Hi all,
My first T.D. instructor recommended I read Mr. Plourde's book to help learn the fundamentals. In my opinion it's top shelf reading material and I'm happy it's part of my library as I refer to it often. As well as being a 170 owner, Mr. Plourde was an active Assn. member with contributions to both "The 170 Book" and SRAM publications. For anyone that's interested in this book, the title is actually "The Compleat Taildragger Pilot". No offence Dave and a great referral.
Best Regards,
Jody
Last edited by JTS on Fri Oct 01, 2004 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jim Brown: Hang in there buddy. When I had my first 170B I thought they were harder to wheel land than to full stall 3-point. I was thinking "3-point= hold it 6" off til it stalls" and wheel landing = "fly it on and pin it down with forward yoke." After owning a few more tail draggers, accumulating a "few" more tailwheel hours and going back to another 170B 15 years later, I've decided the 170B is one of the easiest planes to wheel land! You can easily land the 170 from any configuration- just think of it as a 3-point landing where you don't wait for the stall. You need a low sink rate after the flare, a tail low attitude but not quite enough for a full stall, and it helps to have the trim set for a higher speed than you are using at touchdown. As soon as the wheels touch relax the backpressure and if the tail does not come up apply a little forward pressure. If the descent rate is low the reduced angle of attack will keep you on the ground. Chop any remaining power and brake if needed. If you are bouncing on a wheel landing you either have too much descent rate or too high a speed or both.
I love wheel landings for better control in crosswinds. I'd rather be firmly on the ground with the wheels limiting drift during the transition from flying to taxiing, than be in the air at low full-stall airspeeds.
But I'm not the expert or an instructor - just a student pilot since 1969 (also ASEL-I) who is still learning. Keep practicing and have fun!
I learned something about a year or so ago. I gave a ride to a aerobatic pilot from downtown to the jet airport, and like I do a lot, I turned the controls over to him so he could see how the 170 handles. Anyway he wheel landed it on the gravel runway with a touchdown speed of 100 mph indicated with no bounce. Since I usually touchdown at 50 mph or less, and had never seen the 170 landed at that much speed it was interesting, to me anyway. As a new pilot I was riding right seat many years ago, in a 170 that ran out of gas, and the pilot attempted to land on a thousand foot strip with a dogleg in the middle. He was indicating about 100 mph at the touchdown point, and if he had forced it down in a wheel landing and kept it there the plane probably would have had little or no damage. As it was he floated over the strip and went down in the brush a quarter mile off the other end of the strip, made a retractable out of it, after a total ground run (slide) of 40 feet, but we opened the doors and climed out with no damage to either of us. Then and there I decided that was the kind of plane I wanted.
I think I am coming in a little too fast. I fly final at 80mph with 20degrees of flaps, then leave in a tad of pwer and try to fly her on the rwy. I think next time i'll try 30 degrees of flaps, maybe around 70mph, with slightly fwd trim. It's fun to experiment!
Think of a wheel landing like this: An airplane at any given attitude and airspeed will descend if the nose is lowered. So fly the airplane just above the runway (as in a flare or round-out) then as the airspeed decays, fly it onto the runway and as the wheels touch...lower the nose by releasing back pressure (if you have it trimmed nose down) or by physically pushing the nose forward as if to descend. The gear will spread slightly as the weight increases on the wheels and the tail remains airborne. Do not worry that you'll strike the prop...because you won't (as long as you don't also jam/lock up the brakes)....because the forward yoke will reduce the angle of attack of the wings to the point that relative wind strikes the upper surface of the wing and forces the airplane to stick to the runway....and also strikes the upper surface of the horizontal stabilizer preventing excessive nose down.
After you've done it a few times...it'll be like the first time you successfully rode a bicycle. It'll be easy!
'53 B-model N146YS SN:25713
50th Anniversary of Flight Model. Winner-Best Original 170B, 100th Anniversary of Flight Convention. An originality nut (mostly) for the right reasons.
In my case, when I bounce a wheel landing ( a bad bounce, that is-- not all of my good landings are squeakers!) it's because:
A: my descent rate is too high, in other words I didn't arrest the descent rate properly
or B: the tail was coming down, in other words the yoke was coming back at touchdown instead of being held steady.
Go back & read Bill White's wheel landing article again, pay particular attention to where he talks about arresting the descent at about 20 feet (?) above the runway by pulling back on the yoke for a few seconds, then relaxing back pressure until contact. If you are reducing sink rate by pulling on the yoke at touchdown, what usually happens is the tail continues down due to inertia & you half-bounce and half-fly back into the air. I have wheel-landed with some back-pressure on the yoke, kinda feeling for the runway with my mains.
You can salvage a bounced wheel landing by timing the bounce & "sticking" it on witrh a little forward yoke just as the mains touch. This is kinda hard to do at first, as the natural inclination is to pull not push the yoke in that situation.
