Scudrunners

Sorry if I am a broken record, but I just watched a video of some short dude
with a survival vest that made me sad. He said that you had to fly a slow
approach to do a three point landing, which is complete horseshit.

My normal approach to my home airport, which is kind of in a bowl - or saddle -
between two ranges of hills, involves a "descent". With any kind of power on,
I can easily see 200 mph on approach in my tube and fabric taildragger - which
I three point land.

So much for a "slow approach" being required for a taildragger three point landing.

Once more, with feeling.

The only speed the matters for a landing, is what you are indicating as you pass
over the runway threshold, immediately before touchdown.

It does not matter what speed you were flying one minute, or five minutes
before that, ok? There is no weird "memory" in kinetic energy that pilots seem
to think there is (see the "monte carlo" gambling fallacy, for similar attribution
for memory in a system, which has none).

Ok. There are basically THREE taildragger landings (not two) and they are
definitely affected by the airspeed AT TOUCHDOWN.

1) wheel landing. This is the fastest and funnest one. 5 or 10 mph extra is
generally all you need, the mains touch first (possibly tail low, but not touching)
then forward stick after touchdown to reduce the AOA of the wing and lift,
and make the aircraft stick. The faster speed before touchdown reduces the
AOA and hence pitch attitude immediately before the "flat" landing. Be advised
that at some point, the tail must come down. Do that slowly, to avoid the nose
swinging right due to pitch-yaw coupling of the metal blade prop.

2) three point landing. This is what everyone gets all dreamy about. I have
no idea why. You better have a tailwheel that doesn't shimmy, because you
touch down at a slower speed than a wheelie (above) but the tailwheel is on
the ground at a much faster speed than a wheelie. You are not stalled during
a three point landing, even if the stall horn chirps. You have never flown a "full
stall" landing, and you better hope you never do.

3) double whomp. No one has ever heard of this, despite BD Maule recommending
it and the Pitts manual says you should do it. Slower than a three point landing
at touchdown, increases your alpha to make the same lift immediately before touchdown
and because the tail touches first, then the mains come down, the alpha of the wings
is reduced and so is lift. So, you are done flying, with minimal speed on the runway.
If your tailwheel is good, this is really the best tailwheel landing, which is why no one
has ever heard of it, and no one does it except me and this guy.



Yes, I know BD is dead. So is everyone, so get used to it.

TL;DR

Learn to fly a decelerating approach, unless you intend to be a weak pilot your entire life.

For example, if you want to see 70 mph over the runway threshold, learn to fly a straight-in
final starting at twice that, or 140 mph when you are three miles out.

I had a really superb stick called Dennis Pharoah show me that in a 172, decades ago. Yes,
I know he's dead now - that darned tree - but gosh, he was a great stick. The only thing he
was better at, was fuel management. Ask around the Ottawa Flying Club, which he was
banned from. And maybe flying a buck fifty in severe icing, which I might add, didn't kill him.
He knew there was warm air above, and climbed into it. Amazing guy. I miss him.



Lorna deBlicquy - a really sweet old lady - hated Dennis deeply, which made me sad.



She's dead now too, of course. I loved her, and we got along great, despite the fact that
an ancestor of mine had an ancestor of hers executed. Oops.

From the link shown below:

"Some airplanes cannot be wheel-landed because they do not have enough propeller clearance. Randy Sohn, former chief check airman for the C.A.F. advises that the Grumman Bearcat is a good example of an airplane that is three-pointed for takeoff and landing. He has flown virtually every WWII warplane (one through four engines), plus a healthy proportion of airplanes built since 1935, and has long said that “a wheel landing is a crutch for the incompetent.” I respect his opinion.

I also note that the aircraft manufacturer may have something to say on which type of landing should be used—and I think those instructions should be given great weight. After all, the manufacturer had experienced test pilots doing the flight test work and putting together the instructions for users. Luscombe makes it clear that the Sedan should always be wheel landed; the Aviat Husky manual calls for all landings in crosswinds to be made with full flaps and tailwheel first—wheel landings are only if there is no crosswind."

More at:

https://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/tec ... 20distance.

Some airplanes cannot be wheel-landed because they do not have enough propeller clearance

Sukhoi is like that. So is the clip-wing hotrod Harvard I used to fly with it's giant geared 3-blade prop:



That's actually the whole point of a taildragger - to allow for a larger prop, and more thrust.

“a wheel landing is a crutch for the incompetent.”

Mindless, simple dogma is not always correct. Many, many larger taildraggers are much
more naturally wheel landed.

I honestly have no idea why people make such a big deal of this. Do whatever works for
you, and try not to force your strong opinions developed from your narrow experience on
everyone else.

Meta-lesson of the day: You cannot measure someone else's IQ, by observing how much
they agree with you. That's terribly sophomoric. Learn that you can learn from people that
you don't think very much of. A very important lesson in life.

