Rough Field Landings

Z
Slope landings are tricky. Upslope or downslope....the problem is
trying to determine the slope angle. So, having done a lot of crop
dusting on mountain slopes with really severe angles, may I offer the
following....
There are those who say land upslope. Problem is the slope may be so
severe that you get nearly into a 60-90 approach angle! You won't know
until its too late. If you fly cross slope until the very last of your
controllable flying speed, you can make a hard turn upslope and at
least know, or guess, how hard the impact is going to be. To turn
downslope is putting yourself on a piece of junk headed down hill at
40mph or faster and it could go even much faster with only something
very ugly to stop you.
Corn often grows 10" or more and it is tough as hell...will drag you to
stop in an amazing short distance. Same is true of many crops like
cotton, oats, cane, sunflowers, etc. Once you touch the top of the crop
you are going to touch down blind. If you are lucky, you'll touch down
with the rows and minimum damage. If not.......hmmmmmm
On city streets, the biggest problem is wires crossing everywhere. In
my crop dusting career I've gone thru at least 18 wires and logged each
of them. Certainly the aircraft were equipped with wirecutter devices,
but still, there are wires that will not pay attention to modern
technology and kill you. Start to look at wires as you drive around and
see what you would do to get over/under them. That is the best advice I
can give on that. With my experience I know I can duck under or flare
over depending on the circumstances and not be afraid of being so close
to the ground when it isn't an airport. Same for going under bridges or
overpasses. Traffic kind of determines what to do in those cases.
I've done a lot of slope landings with helicopters and believe me, just
a couple degrees can make a huge difference. At phyxed wing speeds it
is nearly impossible to discern those angles unless you are flying
cross slope. The stress level with be off the scale by then so you have
to have the plan worked out ahead of time and then hope you can follow
it.
If my reply gets out of sequence please bear with me. The thoughts get
so excited and out of step. I'll be glad to elaborate if I have
confused you.
Merry Christmas and fly safe
Ol Shy & Bashful

wrote in message
oups.com...

snip

Corn often grows 10" or more and it is tough as hell...will drag you to
stop in an amazing short distance.

EXCELLENT thread!

This reminds me of my checkride when the DE asked me to perform an emergency
landing. I picked a field full of corn since there were no cleared fields
around. He let me get so close that I clearly remember seeing individual
leaves on the plants. Heck, I was slipping the plane too. He asked me if I
thought we would stop before we reached the other side of the field and I
replied that we would stop quickly due to the corn. With that, he had me
abort the landing and go on to the next task.

This comes to mind vividly because this was the closest I have come to
actually landing out. I was probably 80' above the corn and quickly dropping
when we aborted and in my mind, we were going in. I was slipping to make
sure that we hit the corn near the field's edge. Many times I have imagined
what it would have been like to continue that landing.

Has anyone here actually landed in a cornfield like this?

-Trent
PP-ASEL

Trent Moorehead wrote:

Has anyone here actually landed in a cornfield like this?

Dick Stark related one off-field landing by an amphibious seaplane.

"The plane dropped into the corn with a horrible, hollow-sounding 'WHUMP' about
60 feet short of the runway, or in other words, about 30 feet into the corn. The
corn was so tall that the plane sank out of sight.

THE FIELD EXPLODED!! Fourteen zillion panic-stricken crows erupted in a thousand
directions. It was as if a dense black cloud was spewing from the bowels of the
earth.

'CAW! CAW! CAW!' It sounded like an enormous 1000 pound bird had suddenly
started screaming. Some of the crows were flapping their wings so frenziedly as
they made their aerial exit, they left loose feathers fluttering in their wake.
Others seemed to be leaving small thin vapor trails behind them. They were very
upset.

About two seconds after the terrified horde of crows exited from the field,
there was the roar of an outraged Lycoming engine. The plane's bow appeared,
surging from the corn like the African Queen emerging from the reeds."

The damage was impressive. The main gear was torn off, as were the wing struts.
The wings had folded back, destroying the empennage. And it had been a
fabric-covered aircraft.

Stark also says "A cornfield is probably the worst type of crop you can choose
to land in. The rock-hard ears of field corn will totally destroy any plane that
dares to take them on."
It beats dying trying to save the aircraft, though.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

Has anyone here actually landed in a cornfield like this?

-Trent

Here's what can happen when you get too close to the corn. Two things to
note about this report
1) the NOSE of the aircraft impacted the ground (although this is a tail
dragger, corn can "pull" you down and potentially flip you on your head once
you get into it)
2)aircraft sustained substantial damage yet the pilot was not injured. A
full military shoulder harness could very well be the reason the pilot was
not injured.