Keep working on it, don't get discouraged, it'll come together for you.
Internet forums are great for discussing techniques, but folks, there's nothing like going out and spending an hour or two with an experienced instructor to help sort things out, and to try new techniques.
I worry about these discussions, and people trying things without a bit of on-board guidance.
For what it's worth, flight instruction is the cheapest (and if done with a good instructor) the best insurance you can buy.
I agree with Mike that an experienced tailwheel instructor should be on board for the first few wheel landings. For instance, several years ago a student pilot in this neck of the woods spun both tires and severed the tube stems doing highspeed wheel landings. An experienced instructor would have known that the lower air pressure, often selected for rougher strip work, was not the ticket for hot wheel landings.
However, once a instructor has been located, ask him or her if you can try the following; it makes learning easy. This technique is often used on rough fields.
1 Make a normal approach as slowly as your present comfort level allows. Use full flaps if conditions permit. Make sure your heels are on the floor and toes are not on the brakes.
2 During the early stages of your round out and flare, apply just a touch of power to arrest your rate of descent the way you would in a seaplane with no springy landing gear. Make sure your index finger is against the throttle friction knob, so you can accurately make small throttle adjustments.
3 As you flare reduce the small amount of power to nil.
4 Flare as you normally would staying just above the ground.
5 Just when you know that you about to make a great 3 point landing push forward slightly and you will make the prettiest wheel landing of them all.
6 Steer the plane as the taill slowly falls. Dump the flaps.
I usually add power as the tail starts to fall and continue up the runway with the tailwheel just off the ground to go easy on the airframe, but that is another skill, and the plane can refly. so make that a future lesson.
I agree. Tail low wheel landings as just described have many of the advantages of both the wheel and three point landings. Wheel landings at (relatively) high speed do nothing but put the aircraft at more risk (by touching at higher speed, and taking longer to decelerate) and wear out wheel bearings and tires.
But, you're paying the repair and maintenance bills, so.....
Just a couple evenings ago, I watched a local pilot do some real pretty wheel landings in his RV6, really squeaked it on nicely several times. Someone else said they wished they could wheel-land that nice, & I replied that they could squeak it on every time too, if they landed at about 90 like he was doing. Not much in the way of sink rate at that speed. A wheel landing doesn't need much if any more speed on final than a 3 pointer, except as may be required for gusty/X-windy conditions.IMHO.
I find that if I am loaded to the gills with lots of gear in the back as in being at gross weight (at least), that I need a little higher landing speed to keep the tail flying, otherwise the airplane tends to sink into a 3 point landing attitude more easily. My approach is about 10-15 mph faster when loaded with working gear. If course none of these types of landings are any type of short field, I just want to get on clean and smooth. Your mileage may vary......
Stall speed is what dictates what your lowest practical landing speed will be on a given day.
Stall speed is a function of, among other things, all up weight and center of gravity.
Move the CG aft, stall speed decreases. Load the airplane up, the stall speed increases.
The weight thing has more effect than the CG.
The Super Cub, for example, at 1750 pounds all up weight, stalls (power off) at 42 mph. At 2000 pounds all up weight, the same airplane stalls (again power off) at 52 mph. These numbers will vary for different airplanes, but this is simply a good example of what happens with loading, and is based on flight test data. The Husky has nearly identical numbers from the early airplanes, at 1800 to the late ones at 2000.
So, if you have your 170 at something close to 1800 pounds, you can expect that the stall speed is going to be substantially lower than it will be when the airplane is close to GW at 2200 pounds.
Talk to the guys who work airplanes in the back country, and they will all tell you that when working tight spots, they keep the airplane light, on landings as well as takeoffs.
He IS one of those guys to talk too about flying in the Alaskan back country!
Bruce, you do know when your out on the Knik Glacier to keep the airplane light don't you? Just bring out 1/2 moose at a time!
Certainly you are right Mike. The higher gross weight makes for a higher stall. But the airplane really seems to have a CG shift that makes wheel landings a little tougher. Since I normally operate pretty light, then go on the occasional survey at full gross, the handling difference seems pretty dramatic.
Dave, I don't think that there are enough moose left up the Knik valley to fill a thimble. The Jim Creek area and lower Knik gravel bars remind me of the Mad Max movies; 4-wheelers, dirt bikes, monster trucks, guns and alcohol. Any moose left alive in the Jim Creek area would have to be super stealth. In fact a gal just "accidently" shot her boyfriend while canoeing about 2 miles down from the old bridge on Sunday eveening. The Palmer FSS enlisted any pilots flying in the area to help find them for the troopers. I over flew the scene about an hour too late help, and they had EMS vehicles strewn along the river banks and an EMS chopper on scene.
Bruce I'm going to PM you a place on the Knik where dozens of the biggest bulls you've ever seen live, along with many black bears and goats. But you've got to come back and make Randal and Kyle drool over your report!
Just bring out 1/2 moose at a time! 