I maintain that although I was initially frustrated learning on a taildragger and watching friends “progress” quicker it was the best thing I could do as a pilot.

Every plane since is a piece of cake.

And one really proud/gratifying moment was when my dad watching me land a Pitts via webcam while ferrying it across the country perhaps my 4th landing. I got a text saying Beautiful landing!

I think they gave him a moment of relief that his third born disposable/ spare scion might know what he’s doing.

I am so glad that Kenney's Pitts found a good home! It wouldn't have flown
much anyways, while he was in jail.

You have my honest and sincere admiration, for being able to successfully
check yourself out in a Pitts. Everyone else I know, gets some time in a two
seat before they solo a single seat (which is actually very different).

Generally, only very experienced pilots with significant time in other unique
and rare (eg WWII warbirds and pre-WII biplanes) can jump into a Pitts without
coming to grief. I'm happy to say that Mike Potter was one of those people.
Mike said the visibility was worse out of his Waco.

My only advice to you is: research spins. Many, many Pitts pilots have died
over the decades due to a lack of spin training. Beggs-Mueller works!!

1) Lots of altitude when you are learning. Altitude gives you time to recognize the spin.
2) Power off. As you slow down, it causes more problems than it solves.
3) Let go of the stick (really). Any aileron or elevator inputs are almost certainly wrong.
4) Full rudder, opposite the yaw observed past the gas cap. Off the rudder when the yaw stops.

Any Pitts spin is recoverable, with the above procedure. You will generally end
up in either an upright or inverted 45 downline, accelerating and alpha decreasing,
which is wonderful.

Note that you NEVER PULL from an an inverted 45 downline to recover. Ever.
That results in a high-speed split-S which will consume altitude and generates
enormous airspeed and G.

From an inverted 45, if you have lots of altitude (say 1000 feet) you can probably
half-roll upright and pull. That works, and people like it. But it's not optimal.

If you are in an inverted 45 looking at the ground: PUSH. That will give you minimum
altitude loss in the recovery. This is not intuitive, and 99.999% of pilots will not do it.

Practice inverted pushes as a recovery from unusual attitudes until it becomes instinctive.

It may save your life, some day. Learn to live with the negative G.

I gotta get out to the coast more to play with it.

Work call the other day about our operations training needs and we discussed going to Mesa to do some upset recovery training.

Gotta look into that more as I know my op would sponsor such training.

“a wheel landing is a crutch for the incompetent.” I respect his opinion.

I guess I'm incompetent then.

But my incompetence comes from having flown too many hours in the DC3 ( over five thousand hours )

I guess I prefer wheel landings because I have better control during the landing process than I have doing three point landings.

Here is a genuine question for the competent pilots out there.

Am I a lucky incompetent pilot , considering I have well over thirty thousand hours in so many different aircraft both fixed and rotary wing I can't remember them all, and never damaged one period.

I must be unique as a pilot I guess......incompetent but extremely lucky.

A friend of mine, Rob Erdos (AETE and NRC chief test pilot, rotary and fixed wing)
flew the B-17 a while back. You guess it - wheel landing. Maybe in the estimation
of the internet armchair experts, Rob is an incompetent pilot, but I dunno. I've
flown with him - I have half a century of flying and a shelf full of logbooks of really
weird types flown with NO ACCIDENTS - and I think Rob's a pretty darned good stick.

Oh yeah, Rob flew with Chuck Yeager, who seemed to think that Rob flew ok.
Perhaps the internet armchair experts could give Chuck Yeager's evaluation of
their stick & rudder skills?

Also, Rob used to fly Mike Potter's WWII collection of fighters. I presume the internet
armchair experts that think Rob is incompetent have a much longer "types flown" list?

IIRC Rob checked himself out in the Bf109. I'm sure all the internet armchair experts
could share their knowledge from also successfully doing that?

I personally know two (2) pilot who have checked themselves out on the BF109 -
Rob Erdos, and Rick Volker. Both are superb pilots, and to suppose that they are
"incompetent" in the estimation of the internet armchair experts is laughable in
the extreme.

Meta-lesson: there is little correlation between how strongly a person holds an
opinion, and how correct it is. This has been proven out over the years by DNA
testing overturning false convictions, which has shown how entirely worthless
that witness testimony is, regardless of how passionate and intense it was.

In the timeless words of Ben Shapiro (a Very Bad Man™)

"Facts don't care about your feelings"

The DC3 is in my opinion the best flying airplane ever made, and a pure joy to fly.

It can be three pointed if you are really careful but it is an uncomfortable experience and serves no useful purpose.

Of all the airplanes I flew the most demanding one skills wise was the Grumman Turbo Goose, but it sure was fun to fly.