"Pull Early, Pull Often"

[Slick Goodlin]

If a pilot has enough money, he can bend a lot of tail draggers. I think the record was one fellow who bragged to me he had wrecked ten airplanes in his lifetime. He professed to be a expert in Cessna tail draggers since he had crashed them in all sorts of ways....

I used to fly with a guy like that but luckily for all involved he was just flying his 172 at that point. Probably his wildest story was the time he wrote off his fairly new Cessna 195 by hitting a train crossing sign on short final which wiped a gear leg off. The thing is, there aren’t train tracks anywhere near the airport he said it happened at.

[Colonel]

I don't know of any regulation that says you can't wreck an aircraft. Or a bunch of them.

I don't think the purpose of the regulations is to stop people from wrecking airplanes, because there is no penalty for doing so.

I heard of a guy from Quebec, this was just another day for him:



Now that's an excessive "money to brains" ratio!

[Squaretail]

I don't know of any regulation that says you can't wreck an aircraft. Or a bunch of them.

I don't think the purpose of the regulations is to stop people from wrecking airplanes, because there is no penalty for doing so.

Maybe they figure the monetary penalty or repairs and insurance and the occasional injury or death is sufficient penalty. The regs ultimately are to prevent you from putting the non-flying public at too great of risk.

I heard of a guy from Quebec, this was just another day for him:

That tracks, Quebec is where little airplanes go to die. If you look at the TSB reports, Quebec accounts for by far the highest fixed wing share of accidents. BC of course has all the helicopter incidents, which one would expect with the terrain. But what goes on in Quebec? Rhetorical question, you don't want to know.

[Scudrunner]

[Colonel]

What’s the back story?

Wx looks pretty severe- did he load up with airframe ice?

[Scudrunner]

https://www.aviation24.be/miscellaneous ... s-belgium/

I read somewhere that his canopy opened in flight so he pulled the chute.......... Seriously.

Now before you all flame me I understand that this could have adverse flight control conditions on some aircraft, I am no way an expert but seems like a pretty stupid design flaw if this is the case.


This is the best story ever it has explosions and missiles in it
https://news.sky.com/story/belgian-pilo ... y-12652722

[Colonel]

My friend Bob lost a canopy on takeoff in his L39.

Said it got a bit breezy, so he came around and landed.

Does a Cirrus fly a lot faster than an L39? Was he at 700 or 800 knots indicated?

Keep in mind that TC doesn’t think Bob is a very good pilot, so I’m guessing this Cirrus pilot is better.

[TwinOtterFan]

All the nosedraggers approach much too fast, with the nose dug in low. They never use the first one thousand feet of pavement. Often they don’t touch down until at least halfway down the runway.

I have seen you say this many times before and I have always wondered how it is supposed to look? I know that this is how they teach it nowadays, did they teach it differently years ago? If so why did it change?

Sorry not trying to hijack but I always wonder every time you write that.

[Squaretail]

All the nosedraggers approach much too fast, with the nose dug in low. They never use the first one thousand feet of pavement. Often they don’t touch down until at least halfway down the runway.

I have seen you say this many times before and I have always wondered how it is supposed to look? I know that this is how they teach it nowadays, did they teach it differently years ago? If so why did it change?

Sorry not trying to hijack but I always wonder every time you write that.

If you're watching an airplane approach from the ground, it should be in a level attitude or slightly nose up before the threshold if its intending on touching down on the numbers. If it hasn't started the transition until its over the runway, its going too fast.

What is different about teaching is that no one spends time on slow flight, schools and instructors treat stalls as an object of terror, so everyone flies to the runway, then tries to figure out how to slow down, which means the airplane has too much energy, especially since its going to reduce its drag on entering ground effect. Not sure when this started creeping into the curriculum of new pilots, but I know lots of guys way older than me who think that what's wrong with their landing technique is they aren't approaching fast enough...

Edit: with a quick search its easy to find a video of someone approaching too fast.



Contrary to what I've been told by Mooney experts, you're not going to die if the stall warning goes off. This guy tries to drive the airplane onto the runway. Without seeing the ASI I can tell he's got too low of a pitch attitude to lose any speed to get the thing stopped reasonably.

[Squaretail]

Lots of subject matter here on youtube. Notice how low is attitude is right to the runway, turning altitude into more airspeed. Ultimately the porpoise isn't caused by the bounce, its caused by the airplane having enough airspeed to still try and fly.