As someone already stated, no 2 Skywagon's are going to fly the same, add the array of mod's you can put on them, and the differences are compounded. Having said that, if your looking to wheel land correctly, you better have a loooooong runway coming over the numbers at 90, you'll have to bleed that energy off to get the desired wheel landing speed, actually touching down at that speed is nuts.

I'm not too far from where your at in the experience realm so this is what I did that works. I found a instructor that knew Skywagons thoroughly, the mechanics and flight characteristics. Owns, maintains and teaches in his Wagon and he will travel to instruct in your airplane as well. He wasn't cheap, but it was the best money I ever spent.

Every technique has its place when landing, concerning wheel landings, I prefer the tail low wheel as my general landing, the instructor noticed this and while its perfectly fine, urged me to fly it on a little sooner as a point of practice. In a high crosswind situation, I wouldn't want to not know how to do that. This training represents the foundation of your house, make sure its built hell for stout. You'll need it to carry the rest of the structure. And there is a time and place for everything, 3 points and wheel landings, and everything in between.

Good Luck

185er wrote:As someone already stated, no 2 Skywagon's are going to fly the same, add the array of mod's you can put on them, and the differences are compounded. Having said that, if your looking to wheel land correctly, you better have a loooooong runway coming over the numbers at 90, you'll have to bleed that energy off to get the desired wheel landing speed, actually touching down at that speed is nuts.

I'm not too far from where your at in the experience realm so this is what I did that works. I found a instructor that knew Skywagons thoroughly, the mechanics and flight characteristics. Owns, maintains and teaches in his Wagon and he will travel to instruct in your airplane as well. He wasn't cheap, but it was the best money I ever spent.

Every technique has its place when landing, concerning wheel landings, I prefer the tail low wheel as my general landing, the instructor noticed this and while its perfectly fine, urged me to fly it on a little sooner as a point of practice. In a high crosswind situation, I wouldn't want to not know how to do that. This training represents the foundation of your house, make sure its built hell for stout. You'll need it to carry the rest of the structure. And there is a time and place for everything, 3 points and wheel landings, and everything in between.

Good Luck

Well said! And, it’s essential to both intellectually and physically determine what works best for YOU, in a variety of circumstances. That requires both thought and action, as well as thoughtful post flight debriefs.

I’ve always told my students to try the procedures I show them, consider these and others, we’ll practice anything that makes sense, then YOU decide what works best for you.

Example: I nearly always wheel land 185s. Why? Mostly because a well finessed wheel landing is harder to pull off FOR ME than a good three point. And there are clearly situations that suggest wheel landings. So, practice what’s more challenging.

Etc.

MTV

Here's the first part of that Bill White article:

Landing Techniques
The highest percentage of accidents occur in the landing phase of a flight (37%).
There have been a couple good articles in the past discussing three point (full stall)
landings. Club members have been doing a good job keeping us informed about
aircraft maintenance information, but not much is said about what you have to do
every time you fly i.e., land the airplane. From the many pilots I've talked with (I
have over 300 180/185's insured). Most say they use a three point (nose
high attitude) full stall technique for the majority of their landings. They
indicated this is the way they were taught. Set up the airplane, full power
and flair a few feet AGL, hold the yoke back until the airplane settles on the
runway. For wheel landings carry a little extra speed and pin it on the
runway. Nothing could be further from the truth. Neither procedure is the
"best" way to do it.

I believe many of you were never initially trained to do wheel landings the
right way, I wasn't. Most are told you only do wheel landings in strong cross
winds. Some are afraid of them.

Except for soft field landings, I believe a wheel landing is actually the preferred
way to land, it's easy. I'll briefly discuss why. Many of you know of the
"MAF" Missionary Aviator's Fellowship out of Redlands, CA. For
over 20 years they have been training their pilots to fly C180/185's and 206's
in countries all around the world and still have over 40 180/185's in service.
Their training consists of hundreds of classroom and flight hours with several
training flights to Idaho to fly the back country. They have instructors with
over 10,000 hours of 180/185 time alone. I know there are other training
facilities, but for my money these guys are the real experts. They have to fly
these aircraft for a living in all conditions. Obviously they had to
develop, standardize and use procedures and techniques to insure consistency and
safety.

