Takeoff and Landing Techniques

[TheFlyingMouse]

Yep. Do what Tom says. Get some wins once in a while!

Hey now, what do you have against doing things the hard way?

I’ve been debating playing with the prop settings to see how it goes, but I would think it should behave similar to carrying just a touch of power. Maybe it would be more predictable though. Will add it to my next set of experiments.

Ultimately I want to be sure that I can land safely in the worst case scenario, e.g. engine failure with the prop windmilling and unable to go course pitch. I guess the conclusion I’m reaching is that scenario is going to result in a tail low wheel landing after a very short glide. Of course, if it happened for real then I would do my best to stop the prop given any altitude to play with.

 

[groshel]

I was going to either “up” my idle rpm or coarse up the prop’s low stop but decided to just keep a little power in coming over the fence.

I had learned on an earlier model with a metal Hartzell which seemed to glide better and later found it hard to get good landings when I first got my -1B with an MT. I tried putting a little power in the flare but seemed to be either too much and balloon or not enough and land hard.

Besides the prop drag issue I’ve come to the conclusion is this is what happens when you’ve got a plane that comes down final and over the fence way behind the power curve, 15 mph slower than best glide speed.

Chris

 

[TheFlyingMouse]

I was going to either “up” my idle rpm or coarse up the prop’s low stop but decided to just keep a little power in coming over the fence.

I had learned on an earlier model with a metal Hartzell which seemed to glide better and later found it hard to get good landings when I first got my -1B with an MT. I tried putting a little power in the flare but seemed to be either too much and balloon or not enough and land hard.

Besides the prop drag issue I’ve come to the conclusion is this is what happens when you’ve got a plane that comes down final and over the fence way behind the power curve, 15 mph slower than best glide speed.

Chris

It sounds like I’m basically repeating your transition and learnings. I think ultimately the braking feature is a good thing in the end and gives us more options in addition to a slip if we need to get down fast. I’d rather not adjust it out mechanically either.

I’m not sure it’s physically possible to achieve a 3 point attitude with full flaps and idle power with our A-1Bs. Some folks have said it’s a timing thing, but you have to round out to switch from gliding attitude to 3 point. I think you just run out of pitch authority before the wing will stall and you wind up in a tail low wheel landing. If you misjudged the height then you’re in for a bounce because you’re now accelerating downward.

My instructor in the A-1 preferred wheel landings most of the time. When he wanted to do a 3 point and land short, he would always pitch up just before crossing the threshold and fly it in behind the power curve in the 3 point attitude. (You have to arrest descent rate with power.) I guess this philosophy avoided the tricky round out behavior, and of course it lets you hit your spot.

 

[Kent Wien]

The day after I picked up my airplane, Kurt had me do power off landings starting on the downwind leg to a 3-point.

Since it can be tough to get the tail down when flying solo and with the power off, a technique of retracting the flaps a just few degrees moments before touching down (and then all the way after landing) really helps. Granted, it’s not a 3-bladed MT, but give it a try on a nice calm day and see what you think. Look closely and you can just see the two steps of flap retraction.

Thanks Kurt for the tips and for filming. Of course I’m sharing the best of many landings that day!

 

[TheFlyingMouse]

Hmm. That’s got to be more consistent than leaving an arbitrary amount of power in since you’re killing the lift and also restoring elevator authority at the same time.

Lots of ideas to try here. Thanks folks!

 

[Ak Kurt]

I have been saying what Kent just mentioned above for a long time now. Try it, it works great, even with all props. This technique not only gets the tail down without ballooning, it instantly kills enough lift to keep you from bouncing back up in the air on n rough runways or in gusty conditions. And….. with less lift there is more weight on the wheels and you have better braking.

On short final, carry a few mph more speed, have power at idle then place hand on flap lever, when you are at desired height above touchdown arrest rate of descent, hold stick in same position, retract flaps as far as you can without causing a distraction. Nose will come up without ballooning and airplane will settle onto runway in a 3 point attitude. Works great!

Kurt

 

[Scott Perdue]

All these inputs are exactly why I started this thread. Excellent! Now, I've got to go fly and play with this techniques and see what I like!

thanks,
gunny

 

[Snowbirdxx]

Yesterday the wx was clear and we decided to fly to France to go shopping at Haguenaus Chrismas market. The hut that had cheese from the Jura was outstanding so was the hut with different sorts of Nugat de Montelimar. Glüh-whine was available with and without alcohol and the Lunch at the Le Binome was a blast. https://www.noelahaguenau.fr/

Anyway, since LFSH has a long (900m )concrete runway, I decided to play with the dog and do a low flight over the first 600m runway till touchdown. The sun was shining and I could see the shadow of the plane. My LIDAR sensor was on and it was funny flying with the view of the shadow and the altitude callouts, which are as precise as 3& 1/4". The callouts are in cm. 100 means 1m last call is 10 ( cm) took a few seconds to stop the 20/10 callouts to make them , ten ten ten....... Then touching with the tailwheel simutanously with the mains. Flaps were at 30°. Dog and wife in the back.

 

[Ak Kurt]

Yesterday the wx was clear and we decided to fly to France to go shopping at Haguenaus Chrismas market. The hut that had cheese from the Jura was outstanding so was the hut with different sorts of Nugat de Montelimar. Glüh-whine was available with and without alcohol and the Lunch at the Le Binome was a blast.

