Tamed by the Tailwheel

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:05:40 -0500, dave
wrote:

Absolutely! You can still train in a cub or a champ. Just make sure
you book well in advance. It's best if you can schedule time on
weekdays.
Dave
68 7ECA

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind. I used vacation days in 1/2 day
increments to schedule my primary on weekdays. That made scheduling
much easier and also allowed for a more relaxed training environment.
Rich Russell

wrote:

Dudley
As for the general posting, I think I referred to the general line of
thought by more than just you. You always seem to be so overly
sensitive on issues these days.

Ol' Dudley is a very sensitive sort. any hint he may not know what he's
talking about pure riles him....which, in and of itself, is an interesting
indicator....

As for professional attitudes, I kind fo thought our personal or
private emails were just that. Thanks for letting me know.

OH NO! With Dudley absolutely NOT. Be warned:

Any email you send him can easily be posted to a newsgroup - in part or in
full, without his asking you first.

He posted a few of mine in the rec.aviation.students newsgroup without
asking permission at any time.

So beware of what you send him - he has no honor in this respect, and cannot
be trusted.



--
Saville

Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm

Steambending FAQ with photos:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm

snip

Dudley, et al,

I have heard from all types, but I query you.
In the proccess of landing, what determines for you whether a full stall
"3
point" or a wheel landing is warranted.

I have heard winds, particularly crosswinds are the main factor.

Then I rode with a Delta 727 Capt. (He later took command of a B777) in
his
Super Cub, we landed with a nasty, gusty crosswind. I got it on final (me
a
student), then he took it to a full stall landing and I paid attention to
the rudder pedal movement. The pedals made ever-so-slight corrections, the
nose hardly moved off centerline. Then the plane met earth ever-so-gently.
I
noticed that he never quit "flying" till it was shut down in front of the
hangar. It was the most rewarding flight of my student year.
To this day, all I can think is, "Damn! This Guy is good!"
I applied the experience to my time in a Decathalon but I never got THAT
good at it.
I'll reserve his answer to this queston for later.
Blue Skies,
Marty


The consesus of opinion at my taildrager school was that the tail has to
come down sometime and that your biggest friend on the ground was a firmly
planted tail wheel. We were taught that tailwheel first was just fine, and
demonstrated good control.

The only time I have ever talked with aligators was on my third solo landing
(ever) in a super cub. I got caught almost......!!!! Almost three point,
almost on the ground, and almost flying and ran out of rudder authority. I
now know that I was probably too fast, let the aircraft land too early, and
probably didn't have the stick hard enough back in my gut and that the full
flaps were probably shadowing the rudder. In my case a blast of throttle
seemed to give me enough authority to keep directional control but I did end
up on the grass but luckily didn't hit any lights and was able to fly the
aircraft later that day. (After a little clean up.) I now know more about p
factor and slipstream and would be wary of attempting the blast of air
technique especially if in a swerve to the left.

My glider instructor was big on describing the flare as the "hold off"
before landing which is not a wording that is common in the power schools.

My power instructors maintained that the only time a wheel landing should be
used is in a heavier aircraft like the DC3, when the tailwheel would not
take the load of landing three point. I have tried lots of them but am no
expert.

Dudley and Todd had a great thread recently (landing and stall) I am
quoting it here because I think it is one of the best descriptions of the
landing process and because I would like to tempt them to comment on the
situations where a wheely would be required or indicated. I know there are
other good opinions I would like to hear.

Blue skies to all


On a landing, lift is gradually reduced to transfer the weight to the
wheels.
This can be done by reducing airspeed (with excess drag), or by
lowering the AOA.


