In article
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" wrote:


I see many pilots do what I call "landing in a pile".....they touch
down, and immediately let the stick go forward........jamming the nose
wheel (or skid) onto the ground..........some even push the stick
forward!!! WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!!!............

With a nose dragger glider, the nose wheel is NOT a "landing gear", it
is merely for ground handling and slow taxi....SAME for the skid on a
nose dragger glider.........it is not a "landing" skid, it is just to
support the glider when stationary or during the very beginning of the
take off roll, and the very end of the landing roll. Same for the
nose wheel on a tri gear airplane...........

Bad habits come easily.......in our repair shop, we have had a rash of
airplane repairs where the tricycle gear airplane was landed nose
wheel first.......(or bounced into a nose first landing) resulting in
flatened front wheel, bent landing gear, bent firewall, and sometimes
prop strike and engine rebuild.........I see "wheel barrow " landings
at our field all the time......BAD TECHNIQUE!!!!!

Airplanes, gliders, nose dragger, tri gear, tail dragger, all should
be landed nose up, tail down. Landing loads taken by the main gear,
and pitch control maintained throughout the ground roll.......

So don't blame the 2-33......

Cookie

On one of my wife's 2-33 instruction flights: The instructor wanted to
land and stop quickly so he would not have to push the glider too far
back to the takeoff point. He jammed the skid onto the paved runway at
touchdown. The friction heated the metal skid to incandescence and
caught the wooden skid underneath on fire!