CHI03LA272
On August 19, 2003, at 1700 central daylight time, a Piper PA-25, N4346Y,
operated by Reabe Flying Service, sustained substantial damaged on impact
with a corn crop and terrain near Brandon, Wisconsin, during a spray pass
over the field. The commercial pilot was not injured. The 14 CFR Part 137
aerial application flight departed from Waupun Airport (WI07), Waupun,
Wisconsin, on a local flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed. No
flight plan was filed.

The pilot reported that approximately 70 gallons of chemical remained as he
was making the aerial swath before the accident. He reported the winds were
from the south at 9 knots gusting to 14 knots, and the temperature was 88
degrees Fahrenheit. He reported the airplane was descending over a treeline
heading southbound when it experienced moderate turbulence. He reported that
he was "unable to stop the descent before the airplane made contact with the
corn." The airplane continued it's descent and the nose of the airplane
impacted the ground and the airplane skidded to a stop. The pilot reported
there was no mechanical malfunction of the airplane prior to the accident.




Pilot walks away from plane crash


By Lee Reinsch
the reporter staff

The pilot of a Waupun crop duster that crashed late Tuesday afternoon walked
away uninjured, according to Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Department
officials.

Reabe Spraying Service, Inc. of Waupun, owns the plane.

Damon Reabe, 29, of Madison was applying pesticides to a field of sweet corn
when the plane crashed south of Gauger Road in the Township of Springvale
around 4:50 p.m., says Sgt. Jeff Bonack.

Investors Tom Huettl and Bill Steenberg of Fond du Lac own the land, but
farmer Kurt Krohn of Brandon farms it.

Krohn said the accident damaged "only a small percentage" of his sweet corn
crop.

"I'm not worried," he said, adding that Reabe is a "very fair" company to
work with.

Bonack said he believes pilot error caused the crash but the sherriff's
department and the Federal Aircraft Administration department are still
investigating the crash.

Reabe was alone in the plane.

The police, fire and first responders of Brandon, along with the Wisconsin
State Patrol and Brooks Ambulance, responded to the scene in addition to the
sheriff's department.


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In gliders the mantra was, "land upwind and upslope but upslope is more
important. Down slope is to be avoided."

The challenge is to understand just how steep an approach is required and
how much energy is required to flare properly for steeper slopes. It's not
a minimum speed approach and you must have enough pitch authority to round
out. Much more than one would originally think for steeper slopes.

The rollout or skid will be much shorter which is always good. And it's
easier to hit a spot. Every foot of ground covered after touchdown runs the
risk of hitting something you didn't see. I routinely drove the nose in the
ground with the brake to minimize rollouts over unknown ground.

But for moderate slopes, my experience is that upslope is strongly preferred
even with a moderate tailwind.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Z
Slope landings are tricky. Upslope or downslope....the problem is
trying to determine the slope angle. So, having done a lot of crop
dusting on mountain slopes with really severe angles, may I offer the
following....
There are those who say land upslope. Problem is the slope may be so
severe that you get nearly into a 60-90 approach angle! You won't know
until its too late. If you fly cross slope until the very last of your
controllable flying speed, you can make a hard turn upslope and at
least know, or guess, how hard the impact is going to be. To turn
downslope is putting yourself on a piece of junk headed down hill at
40mph or faster and it could go even much faster with only something
very ugly to stop you.
Corn often grows 10" or more and it is tough as hell...will drag you to
stop in an amazing short distance. Same is true of many crops like
cotton, oats, cane, sunflowers, etc. Once you touch the top of the crop
you are going to touch down blind. If you are lucky, you'll touch down
with the rows and minimum damage. If not.......hmmmmmm
On city streets, the biggest problem is wires crossing everywhere. In
my crop dusting career I've gone thru at least 18 wires and logged each
of them. Certainly the aircraft were equipped with wirecutter devices,
but still, there are wires that will not pay attention to modern
technology and kill you. Start to look at wires as you drive around and
see what you would do to get over/under them. That is the best advice I
can give on that. With my experience I know I can duck under or flare
over depending on the circumstances and not be afraid of being so close
to the ground when it isn't an airport. Same for going under bridges or
overpasses. Traffic kind of determines what to do in those cases.
I've done a lot of slope landings with helicopters and believe me, just
a couple degrees can make a huge difference. At phyxed wing speeds it
is nearly impossible to discern those angles unless you are flying
cross slope. The stress level with be off the scale by then so you have
to have the plan worked out ahead of time and then hope you can follow
it.
If my reply gets out of sequence please bear with me. The thoughts get
so excited and out of step. I'll be glad to elaborate if I have
confused you.
Merry Christmas and fly safe
Ol Shy & Bashful

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 16:29:07 GMT, "Maule Driver"
wrote:

But for moderate slopes, my experience is that upslope is strongly preferred
even with a moderate tailwind.