Hi Todd;
on Andrew's comment above, let me throw in a little different slant if I
may please. As usual, I'm not in disagreement with what you have said,
but I find I have a single issue with Andrew's using the phrase
"lowering the AOA" as that relates to touchdown.
Let me expand a bit if I can and make this a bit more clear. If you have
anything additional, please feel free to comment.
The issues involving the aerodynamic factors involved in landing
flare,( or the lack of same as the case may be :-), are critical in the
handling of high performance airplanes where touch down is made on the
front side of critical angle of attack; thus not full stall landings at
all, but rather a steady decrease in the sink rate by the judicious use
of INCREASING AOA to increase lift to counter aircraft weight as
airspeed and energy bleed just before touchdown. You use the same
procedure when you land the Champ tail low but not quite stalled.
About the term "lowering AOA";
I have a severe problem with lowering aoa to acheive touchdown in ANY
airplane. I much prefer to teach this transition as an INCREASE in aoa,
and here's why.
Most landings are not full stall landings at all, but rather a touchdown
accomplished by acheiving an extremely delicate balance between the
aerodynamic factors in play as the airplane reaches the flare point and
is held there in landing attitude.
Here's how we always taught our students to envision the flare.
As you reach flare position at your flare airspeed, you assume a landing
attitude. At that exact instant in time, the process of landing the
airplane begins. As the airspeed decreases, the weight of the airplane
wants to lower it to the runway because lift is also decreasing as speed
decreases. Assuming you are at the correct height in the flare as this
is happening and if you did nothing at this point, the airplane would
simply touchdown. But you're still too fast, and the airplane still has
lift available.
You need to get rid of some more speed. The only thing you have to
counter the weight of the airplane pulling it down toward the runway is
the lift still available to you. You use that lift, which is on the
FRONT SIDE of critical angle of attack, to counter the sink. This
requires an INCREASE in AOA, not a decrease! It also causes higher
induced drag which aids the weight factor causing even more INCREASE in
AOA.
If you're playing this game properly, you can juggle all this until you
are just in front of CLmax for the airplane. If your timing was perfect,
you have reached that point right before CLmax with the airplane inches
above the runway. It's right here where pilots go wrong envisioning the
"full stall" landing.
What actually happens is that you have simply reached the point where
the lift will decrease if any further addition in AOA is attemped. It's
not a sudden loss of lift, but rather just the crossover point where no
more positive lift can be obtained. Your induced drag is maximized as
well. In short, you've used up all the tools available lift wise and the
airplane must now land. If you did it all the right way, you are inches
above the runway when this cross over takes place and you get a
squeeker.
The kicker in all this is that you can "allow" the airplane to land at
any point between your beginning flare airspeed and accompanying AOA and
your CLmax point during this tradeoff between lift, drag, and gravity,
by simply allowing the drag and gravity to become dominant, by not
increasing AOA to counter these factors. If you do this, you simply land
"hot" if you're inches over the runway.
I used to land hot prop fighters with plenty of lift left by using this
technique. I simply let them settle in tail low, fast, and under
complete control.....hardly a full stall landing :-)
The bottom line on all this is that you can put it down several ways,
but I like to envision landing through a constantly INCREASING AOA
instead of decreasing the AOA at any point during the landing.
The way I've described it here is the way we always taught it to our
pilots in training and is not meant to fault Andrew in any
way.....simply another point of view.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
for email; take out the trash




Todd Pattist" wrote in message
news
"Dudley Henriques" wrote:

entirely agree with you, lowering the AOA would be a highly
unusual way to land.

Great way to increase nosewheel sales though :-))

Indeed!

I suppose the closest thing to this would be a wheel landing
in a tailwheel airplane where you bring the stick forward
*after* landing to reduce AOA and keep it planted. Of
course, a wheel landing would never be considered a full
stall landing, which is what we were discussing.
Todd Pattist

Naturally in checking out pilots in hot prop warbirds, I was dealing
with wheel landings quite a lot. It's a good idea to put a T6, or a P51
down on the mains tail low and a bit fast which is the way we approached
this situation. The 51 tracks straight, but the T6 can become a real
handful if you put in down near the AOA limit line with the tail well
down near stall under certain wind conditions.
The correct way to do wheel landings, even in the Champ :-) is to simply
take it on down to the flare point at the right airspeed, flare it off
there and hold it letting the speed bleed off. The trick with wheel
landings is timing!
In effect, you're doing the same thing you would be doing in a regular
landing, but the timing is different. Instead of using that steadily
increasing aoa to hold it in the flare, you use just a bit less aoa and
subsequently just a bit less lift than is actually needed to hold the
airplane in the flare. The result is a gradual and slower sink rate to
the mains. It should be STRONGLY noted that at NO time during the
landing process, whether it be a "stall" landing or a wheel landing,
should the aoa be reduced......NEVER!!! Contact in all landings should
be made during an increasing aoa. What confuses pilots about wheel
landings and aoa is that immediately at touchdown, the stick is
"rotated" gently forward to PIN the mains. This is the timing I was
talking about, and one can say with some degree of accuracy that the aoa
is reduced at this point.
I can't stress enough, in view of some of the posts I've been reading
here, that aoa during a normal landing, stall or wheel, should NEVER be
reduced if technique is correct, while the wheels are off the ground!!
This will produce a bounce for the best case scenario, and could
conceivably cause a prop strike. It's ALWAYS a controlled increasing aoa
into the touchdown!
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
for email; take out the trash




Andrew Sarangan wrote
it is much more reasonable to increase AOA and reduce lift at the same
time due to the decreasing airspeed.