Guess What? They use the wheel landing 98% of the time, except on soft surfaces.

Landings depend on feeling, reaction, and response. You want each landing to
be as "predictable" as possible and a wheel landing is the most
"predictable". Landing on wheels allows you to
1) better see the approach, touchdown, and rollout.
2) Puts all the weight on the main wheels for most effective braking (a
three point landing puts 500-600 pounds on the tail, this weight is now "free wheeling"),
3) eliminates more lift because the angle of attack is less, keeping you on the runway,
4) there is less chance for floating, or drifting in cross winds, and
5) better directional control on a bounced or a bad landing.

Misconception: Wheel landings are done at a higher approach speed.
Truth: A typical good wheel landing approach is at 60 knots IAS unless
conditions require differently. Yes you saw it correctly 60 knots.
Remember a 10% increase in approach speed equals a 21% increase
in landing roll! That's a lot folks!

Misconception: You should "pin it on" the runway at touchdown. Truth:
If done correctly you never pin it on, you fly it until the wheels 'touch', then chop
the power and apply the brakes and there is very little or no
bounce. With this approach you have to resist cutting power until the wheels
touch. It takes practice.



BW wrote that article many years ago.
It is on the BWI Insurance website but has been modified over the years--
IMHO the original article (as I post here) is the best version.

Stop subjecting your airplane to that.

The instructor that has you pulling full flaps at 90+ mph should spend some time replacing flap tracks and concaved flap skins, before he gets more dual so he can return to instructing.

I wouldn't necessarily fire him, maybe there are redeeming qualities, but in this regime he's probably not quite ready for prime time.

Take care, Rob

Thanks for all the replies. Happy to know Im not crazy for thinking that there must be another way. Nothing about it felt natural. Id make little power reductions to help to plane settle down a bit but I was told the tail was dropping too much and power needed to be maintained. He never mentioned "you must fly 90 mph" but with the ASI covered most of the time and that technique (30 degree flaps), we were doing those airspeeds most of the time or maybe a tad slower at touchdown. No where near 55-60 though. The training actually wasnt in my plane.

The 10 swipes forward on trim was from a 30 degree flaps, trimmed hands off, 500 fpm decent. The dial would actually end up half an inch forward of takeoff. Given the speed and everything, that actually helped stabilize it a bit. It was even harder to kiss the runway if your trimmed in that weird and wallowy middle ground rather than definitive backpressure. But so much as even thinking about adding backpressure would make you lift 6 feet up from the runway at those speeds. Try to bring it down again and then your basically out of runway. Time to go around.

Its worth pointing out that the instructor has thousands of hours instructing in wagons. Not a freshly minted cfi who jumped in the right seat. So experience and hours isnt really the issue. He flies this way and has made it work for him.

Regardless of the wheel landing days, I still learned a ton about the Wagon in general and three points. With some headwind it was still pretty typical to land the plane in 250-280'. That's with some admitedly sloppy work on my part as I've still got a lot to figure out. Im sure I could get that number down after some solid hours in my own bird. Either way, I was seriously impressed and Im thoroughly addicted to these planes. Guess I'll just take the bits and pieces that resonated and continue the learning. Doing some hours with BigRenna coming up to dial some things in. So that should be a pretty solid 25-30 hours of wagon dual before leaping from the nest.

ington6 wrote: With some headwind it was still pretty typical to land the plane in 250-280'. That's with some admitedly sloppy work on my part as I've still got a lot to figure out.

I just don’t see how that is possible - I don’t know how one can be over the numbers at 90 mph and still be sticking 250-280 foot landings.

You’re right. that’s impossible. At 90 mph you would travel about 250 feet in 2 seconds. I was talking about three points being that length. The wheelies were the fast ones.

