Good Training - Flight Control Failure

[Colonel]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nkIxMJlmEGE

Been there, done that. You don't need ailerons & elevator to land an airplane.

First learn to land power off.

Then learn to land after flight control failure.

Then learn what to do, after partial power loss.

21st century pilots can't do any of the above, and don't give a shit, but love to talk about their feelings.

[Colonel]

Boy, the old wheel-landing-vs-three-point thing just won't die.



Of course, he fails to mention a serious consideration with the wheel landing: lowering the tail. He is completely unaware of gyroscopic precession of the prop which can pose a directional control issue due to pitch-yaw coupling.

The tail goes up, the nose goes left. The tail goes down, the nose goes right. You need a PhD to understand that, I guess.
I won't mention the material of the prop blades which like RPM drastically affects the gyroscopic effect. That's first year calculus.

He mentions stalling during a three point landing. Sigh. No. The aircraft sits down because the lift is reduced by velocity squared, not by a massive increase in AoA past Clmax. You have never done a full stall landing, because if you did, you would have to log a hard landing and have maintenance inspect the aircraft IAW manufacturer's checklists and regulations. A full stall landing in a taildragger would require a drastic pitch attitude impacting the tail first, which would lever the center of mass ahead of it and crash the mains onto the ground quite memorably. Significant G would show on the accelerometer. Occupants might be injured.

[Slick Goodlin]

I’ve started doing more wheel landings myself but for the dumbest reason - something’s out of rig on the airplane and it won’t three point at all. Next week I think it’s time to check rigging.

[Colonel]

Never understood the fuss and religious arguments re: wheel vs three point.

It's like tighty whitey underwear vs boxers. Whatever feels good for you in that particular airplane under those particular circumstances. You don't have to wear someone else's underwear choices just because they feel strongly about it. Generally there is very little correlation between how strongly someone feels about a subject, and the actual facts.

Wheel landings are great when you know what you're doing and your tailwheel sucks, for example. If it shimmys hold it in the air until you have full forward elevator and it slowly touches down at taxi speed.

Three point landings are great when someone is just learning to fly tailwheel. Don't try to teach on a broken airplane with a bad tailwheel which forces you to wheel land. Teach someone to place the aircraft in the three point attitude at six inches with the power off and freeze the controls as airspeed and lift decreases. The aircraft will land itself. All the student has to do, is touch down aligned with the direction of travel.



What my kid sees. Me in TPS, landing a Pitts S-2B exactly as described in the POH, but we probably don't know what we're doing. I've only been flying tailwheel for 51 years now, accident-free (shrug).

[David MacRay]

You forgot the ultimate underwear choice. Depends!

Like you said. There’s a time and place for either three points or wheel landings. Practice both I say.

Potential yaw problems as the tail comes down not withstanding, I think wheel landings are slightly easier. Then again, I’m more likely to be found crafting than flying. Off to try to figure out how to braid four cords.

[Colonel]

1) Just keep it straight. Nothing else matters.
2) If you bounce, full throttle and lower the nose to accelerate in ground effect. Right rudder. Flaps 20 then 10 to reduce drag.

One of the long-time 172 trainers was wrecked at my old airport recently because they didn't know about (2) or just didn't give a shit.

Why is it ok to wreck airplanes? People used to regularly take giant dumps on me from great heights, and in over half a century of flying, I have yet to dent an airplane.