There's a neat private field near the airport I fly from. While it's
possible to land downslope, you have to slip like crazy to do so,
because westbound you have trees and power lines to clear, then a very
steep slope (I love to take off from that slope, without ever actually
using the runway), and finally a 1500? foot runway with a gentle
slope, which however vanishes very rapidly indeed. I have never
succeeded in landing on the first half of that runway.

Eastbound, however, that gentle upslope is perfect for making wheelies
so smooth that the passenger never knows when the plane is on the
ground. If the wind is out of the west (it usually is, or SW in high
summer or NW in the winter) I try to keep the elevator neutral until I
have a lot of power on, so as to climb the hill at the east end. But I
have never felt that the tailwind put me in any danger of overrunning
the runway in that direction. (And if it did, the hill would stop me
in plenty of time.)

East or west, it's a joy to land there, and likewise it's a joy to
take off to the west (I've never tried it in the other direction).


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
the blog www.danford.net

"Maule Driver" wrote in message m...
In gliders the mantra was, "land upwind and upslope but upslope is more
important. Down slope is to be avoided."

The challenge is to understand just how steep an approach is required and
how much energy is required to flare properly for steeper slopes. It's not
a minimum speed approach and you must have enough pitch authority to round
out. Much more than one would originally think for steeper slopes.

The rollout or skid will be much shorter which is always good. And it's
easier to hit a spot. Every foot of ground covered after touchdown runs the
risk of hitting something you didn't see. I routinely drove the nose in the
ground with the brake to minimize rollouts over unknown ground.

But for moderate slopes, my experience is that upslope is strongly preferred
even with a moderate tailwind.



When landing upslope judging the moment to flare is also harder...it looks like you are just above the ground but you
will still be high...

Blueskies wrote:
"Maule Driver" wrote in message
m...
In gliders the mantra was, "land upwind and upslope but upslope is
more
important. Down slope is to be avoided."

The challenge is to understand just how steep an approach is
required and
how much energy is required to flare properly for steeper slopes.
It's not
a minimum speed approach and you must have enough pitch authority
to round
out. Much more than one would originally think for steeper
slopes.

The rollout or skid will be much shorter which is always good. And
it's
easier to hit a spot. Every foot of ground covered after touchdown
runs the
risk of hitting something you didn't see. I routinely drove the
nose in the
ground with the brake to minimize rollouts over unknown ground.

But for moderate slopes, my experience is that upslope is strongly
preferred
even with a moderate tailwind.



When landing upslope judging the moment to flare is also harder...it
looks like you are just above the ground but you
will still be high...

Do what I did. Knowing that some of my flying would be onto and off
topdressing airstrips I found instructors who had been topdressing
pilots and learnt from them.
I noticed in a post further back some-one was debating the idea of
landing downhill.
Bad idea.
You not only have the aircraft speed but also the weight and the
downhill slope and nothing to really slow you.
landing uphill is not only a good idea it is also the safest

On 15 Dec 2004 06:10:25 -0800, wrote:

If my reply gets out of sequence please bear with me. The thoughts get
so excited and out of step. I'll be glad to elaborate if I have
confused you.


No confusion. Thanks for this reply and others.

Never considered the cross slop technique as all the manuals I've seen
say land upslope. I've been in WV and TN alot, and saw very varied
upslope conditions which I didn't think I could flare over without
smacking into the hill. Cross slope allow me a way to possible get
out of that predicament if needed. I also like the idea ofcarrying
extra speed so you can "set up a climb" over the slope instead of just
flaring into it.

I was however slightly dissappointed with your city landing comment.
Not from anything you said, but from the fact what I took out of it
was, "unless you know the streets VERY well, kiss you ass good by, and
then hope to get lucky!" A slight tongue in cheek representation of
what you said, but I don't think too far off.

Lastly I never knew corn was so bad. I heard a story of my first
instructor (old WWII pilot) putting down in a corn field with a
student without any damage. Must've been young corn from the comments
I've seen here. g After that, I've always thought corn was a good
way to go, I will now try to recondition myself to putting it 3rd or
4th on the list when I'm scoping out landing options.

Thanks to all who are contributing to this thread. It sure beats the
hell out of the political conversations, and may just help someone
someday. I know I've learned already.

z

zatatime wrote:

I've been in WV and TN alot, and saw very varied
upslope conditions which I didn't think I could flare over without
smacking into the hill.

My feeling is that, if the slope is that bad, it's probably descending faster
than my rate of descent. Just follow the slope downhill and land where it's
flatter. I think that would work in the Appalachians.

I heard a story of my first
instructor (old WWII pilot) putting down in a corn field with a
student without any damage. Must've been young corn from the comments
I've seen here. g

It also might've already been harvested. When and where I grew up, the farmers
would harvest the ears and cut the stalks for sileage. Such a field wouldn't be
a bad landing spot most of the year.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.