I guess I’m doing it wrong? Power off or add a little as needed to hit aiming point, steep descent of 1000fpm or so, indicating 55-60 mph. Round out/ flare ending up about 2 to 4 feet above runway, tail low. Stall horn came on at the flare. As soon as the mains touch, slight forward pressure on the yoke, dump the flaps, braking as needed. Tail down when it wants to go down.

I haven’t done a 3 point in so long, I’d really have to try to do one.

I'd be honestly interested in knowing how many airplanes have been wrecked because someone was try to land in a particular configuration. I couldn't begin to guess the last time I consciously thought to myself... 'self, this is going to be a xyz point landing... '

I much prefer, 'self we need to quit making airplane noises now, so let's get this old girl parked and put away'...

I am reasonably sure I can park it one pt, two pt, or all three, on anyones cue, but the only thing that ever crosses my mind is... keeping it clean and simple. The wind, Wx, weight, strip conditions etc will all dictate what 'clean and simple will be, why would I land it any other way?

If I had to guess, I'd say I land most closely to the MAF style described above, about 99% of the time. I land full flapped 100% of the time, although I reserve the right to dump them on roll out, touch down, or shortly before...

My advice to anyone in the OP's position... trade instructors. I'm certain there's nothing wrong with yours, I'm also certain differing view points, instructing techniques, and backgrounds yield a more well rounded experience. Were it me, I wouldn't even be looking for an instructor, or even the left seat... just riding around with an old crop duster, or old 135 pilot will return well... heavy emphasis on old

Take care, Rob

What Rob said is what I do also.

In an attempt to simplify things, I attempt to make the same full flap deceleration on short final, using elevator and the apparent rate of closure to decelerate and power to control rate of descent and glide angle to the exact desired spot where I either three point or level the fuselage to wheel land.

Given that there are various techniques for deceleration before or deceleration after the numbers, there are various wheel landing techniques.

Choices of short final to touchdown techniques are the above which might be called Wolfgang's stall down with my addition of power to control rate of descent and glide angle (deceleration before the numbers), Wolfgang's stall down with throttle closed (deceleration before the numbers), or what Wolfgang called the easier round out and hold off.

The first two choices use either power/pitch or extremely skillful elevator control to decelerate before the desired touchdown spot near the approach end of the runway. Both use the apparent rate of closure to gauge necessary deceleration coming into ground effect.

The third choice, which because modern engines favor the first two I call the most difficult approach is the only approach that requires the round out and uncontrolled hold off. The uncontrolled hold off is what makes it the more difficult approach. Few have much problem with the integrated contact/instrument approach at 1.3 Vso all the way to the fence (near the numbers) and round out over the numbers. The difficulty with the various techniques to handle deceleration to the actual speed below Vso in no headwind component where the airplane will quit flying is that the throttle had to be cut at round out or the hold off would be very long eating a lot of runway. I have no problem with the soft field landing as I actually do that somewhat in choice one. However, not starting deceleration until over the numbers makes us go well down the runway. So the third choice add the uncontrolled, unless soft field technique, rate of descent and glide angle to the desired touchdown spot. The only way to control the length of the hold off is to decelerate before the numbers.

I have to defer to others here concerning the technique that requires 1.3 Vso to the fence and round out over the numbers. As I was trained before PTS, I was never required to use that technique and I never was PIC in twins that require that technique to stay faster that the one engine controllable airspeed. With power/pitch deceleration using a stabilized brisk walk apparent rate of closure to decelerate before the numbers, however, the three point or wheel landing are exactly the same until we use elevator to level the fuselage at or just prior to touchdown. OK, at or just prior is different. At with lighter airplane on lighter gear, just prior with heavier airplane on stiffer gear.

Yeah 90 MPH is really fast! I typically am around 70-ish on final, 60 over the numbers and work it down to hearing the stall horn screaming at me within a few seconds..