Except when it's not. You're making an assumption here - that the
increase in the coefficient of lift will be offset by the decrease in
the square term of velocity. Depending on the lift and drag curves in
play, that may or may not be true.


The way you wrote this was correct, and you phrased it
better than Andrew did. In landing, you don't want to
"reduce lift," as that would cause you to "fall" towards the
runway due to the uncompensated force of gravity. Instead,
you want to increase AOA ( CL) and simultaneously slow down
so that lift is roughly constant (equal to weight of
airplane) At any given airspeed, the increased AOA will
tend to produce more lift (proportional to speed squared
times the coefficient of lift), so the pilot must "offset"
this tendency for increased lift by slowing down to reduce
the squared speed term.

However, you are wrong to imply that this process depends on
the "lift and drag curves in play" It simply requires the
pilot to control the rate of increasing angle of attack
according to the rate at which the plane bleeds off energy.
Learning to land is all about that control. Pull back too
fast and you balloon, pull back too slow and you hit hard.

As the plane slows the power required to fly changes. That
power comes from three available sources. It can come from
1) the engine, 2) the stored reservoir of kinetic energy
(speed), or 3) the stored reservoir of potential energy
(altitude). During approach to landing, the engine is
throttled back and is producing less power than needed to
fly at the chosen airspeed. That's why you descend - the
plane is getting the power needed to fly from source 3.

As you flare and fly parallel to the runway, you lose power
source 3 (altitude/potential energy). Power source 1
(engine) is also off. You get the power needed to keep
flying from the sole remaining store of energy - kinetic
energy (speed) and you begin to slow. You can touch down
at any time, and if you do this fast, it's a wheel landing.
If you do it as slow as you can, it's a three pointer.
(assuming conventional gear)

If you are in a portion of the flight envelope where it's not true,
you're going to balloon or bounce if you increase the angle of attack,
as will inevitably happen with a wheel landing if you do not reduce
the angle of attack.

You will always balloon if you pull back too fast. No
matter where you are in the flight envelope. It's easier to
balloon at the higher speed, but you can do it at slow speed
too, right up to stall.

If you are in a portion of the flight envelope where it is true, you
are already very close to a full stall landing.

No.

In the latter case, the decreasing
airspeed more than makes up for the increasing AOA, probably due to the
square relationship of airspeed with lift.

Except when it doesn't.

You're both off. Andrew is thinking you need to reduce lift
- you don't - you need to keep lift constant and offset the
AOA/CL increase with slowing speed. You're thinking this
process depends on the characteristics of the plane - it
doesn't - it depends on the pilot's skill :-)

So, let me correct my earlier
statement that lowering AOA during a landing is probably not a correct
description.

Except when it is.

I hate to say you could never increase AOA during a landing,
but I probably should say that. To decrease AOA while in
level flight, which is what you want in a non-crash type of
landing, you would need to increase speed to hold lift
constant. Unlike the opposite "normal" landing, where
decreasing speed is a natural result of the flare,
increasing speed with decreasing AOA would require some
fancy throttle work. It's possible, but not desirable in
any landing situation.I can think of.

Of course, if you want a high descent rate crash landing, a
bent nosewheel or a conventional gear bounce-to-the-sky,
feel free to put the stick forward.

Todd Pattist
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)
___
Make a commitment to learn something from every flight.
Share what you learn.




Roger wrote:

If the plane drops, or increases the rate of sink for the last few
inches I'd certainly call that an increase.

It is an increase, but it's not enough to get a stall.

When the wing quits flying
and the wheels are not yet on the ground I'd call that a stall.

So would I, but the wing doesn't quit flying.

But you can stall a nose dragger on.

Not easily, and not any more easily than a taildragger.

The stall warning horn goes off

Which I'm pretty sure you know happens well before you reach
the stall AOA.

and as the plane slows more the quickly settles the last few inches
(ok,, sometimes feet :-)) )

Yes it settles, but not because it's truly stalled, at least
not in a normal landing in a normal aircraft. The settling
occurs because of the rapid increase in induced drag at high
AOAs, which produces a rapid slowing with the engine
throttled down. Since lift is proportional to speed
squared, the slowing causes a rapid loss of lift and you get
the settling feeling. It's the precursor to the stall, but
you will seldom actually get to it.

