Scudrunners

Treated myself yesterday to a flight in a (new
production - 1994) Waco YMF-5C biplane.

I've flown several examples of the Waco UPF-7
biplane in Key West over the decades, which
frankly were trucks to fly, at least compared
to a Stearman. 

UPF-7's were built before WWII and had the
familiar Continental W670 220hp radial engine,
and were also known as the PT-14 in the USAAF.

The "new production" YMF-5C and YMF-5D Waco
biplanes have the 275hp R-755B Jacobs radial
engine with a wood fixed-pitch prop, so no
gyroscopic coupling in yaw/pitch when you raise
and lower the tail - nice.

I am a stranger to the Jacobs - never flown a
C190/C195 - so I was looking forward to flying one.

The YMF-5C (forgot to take a picture) looked
identical to this one:

[img width=500 height=338]http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-p ... 233741.jpg[/img]

A cream/red paint scheme.  Unfortunately they
used urethane instead of nitrate/butrate so the
usual cracks in the paint at the inner ribs cannot
be easily fixed :(

Had four ailerons, and stick forces were light.

Open cockpit, of course.  Removable stick in the
front cockpit which can carry two in the front,
which is why the Waco is a favorite with people
doing rides.

Pulled the prop through to get rid of lock, started
easily.  Running 25w60 but still idled for a long
time, until CHT came up to 250F.

Ignition was weird.  One side was a buzz box
(for starting, probably with a retarded set of
points), the other side a magneto.

Even with negative density altitudes, the YMF-5C
did not leap off the ground.  Climbed out at 80
mph indicated, which gave around 500 fpm.

Carefully watched the carb temp, kept it at +5C
or slightly higher.  Jacobs can ice, I am told.

Levelled off at 3000 feet and cruised at 105 mph
indicated and 1900 RPM to the practice area.  Coarse
prop - not easy to overspeed.

Slow flight required amazingly little right rudder. 

Even a full-power stall was almost "feet on the
floor".  Did not expect that.

Did some light acro.  Did nice 90 degree wingovers,
with opposite aileron and lots of rudder past the
apogee.

Instructor insisted upon demoing the first landing,
which he pooched.  Flared at around 10 feet.  I
resisted the incredible temptation to ask him if
I should do the same?

My turn.  As a Pitts guy, I turned base WAY too
soon and even with power idle and terrifying the
instructor with a full-rudder sideslip to kill airspeed,
I was much too fast over the threshold - closer
to 100 mph instead of the 90 mph he recommended,
and the 85 mph I ended up using later.  Fixed
pitch prop has NO drag compared to constant
speed prop.  Need to remember that!


Anyways, no problem.  6000 feet of pavement, nice
wheel landing.  Instructor did NOT like the forward
stick in the wheel landing to keep the tail up, despite
his pre-flight warning that the tailwheel shimmied.

Turned base a bit later, next one worked out
better.  Weirdly enough I could fly a straight
in final at 90 mph and see forward over the
nose - no slant final.  Probably because we
were approaching much too fast, IMHO.

I love wheel landings!

Last landing, slowly brought the tail down
and NOW the runway disappeared, and it
was all peripheral vision.  Keep the picture
the same on both side.

Taxiied in.  What a nice airplane!  As I
was coming in, another Waco (UPF-7) was
taxiing out.  New production, I was told,
not pre-WWII.  Gorgeous, shiny and clean.
Lots of chrome on that radial engine!

And what a great day.  Rode the CBR600RR
to and from the airport, through the hills.
This meant, of course, that I was flying an
open cockpit biplane with my Joe Rocket
leather sportbike jacket - not exactly period
correct - but the Waco didn't seem to mind.

In fact, it was warmer in the open cockpit
Waco, than it was on the 600!

This is what [b]BAD PEOPLE[/b] do on the weekend  ::)

Sounds like a pretty good day.

Pretty cool that companies are remaking such an aircraft.

http://www.wacoaircraft.com/ymf/

I cannot imagine wanting to fly it
in cloud, but:

http://ext.dynamiteinc.com/waco/waco2.html

http://www.wacoaircraft.com/assets/PDFs/Sales/YMF-D/IFRPriceSheet.pdf

Beautiful airplane:

You could do a lot worse than a YMF-5C!

Livin the dream. Sounds like fun.

The Colonel was commenting how natural wheel landings feel and easy to perform.


The  people who do not like to do them are those who can not judge wheel height off the surface which is absolutely critical for the flare height.                       

Chuck,


Whats even worse is the self professed "expert instructors" that cannot even perform a wheel, or three point landing at will...  They kinda just take what they get....

Yes Strega, it is because they were never taught how to land.


They are taught how to arrive at some point in the attempt.


But we are seen as anti instructor because we point out how lacking in flying skills a lot of these people are, even though they have instructor ratings.

Light taildraggers can either be three-pointed
or wheel landed - it's just a matter of taste.  I
encourage people to do whatever they feel most
comfortable with.

However as a taildragger gets larger and heavier,
generally a wheel landing is more natural, for
a bunch of reasons.  For example, the tailwheel
may not be able to structurally handle the load
of a three-point landing.

And rarely is the field so short, that you have
to slow it down to a speed (and a high AOA)
where the tail hangs down and the tailwheel
contacts first (or at the same time).  Most
people are not happy with "back side of the
power curve" approaches in larger, heavier
aircraft.  Kind of an emergency procedure.

This is a good technique in many light
taildraggers, btw, if you want to land them
on a 500 foot grass strip.  Slow them down
on final, get the power on, hang it on the
nose, walk the rudder pedals to keep it
straight through the stall, and hit tail first,
generally quite firmly.  With a little headwind
you might be able to land in 300 feet.  But
don't expect to ever be able to take off again
from a field that short.

But most people don't do that in a larger tailwheel
(eg multi-engine) aircraft.  They don't fly off
short strips - it's always extremely long paved
runways.

It's all a matter of expectations, and performance
levels.  I am just happy when people keep it straight
and don't hurt the hardware.  How they do it, is up
to them.  No religion here.

The problem is, the few people that fly tailwheel
generally don't get enough stick time to master
the aircraft.  So, they only fly in the one little
corner of the envelope that they are comfortable
in.  This makes Chuck sad.  But as long as the
appearance of the aircraft is not altered, I am
happy.  Taildraggers are being flown, and they
are being kept straight on the runway.