Anyway, since LFSH has a long (900m )concrete runway, I decided to play with the dog and do a low flight over the first 600m runway till touchdown. The sun was shining and I could see the shadow of the plane. My LIDAR sensor was on and it was funny flying with the view of the shadow and the altitude callouts, which are as precise as 3& 1/4". The callouts are in cm. 100 means 1m last call is 10 ( cm) took a few seconds to stop the 20/10 callouts to make them , ten ten ten....... Then touching with the tailwheel simutanously with the mains. Flaps were at 30°. Dog and wife in the back.

Send picture of dog and wife.

 

[Snowbirdxx]

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Here you go Kurt

 

[Flying Dave]

Off topic. Kent, your vid has a link to a hike you took somewhere that made my feet sweat just watching it. That looked like a LONG way down in some of those shots.

 

[Kent Wien]

Off topic. Kent, your vid has a link to a hike you took somewhere that made my feet sweat just watching it. That looked like a LONG way down in some of those shots.

Via Ferrata in Switzerland. So fun.

 

[Jeb]

There’s an obvious divide in this discussion between using power and power at idle.
On the subject of adjusting the flat stop on your props-some of the funnest things we have done with our plane involved using the massive propeller airbrake. No way I would give away that capability!

 

[TheFlyingMouse]

There’s an obvious divide in this discussion between using power and power at idle.
On the subject of adjusting the flat stop on your props-some of the funnest things we have done with our plane involved using the massive propeller airbrake. No way I would give away that capability!

I’d bet we all agree that we want to negate the elevator blanking behavior with pilot technique rather than impacting the braking benefits. The nice thing is we now have a thread with lots of options to experiment with. I think I’ll be learning how to fly my Husky for quite a long while.

(Wish I could go fly it now. FAA hasn’t gotten back to me about an extension for the 90 day temporary registration yet.)

 

[Snowbirdxx]

There is no elevator blanking on the Husky, regardless of what prop and pitch is installed.
I had that concern when testflying Pocket Rocket the first time and it was on top of the flightest agenda. But even there with the Rolls Royce 250 swinging the 5 blade MT at flight idle pitch, elevator worked fine till the wing stalled.

 

[Scott Perdue]

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Here you go Kurt

Tom, No pictures... it didn't happen. Those links are bad. Just sayin

gunny

 

[TheFlyingMouse]

There is no elevator blanking on the Husky, regardless of what prop and pitch is installed.
I had that concern when testflying Pocket Rocket the first time and it was on top of the flightest agenda. But even there with the Rolls Royce 250 swinging the 5 blade MT at flight idle pitch, elevator worked fine till the wing stalled.

If that’s true, then why won’t the wing stall on my Husky with flaps at 30 at idle power (it won’t even trigger the stall horn)? Obviously the elevator has some authority as long as AOA is not too high, but it cannot provide enough downward force after some limit.

If I set flaps to 20 then full aft stick will stall the wing. The behavior at flaps 30 is frankly dangerous for an uninitiated pilot expecting the plane to be able to perform a full stall 3 point landing. It is not an issue of preference/comfort. The plane will not do it.

What am I missing? Hopefully it is just terminology/miscommunication.

 

[TheFlyingMouse]

If that’s true, then why won’t the wing stall on my Husky with flaps at 30 at idle power (it won’t even trigger the stall horn)? Obviously the elevator has some authority as long as AOA is not too high, but it cannot provide enough downward force after some limit.

If I set flaps to 20 then full aft stick will stall the wing. The behavior at flaps 30 is frankly dangerous for an uninitiated pilot expecting the plane to be able to perform a full stall 3 point landing. It is not an issue of preference/comfort. The plane will not do it.

What am I missing? Hopefully it is just terminology/miscommunication.

Re-thinking this a bit… I guess if the flaps are allowing the wing to stall at a higher AOA then the elevator may just flat out lack authority to produce that AOA in the first place (at lower airspeed). You did say the angle of incidence on the h-stab is different for the newer Huskies.

 

[tbienz]

Re-thinking this a bit… I guess if the flaps are allowing the wing to stall at a higher AOA then the elevator may just flat out lack authority to produce that AOA in the first place (at lower airspeed). You did say the angle of incidence on the h-stab is different for the newer Huskies.

This is how I always saw it. Which is not to say that this is reality…but I have no reason to assume there is aerodynamic “blanking” happening. Things changed in the planes during later iterations as Aviat progressively increased the gross weight (such as the changes in the empennage noted above). I suppose you could place 30# of ballast in your rear baggage area and see if the full-flap idle power condition then allows an aerodynamic stall.
ive been told that my old wing A-1 flies just like a Super Cub and the “improved” later model Husky flies different. Can’t say I know since I haven’t flown a Cub or a new Husky. But to me, my non-VG plane flies/stalls/lands in a very predictable and docile manner including with power off and full flaps.
If the newer planes are different in this way, perhaps that is just the side effect of being certified to a higher weight (with a change in the empennage)? Not sure, but it does seem As though a lot more owners of later model planes have the issue with full stall than the older planes. I thought it was just an issue of the heavier 200hp engine, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

 

[Ak Kurt]

There’s an obvious divide in this discussion between using power and power at idle.
On the subject of adjusting the flat stop on your props-some of the funnest things we have done with our plane involved using the massive propeller airbrake. No way I would give away that capability!

Jeb, it is vital to be proficient in both power on and power off as well as 3 point and wheel landings. Use what ever technique that the situation warrants.

Kurt