Todd Pattist
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)
___
Make a commitment to learn something from every flight.
Share what you learn.

"private" wrote in message
news:PzDFd.69114$6l.60209@pd7tw2no...


The consesus of opinion at my taildrager school was that the tail has to
come down sometime and that your biggest friend on the ground was a firmly
planted tail wheel. We were taught that tailwheel first was just fine,
and
demonstrated good control.


Let me make that a steerable tail wheel.

When you are busy crop dusting and making takeoffs and landings near
the field you don't always stop to count. So, if you make 3 per hour
which is not uncommon, and multiply that by 8000 you get what? And if
you toss in the thousands of landings while teaching in tailwheel, it
adds up to a few more so it ends up between 20-30,000. So who bothers
to count every one of them? I forgot to add the twin engine tail
draggers too........I just can't for the life of me figure why you want
to argue the point anyway "Ol Boy". Thanks for your nasty gram email. I
thought it rather tasteless and certainly not the professional you are
sometimes. Didn't you tell me you hadn't flown in 10 years or so?

wrote in message
oups.com...
When you are busy crop dusting and making takeoffs and landings near
the field you don't always stop to count. So, if you make 3 per hour
which is not uncommon, and multiply that by 8000 you get what? And if
you toss in the thousands of landings while teaching in tailwheel, it
adds up to a few more so it ends up between 20-30,000. So who bothers
to count every one of them? I forgot to add the twin engine tail
draggers too........I just can't for the life of me figure why you
want
to argue the point anyway "Ol Boy". Thanks for your nasty gram email.
I
thought it rather tasteless and certainly not the professional you are
sometimes. Didn't you tell me you hadn't flown in 10 years or so?

No secrets here....ten years is about right for me.

....and I'm not arguing the point. I just find it hard to believe and
have said so publicly :-)
I'm not asking you to prove anything. I don't care how many hours you
have, or how many landings you have made, and as I said, you shouldn't
either. That's your business. What I'm telling you is that on Usenet,
you can be a trained monkey with a keyboard, and the figures you are
throwing out here are extremely high,even with an ag letter of
competence, which I have as well.
And I think I've made it quite plain to you that what I objected to
about your initial post was primarily the fact that you were addressing
the general issue of tailwheel landings, and NOT the question the rest
of us were dealing with from the initial poster by telling all of us,
myself AND others, that we, and I quote you here,

" With due respect to all who have replied with various techniques, it
seems everyone is working with way too much airspeed!"

In my "nasty" email to you, I pointed out that this is the same thing as
saying "Although I have the greatest respect for everyone and what they
are saying, they really don't know what they are talking about" :-)
It's no big deal Kemp, but if you are going to correct people trying to
help other people with advice, you might try at least addressing what
everyone was dealing with, and that was carrying extra airspeed on
downwind.
Now, apparently since you're now ****ed a bit, you have gone one step
further and told me in a post that carrying extra airspeed on downwind
will screw up everyone else's pattern. I have addressed that in another
post, and don't feel the need to be redundant here.
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/CFI Retired
for private email; make necessary changes between ( )
dhenriques(at)(delete all this)earthlink(dot)net

So give it a rest already! You've said your piece, I've said mine. We
don't agree again.
BTW, I just dumped your last email unread....not worth my time.

wrote in message
oups.com...
So give it a rest already! You've said your piece, I've said mine. We
don't agree again.
BTW, I just dumped your last email unread....not worth my time.

I understand completely. Same here. Consider it done.
All the best to you.
H

Believe it or not, it's okay to roll the tailwheel first.

There was no better way to get a pat on the back from our Navy
instructors at Pensacola than hitting the tailwheel first. That was
back in the days when airplanes had tailwheels, of course.

vince norris

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 02:58:16 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


wrote in message
roups.com...
So give it a rest already! You've said your piece, I've said mine. We
don't agree again.
BTW, I just dumped your last email unread....not worth my time.

I understand completely. Same here. Consider it done.
All the best to you.
H



For what its worth, I give you both credit for dropping your squabble
before it became one of the 100 back and forth posts I've seen in
these forums. Obviously both of you are/were good pilots and have
alot to offer. Usenet (like a classroom) is not the best place to
have detailed discussions about flying, and disagreements will occur.
I'm glad you both can agree to disagree and move on so we all don't
need to read about your differences.

In all sincerity - Thank You.

z