Landing Secrets

[N96290]

I know, the biggest tip is practice. I am starting to get the hang of landings but do not really need to log all of those skips and bounces. I flew a PA22 for the last 20 some years and could do pretty respectable with it but then they are anything but a floater. A little sunshine without wind on the weekends would make for more practice time but I am open to suggestions from the old pro's

[jim cooper]

Re: Landing Secrets

I am old but not a pro. I have quite a few hours in a T-Craft, maybe 300-400. I started in a tandem at York Airport in Penna. in the 60's. It was all hard surface landings. The runway was north-south. Usually, no cross winds to amount to anything. T-Craft is not like a Cub, or a champ , etc. in landing. Its like a GLIDER. But....the Basics still apply. Hold it off the runway with gentle back pressure until it drops, from a foot or so onto the runway, or, if your lucky it greases on. Keep the wing LOW into the wind on a cross wind landing. If you get a chance, park next to a Cub and observe the difference in the wing length! I always 3 point it but many wheel land . (for me this is like landing twice.) I'm SURE you will master it but even when you do, a stiff X wind can cause a T Craft to go where you didn't intend. Your brakes should be in GOOD shape. I have shinns and they work fine. You can get good practice by slow flying it down the runway, stick way back,,a little throttle, about two feet off the run way, holding it just off the surface, then chop the throttle, let it settle on. Good practice..JC

[perryv1]

Re: Landing Secrets

My dad told me along time ago,Slow it up when your in the pattern,not on final,plan ahead,set it on the numbers.
thanks dad

[mohawktipi]

Re: Landing Secrets

I was taught to slow down to 1/2 the diffence between stall speed and cruise speed (pattern speed) when you are abeem the numbers (Cruise/pattern speed 100, Stall 50, slow to 75). Maintain this speed until you are on short final then cut power and slow down as you cross the numbers. Hold it off into a 3 point landing.

I once watched a video about grounds loops (put out by Navy training department). Every ground loop they showed was the result of a wheel landing too fast to settle the plane.

[avenger1949]

Re: Landing Secrets

I land on a very short field...1300 ft. I don't get a chance to wait till I cross the numbers to slow the last of the speed off. But pretty much do it the way you guys have explained.

[akndrifter]

Re: Landing Secrets

I'm not old or a pro. But when I soloed my wife in our tcart (most of her time was in a PA-11 before). At first her tendency was to keep the power in until we were on short finale, and we would float a loooooooooooong way. PA-11s don't drop out of the sky as drastically as a short wing, but you get the point. Also, I like to do my approaches at 60mph. If you add just a little power in your flare, it should help smooth out your landings too.

[Pearson]

Re: Landing Secrets

Lyn,

As you have probably learned by now, there is no recipe for landing a Taylorcraft. You can't say, do it this way or that way and you will have a good landing everytime. You have to make each landing according to what you see and feel the plane doing. They are all different. You have to develop a feel for the plane and a set of parameters to guide you on each landing.

As you mentioned, practice is the key. I recommend spending a good bit of time getting used to the lower speeds at altitude. You should be able to fly at 45 indicated and make shallow turns comfortably. This will help you develop the feel needed when entering the flare. Develop your rudder skills by keeping the nose on a point on the horizon by using the rudder while rolling both directions with the ailerons. Start with small bank angles and roll slow. This is done at cruise speed. When you can keep the nose on the point, increase the bank angle and rate of roll until you reach 25 or 30 degrees. If you want to see the effects of adverse yaw, put your nose on the point you picked out and roll either direction with your feet on the floor. The nose will go about 10-15 degrees in the opposite direction before it reverses and goes in the direction of roll. Good hand, eye, foot coordination is essential for landing a Taylorcraft. You can learn to land it without doing all of these exercises, but you will be learning near the earth and it doesn't give as easily as the air at 2500 feet.

The FAA recommends an approach speed of 1.3 times stall speed in the landing configuration. My airplane stalls at about 39-40 mph (A65 BC12D). Based on that, my approach speed should be about 52 mph, 1.3 X 40 = 52. That would be only for a calm day. What I find myself using is more along the lines of Tom's post above. I slow to about 70 abeam the numbers. The speed I slow to on final varies depending on 1) weight, 2) wind, 3) type of landing. If it is a calm day and I am by myself, I will slow to about 60 on final and cross the end of the runway at 50 to 55 for a 3 point landing, add 5 mph for a wheel landing. But if it is a gusty day and/or I have a passenger, I will fly final at 65, or even 70 and cross the runway end at 60 to 65.

