My Ground Loop

Deb
Well, there ya go! Pretty much what I tried to describe. Funny story
about spot landings....I was flying near Marana, AZ back in the 70's
and heard a spot landing contest going on via the Unicom. So, I called
and asked if I could participate.
The answer was affirmative, so I carefully did the approach, adjusted
power, rate of descent, got an eagle eye on the spot, maintained the
line and slope, did some careful adjustments, then landed exactly on
the spot with zero forward movement....in my helicopter. gggg They
didn't want to give me 1st Place for some reason. So I just continued
on the ferry flight to SoCal. We all got a laugh out of it.
About 30+years back I was hired to check out a group of M.D.'s in thier
club C-195. Good group of pilots and a lot of fun. Great airplane and
very capable. Does yours have the Geiss gear or is it rigid?
Ol Shy & Bashful

On 2005-11-30, Deborah McFarland wrote:
My husband won a spot landing contest this past October using a wheel
landing. He can also land in 900 ft of grass with them. He practices flying
down the runway just above a stall all the time. He pulls the power and
gently drops on the mains. It's a joy to watch.

Wheel landings are the tailwheel pilot's secret weapon in spot landing
contests. If a spot landing contest is being run by a tailwheel pilot,
you'll often find they are banned :-)

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net

Some of it is tailwheel twin engine like Beech 18.
Ol Shy & Bashful

Back when I was chief pilot of Be-18 operator, our POI opened the C-45
manual and pointed at the statement about 3-point landings being prefered.
He grinned because he knew that no one did 3-point landings in a Twin Beech.
What he didn't know is that I cut my baby teeth in the right seat of a Twin
Beech. You should have seen the look on his face.

D.

Capt Doug:

So did you three-point the Twin? As a Navy aircraft mechanic and sometimes
"plane captain" on the Twin--the Navy designation was "SNB"--I had to tend
to hungover BOQ pilots, driving around the sky until it was time for the
skipper, now well rested, to land the plane. I never saw a 3-point landing
made by the SNB. But watching them land, level, on the mains, it always was
a bit dicey to see those struts wobble fore and aft--almost as if the
airplane was walking, not rolling, down the runway.

So my next encounter with the Twin Beech was more satisfactory. As a
smokejumper with the US Forest Service, I never had to land in one at all.

CAVU to you, Cap.

Dick Behan



"Capt.Doug" wrote in message
...
Some of it is tailwheel twin engine like Beech 18.
Ol Shy & Bashful

Back when I was chief pilot of Be-18 operator, our POI opened the C-45
manual and pointed at the statement about 3-point landings being prefered.
He grinned because he knew that no one did 3-point landings in a Twin
Beech.
What he didn't know is that I cut my baby teeth in the right seat of a
Twin
Beech. You should have seen the look on his face.

D.

I ground looped the Chief once. Not a fun situation to not feel like
you are in control. I had touched down and at about 5 mph I hit the
left rudder to turn off the runway. The plane went left, then too far
left (which is normal for any taildragger). When I hit the right rudder
to stop the turn it went to the floor and the plane kept going left. I
got about 270 degrees of a turn before I got my feet up on the heel
brake to tap the right brake. It was kind of sur-real going around in
circles slowly. Luckily the wheel never really left the ground and the
wing didn't touch. It turned out the locking pin in the tail had worn
out so the tailwheel didn't engage when aligned with the rudder. Until
I slowed to 5 mph I was successfully steering with the rudder (w/o
tailwheel).

-Robert

"Reid & Julie Baldwin" wrote in message
...
1) I should have anticipated the crosswind and not been surprised by it on
final.

Get-there-itis and deteriorating conditions often lead to bad approaches.
Bad approaches are seldom end with a good landing. Also consider that you
had the added distraction of a newly overhauled engine and your nine
year-old son to deal with.

My husband and I belong to a large tailwheel community, including the
Luscombe Association, as well as the tailwheel pilots in our own area. This
topic is discussed often as we travel cross-country often for events and
visiting. Whether it's wind, distractions, or even worse, fatigue, we must
be focused when we reach our destination. Preaching it is one thing; doing
it is another.

2) Obviously, airspeed control was an issue. I wasn't at pattern speed
before entering the pattern and I never quite caught up. After I noticed
the speed was high on final, I got distracted by the crosswind and didn't
get it corrected.
3) Did I pull the power to idle after touchdown? I don't specifically
remember doing that. It is such an automatic thing that I might not
specifically remember it. The fact that the plane did not slow down like
it usually would makes me suspicious that I was still carrying some power.
Since I had to jockey the throttle around to get out of the weeds, I
couldn't look at the tach afterwards to tell.

These two can be connected. Three years ago my C-85-12 was overhauled using
the O-200 insides giving me more horse power. It changed the way my airplane
performed. While you may not have changed your components, your engine is
surely stronger after the overhaul and may give you more momentum on final
than you're used to. In addition, as my engine broke in, my idle rpms
started to creep up. It was something I barely noticed until I started
having trouble slowing down on final. I thought I was losing my touch.
Instead, while I was pulling the throttle back to idle, I was still carrying
too much power for landing. A few extra rpms make a big difference in a
light airplane. My rpms had to be adjusted twice before everything seated
(or whatever it does).

The only thing I have found to pat myself on the back for is the fact that
I never allowed myself to become a passenger. I kept flying the airplane
until I got it stopped on the runway (facing the wrong way and with a load
of weeds, but on the runway).

In the end, that is all you can do. Fly the airplane and hope for the best.
Sounds like you did a good job. You walked away, and a bonus is that the
airplane is still usable!

Deb


--
1946 Luscombe 8A (his)
1948 Luscombe 8E (hers)
1954 Cessna 195B, restoring (ours)

On 2005-11-30, Deborah McFarland wrote:
Instead, while I was pulling the throttle back to idle, I was still carrying
too much power for landing. A few extra rpms make a big difference in a
light airplane. My rpms had to be adjusted twice before everything seated
(or whatever it does).

Especially a light plane with a bigger engine than normal fitted: the
Auster we have here has a 160hp O-320 instead of the 90-ood horsepower
Gipsy engine it originally had. Most planes need around 1900 RPM to
maintain level flight. The Auster can maintain level flight with that
engine at about 1450 RPM. So you definitely want to get it all the way
to idle. The Auster also stalls power on, flaps down at 29 mph. (Without
a glider in tow, the takeoff performance is rather good :-))

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net

Walked away from it... good landing.
Airplane still useable afterwards... GREAT landing!

:-)

3 Cheers!

(reminiscing about my tailwheel training in a Champ on a 15G25 windy
day and almost ready to throttle my CFI by the neck for being so mean
to me)

wrote in message
oups.com...
Walked away from it... good landing.
Airplane still useable afterwards... GREAT landing!

:-)

Landed at airport to pick up mother-in-law : Bad Landing

landed at airport to pick up mother-in-law : Bad Landing

You do know that that the letters of "mother in law" can be re-spelled
into an anagram of "woman hitler" don't you?