Scudrunners

Try this:

Just before touchdown in a wheel landing, sideslip and touch down on one main even if there is no crosswind.

Stick forward. No greaser required.

Colonel wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:14 am Try this:

Just before touchdown in a wheel landing, sideslip and touch down on one main even if there is no crosswind.

Stick forward. No greaser required.

I’ll have to give that a shot next time I’m out exercising the Champ.

Dear Old Dad taught me that. Fantastic stick. Possibly the worst instructor I have ever met. Goddamned fighter pilots.

His other trick for a wheel landing: on final, dial in substantial nose down trim so that you are pulling back during the flare, and after the mains touch you don’t have to push forward- just relax the back pressure and let the AOA decrease. Lift decreases and you stick the mains on.

It sounds stupid but it works.

I guarantee that if you use these two stupid tricks your wheel landings will improve immensely.

If they do not, email me your address and I will send you a new unlocked top of the line iPhone. Seriously.

Slick Goodlin wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 3:20 pm

David MacRay wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 2:24 pm My favorite part is how that thing is well beyond over 99% of pilots and it’s the tame Gee Bee.

I mean the tame Gee Bee would have to be an A-model, right?


Followed, I assume, by a D or E. Incidentally if I were ever offered the chance to fly either of those I’d probably pee myself with excitement.

The Super Sportsters (Z, R-1 and R-2) I guess were the scary ones but IIRC none came to grief when under the care of the Granvilles. Far as I can tell those airplanes were much better designed and built than they generally get credit for. The Z was lost to an in-flight breakup after having a much larger engine installed and a runway excursion that had a wing and fence post meet the day before the accident. Of the R-1 and R-2, one of them was lost when its umpteenth owner put an auxiliary fuel tank behind the cockpit that moved the CG so far aft it was said to climb with full stick forward until enough of that fuel weight was burned off. The original QED ended up killing its pilot when a loose rag in the cowl got sucked into the carb. None of these things had anything to do with the original designs of the airplane. They were made to be world class fast airplanes (which they were) and it turns out they were owned and operated by people who were always in a hurry.

I think with some respect for what they are any of these airplanes could be lived with in our modern world. Runways are smoother and longer than they used to be, and there are no max performance-based goals worth pursuing so you’re not stuck racing weather/night, adding tankage in weird places, or using 1500 foot dirt strips at full MTOW.

This QED II looks like it wants you to fly from a long runway on a nice day, know enough about the engine and fuel system that it doesn’t quit, and probably wheel land it. At least in lieu of talking to someone who’s flown it that’s what I’d start with.

Everything you wrote is pretty reasonable and looks correct. So I will continue writing about my comment.

I suspect like myself when someone says “Gee Bee”, people either think of one of the three, Z, R-1 or R-2. Picturing the bottom of the vertical stabilizer being used as the pilots headrest. Or those guys with the really high pitched singing voices.

That was why I made the partially ignorant, possibly exaggerated claim about, “the tame Gee Bee”.

What is the percentage of current licensed pilots that can hop in something exotic like a Cub and safely land today? Never mind that A-model. Which since you brought it up, does look much tamer than the QED II. I suspect it’s under 40%.

I might be able to but I’m definitely no Granville brother. I’m probably not even some run of the mill current pilot from their time.
(To repurpose the saying, “You’re not Bob Hoover.”)

Most, I would suspect over 80% of current pilots might quickly get in trouble with an extra 300. And I bet if like you wrote, “you respect them”, they probably land really nicely with lots of rudder authority.

Maybe after quite a bit more going flying, and maybe less grabbing a burger and limping along front street, I could fly the QED II. Heck if I flew a few interesting planes between shaking off the cob webs in a 172 and getting comfortable with conventional gear again, eventually I could possibly safely fly one of, ”the scary ones.”

I feel like the poor QED II in question, will probably either retire to become a nice static display artifact, due to the fact someone brave enough, yet sensible such as yourself, but with more spare flying bucks, plus time, might not exist.

Or maybe someone with money wearing a No Fear t-shirt will buy it. Let’s hope he doesn’t bend it.

Extra 300 is actually really easy to land. Just don’t use the brakes.

If you have any tailwheel experience, one dual flight should be all you need for landing.

I checked myself out in a DR-109 and I found both it and the Extra 300 to be very docile. Extra 300 has the best ailerons I have ever flown. Almost makes up for the train wreck of a fuel system.

I would love to check myself out solo in a Gee Bee Racer, after I checked the alignment of the main gear.

I’d be looking for a long runway and a wheel landing and zero crosswind from the right for the first flight. Lower the tail exquisitely slowly after touchdown and be ready with the power to control the yaw.

Crosswind from the left is ok for first flight.

I would happily trade your left testicle for a solo flight in a Gee Bee racer. You know I would do surface acro on the first flight. Velocity vector upwards only below 1000 feet for first flight.