I try to slow down early enough in the pattern to avoid the need to bring the power below about 1200 rpm until short final. Usually I reduce to about 1400-1500 on downwind. My plane slows down enough at that power setting to be able to maintain around 1300 rpm on final. Sometimes I misjudge a little and have to reduce to 1200.

For crosswind landings my suggestion is to try to land on grass until you are proficient, limit yourself to calmer winds until you develop experience, and always be ready to blast that tail back where it belongs with full power. Keep your eyes on the far end of the runway. Make a correction the instant the nose moves off of where you want it.

Good luck!

[Dano"T"]

Re: Landing Secrets

I soloed a guy last night....I got out of the plane....sent him off with some final instructions and walked back toward the hangar....as he taxied out another fellow by the hangar asked me what was going on....I said I'm letting this guy do his first solo tonight......the guy asks.....what criteria must he meet to be able to do that?....I replied...."he has to be able to takeoff, fly around in a rectangle, and land without scaring the sh** out of his instructor".....I believe that was the proper regulatory response he was looking for......

[N96290]

Re: Landing Secrets

Some good ideas. Flying down the runway and then reducing power to land makes sense especially when there is enough runway to land many times. I have done this many times with the PA22 just so not to taxi for a mile. I will try holding some power down to the flare especially for wheel landings. I just havent been able to consistently get the landings smoothed out and am a long ways from trying really short fields. The crosswinds up to a point are working out fair but out here less than 20 this time of year is calm. Thankfully we have a pretty good selection of runways and usually general ground handling is more of a problem getting back to the hanger. The weather is not looking good again this week end and the job gets in the way on those nice week days. Thanks for the ideas and I knew there was no magic bullet.

[flyguy]

Re: Landing Secrets

If you look at the stall characteristics of the Tcraft airfoil you will see that at stall the lift line drops straight down, unlike others such as the Clark Y and it's versions. What you will find after years of fooling around with the Tcraft is that the short final speed to keep it from floating and the "bottom drops out" speed are not very far apart. Whereas the Clark will give you a "lift with increasing drag" flare, the Tcraft will be more like little or no drag in ground effect, with a drop out at the very end.
When I am out of practice I have found that I can still produce a pretty smooth arrival by slowing down to the point where I have to correct with power rather decidedly and pretty much drag it in at that speed. The nose winds up rather high and it produces a "flare with drag" that never floats as the power comes off. Pretty much like landing an airliner. Even with a little power, on and trying to hold it off, the plane will settle onto the runway, sometime so smooth that you cannot tell exactly when you touched down. I would say that the key for me is to slow down to the point where I am uncomfortable and that requires me to use power to maintain that low speed.

I also do crash and burn, drop it on the first 10 feet of the runway landings, but that is whole different animal.

As for approaches: I do high ones, low ones, slips with the pedal to the metal ones, sneak around the corner of the hangar ones--it is all good practice.
Darryl

[flyguy]

Re: Landing Secrets

Well, I just wrote a neat little comparison here on the Tcraft wing and the Clark Y and how to use power to make the former behave like the latter and when I went to edit it the software here deleted the entire thing.
I'm going to bed.
DC

[N96290]

Re: Landing Secrets

Dont tell anyone but I sneaked out of work about an hour early today and got a few landings in. The wind was only 6 and right down the 01 grass runway. I tried the using a little power to set up the flare and then milk off the power to settle onto the runway from a nose high behind the power5 curve. I can see what flyguy was talking about on the Taylorcraft wing stall, If it doesnt drop too far and bounce it will usually stick nicely. I know this is only a way to cheat and string things out on your own terms but I just want to make a decent landing at least sometimes so I dont forget what they feel like. There was a student and instructor in the pattern also who kept calling me a TriPacer, guess they just never really looked and were remembering what I used to fly. Next time if I dont have so many witnesses I will work on flying down the runway. It will really help if it isnt a month again before I get back to it.