Here's my wheel landing, which is mostly what I do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEMGsJxWqgw

I know some of the membership could care less about aesthetics but I do believe there is nothing prettier than a well executed wheel landing. Just makes me smile doing them and watching others do them. What I find interesting is the myth about needing a higher approach speed compared with 3 pointing. I land my 180 when she's light with the horn buzzing and my ASI indicating (If I am looking at it) 45 mph. I need power for elevator authority/flare but some of my smoothest and obviously shortest wheelies have been done using half the approach speed recommended by said instructor in the OP. The mechanics of the wheel landing are about the flare and round-out not some set speed. Sometimes I plan for a wheel landing but it just settles so nicely into a 3 point I hold the tail down - and vice versa.



Josh

I like a tailwheel low 2 point, than I just let the tail down when it feels is about to die

The pinning it, or pushing it down I don’t like, if anything just keep flying to the horizon with the power out as they touch. Kinda the same, but a different mindset

I'm no expert, but add me to the "90 is too fast" list. Honestly, I think the whole secret is to arrive at the touchdown with as little energy as possible. I'm so slow now that my former bounces have become minor lilts.

Honestly the most difficult landing is a full stall into a wheel landing where you are rotating the tail up as the plane is touching down. Lots of people teach that for off airport flying but the additional balancing act as the plane contacts the ground adds complexity. That and the tail up at low speeds makes you more susceptible to misdirection. Around here with the sugar sand that type of landing will get you a new prop.
Back when I trained all but the last few hours was three point. I was only taught wheelies a few hours before my checkride. Wheelie is honestly the easiest landing you could ever do and doesn't really require a whole lot. If you want to get me excited show me a nice slow three point drug in behind the curve with a sweet little vroom vroom and a triple kiss!

I've said it many times before.....but, whatever winds your watch. As long as it's fairly slow.

But, hey, if you like to dance, and don't mind bent sheet metal, 90 mph landings can work as well.....

MTV

The key need in either type landing is the airspeed of stall in low ground effect. That is slow. In headwind components, where we have lots of relative wind at slow ground speed, we may be still flying on the ground. That is safer, however, at zero ground speed than at a lot of ground speed. Trouble comes when, in strong winds, we demand the really fast apparent rate of closure as with the normal round out in no wind. Really fast apparent rate of closure here can easily be 90 on the airspeed indicator. The airplane doesn't do well in that kind of abuse.

As for levelling the fuselage to wheel it on problems in strong winds, no problem. The fuselage is already level at zero ground speed. The idea of three point being more controllable in strong winds is thus mute. Ground handling becomes the greater issue. The airplane would be fine with a level fuselage and a little power to go straight into the wind. Nose gear becomes not such a dorky idea when we have to taxi crosswind.

Another thing I'm sure I'm doing wrong, is the 'pinning' thing? I don't get this...

I enjoy watching people land... some (usually the three pointers) have the stick (or yoke) pulled plumb off the panel (or floor) with a death grip like they're trying to remove it, to take home.... or stuff it in their pants? 'Stick in your gut', 'Stick on the belt', 'Stick back'... What the stick?

And then the two pointers... sheesh... they are usually trying to shove it through the panel... maybe even the fire wall... almost like they're trying to get the airplane to sniff the dirt.... Hold it up, hold it off, ... just hold it...

Pin the upwind wing down... the ailerons, pin em ... all the way... never mind the crosswind component is like... 1, just pin it....

Of course there are throttle pinners too... but I digress...

Where did all this 'pinning' start? I must have missed that memo. Pin everything all the time and you will never learn how to feel it. Feel is how we fly the purest vfr.

I land pretty much like I fly... I just give it what it wants, what it needs... Why pick a fight with the thing? Kind of like the difference between a dance and a boxing match. Most airplanes really like the dance. Love your airplane, it'll love you back.

Can't quite get it all sorted out in one day? guess what? some skills just take time to build. Read about it all you want, but until you invest gas, you're just not going to be as clean as the guy who did... There just isn't any other way.

Aesthetics? for me, the prettiest landing is the most bird like. That is after all what we are emulating. 1 pt., 2 pt., 3 pt. whatever... Nothing about a bird perching screams 'pin it' to me...

Take care, Rob

I like the way the bird decelerates and adds power on short final to touchdown. We're not a helicopter like him, but we can get close. Again, that is slow.