’s ice and then there’s ice.

Slick, wet ice. The stuff you find at the village strips located next to water with the wind blowing spray up onto the runway is the fun stuff. Too slippery to walk on, and way too slick for any kind of effective braking or steering. Real cold, dry ice. Stuff's like sandpaper, and there's no slipping on that at all.

Say you’re landing on one of these "slippery" runways. Runway 27 for example, with a crosswind from the left, 180 degrees at 25 KTS. As you slide down on final you’re gonna be crabbed nose pointed left into the wind to maintain runway heading. Get ready to touch the ground, kick out the crab and drop a wing into the wind. The usual. On a runway surface with traction, the tires hold you in place and you have braking and steering to make you go where you want to go, and hopefully enough of both to overcome the crosswind.

On slick ice however… Whole different story, and it doesn’t matter tri gear or conventional. The deal is the same. As you touch, there is no traction to steer you. You have the wind pushing one way, and X thousand pounds of airplane full of motion and inertia wanting to go another. As you touch and wheels start sliding, the wind will weathervane the airplane in our example to the left, and you’ll look down the runway through the right side of the windshield.

Here’s the fun part. Left uncorrected, as you slide down the runway the wind will push from the left and move you towards the right side of the runway. To fix this, you add throttle, and let the prop pull you back to the center of the runway. Conversely, too much power and you’ll pull too far into the wind and head for the left side. Just ease off the gas, and let the wind push you to the middle. Way simpler in real life than it sounds here.

The kicker, as MTV says, is where you have patchy ice runways, and you alternate between sliding sideways and hitting traction and straightening out. That’s a lurching mess, and you move the whole train wreck down the runway pushing and pulling till you get stopped or take off. Pain in the ass and hard on the gear.

With a tailwheel, I like to wheel land strong crosswinds. Gives me only two wheels to worry about instead of three, and the rudder and tailwheel aren’t needing to go opposite of each other to keep me aimed down the runway. With a strong crosswind, your groundspeed is usually slow, so you set it down when it wants to come down, and just ride it out on the ground.

Gump

Soloed my brother in a cub on glare ice at Chugiak, AK Figured the worst he could do was ground loop with no damage and stop bugging me to fly the cub He got in some turbulence a few days later and never asked to fly it again. worked for me

Try it at night. And DonC can tell you guys what I'm talking about... It seems we always played in this shit in the dark.

Noatak is always good for slick ice/strong burbling crosswinds. I used to call it, "The slide of death." Touch down, get yanked sideways, and just hang on with the throttle to keep from hitting anything until shit stopped moving. Then a sloppy, sideways takeoff run, and get the hell out of there. Go over the hill, land at Kivalina, and do the same thing all over again.

Gump

I won't try to speak for anyone else but for me and "Charlie" snow pack or dry ice is great, it feels a lot like grass or even gravel in that the main wheels can slide some and not jerk you around. If it is really slick, glass or wet ice then you must do as others have said and use throttle, flight controls, wind, prayer and profanity to keep it on the runway till it stops and keep the fan turning so the plane don't slide off the downwind side of the deck when you stop.

I have actually one time had to spin my plane around backwards and use power to stop it sounds bad but it is the same thing I must do nearly every time I run my airboat,

Shane