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Spot Landings

dalec

GONE WEST
Anchorage and beyond
Since I purchased this cub and am no longer guilty of being a Maule driving floatplane pilot I figured I would throw this out here for some practical advice and additional ridicule. Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on spot landings and am wondering what those of you who feel particularly proficient at this particular skill set are using for procedures?

I played with the math and then went out and played on the sand bars, as a result I think I am getting close to where I need to be in this endeavor and just need to refine my timing. But I figured why not ask for some additional expertise? So at the risk of being totally humbled I am wondering how you guys set up for spot landings?

Because I work with numbers all day long it was easier for me to break this down into a math problem and then try to go apply it. The numbers below represent the math as I have attempted this. IAS = 50mph, FPS = speed accross the ground, Aim Point is literally the approx distance I am aiming at in order to begin the flair to hit my desired touch down point, FPM = descent rate per second if I figure 400 fpm descent or approximately a 5 degree glideslope. This gives me a theoretical flair height of about 25 feet agl for the transition. I don't have VG's and am flying as close to a stock 150 hp cub as you are likely to find in Alaska. I just want to see if I am approaching this correctly or should consider a different approach, no pun intended.


IAS FPS Aim Point fpm fps T/H
50 73 293 6.7 26.7

Thanks for the help
 
Thanks......It has been awhile for a thread like this. One of my biggest questions position of trim. I have heard a mindset from the sandbar crews of Washington....Jump in any time Jason or DW....... that a full up trim should be applied. I know from Mark E that still leaves room on the elevator control for the flare.
At my last biennial I was told to at cruise trim and the parralell of the threshold to cut my power and not provide any push/pull adjustments to the stick from there to the flare as it should be all done with power and slip. This I have been using for a year and works well. However is counter to the Northwest training of sandbar landings. I have not tried this method as of yet. It is my belief this is the 749er method and have been reluctant to do so without proper guidance on the technique.
Any info is welcome
John
 
John,,, actually DW and the boys use full forward trim,, (unless I went brain dead and cant remember crap)),,, it puts the nose down and lets them see where they are landing,,, drag it in with power,, full flaps,,, then do a tail low wheel landing....... I think thats what you meant to say... :)
 
Then my understanding is wrong as I was under the assumption that the argument for the method was by adding power it would place the plane in a climb in an emergency. So now I really need to know what this method is all about.
J
 
They are likely using full forward trim. This (in my humble opinion) does not help with "spot" landings. Spot landings are achieved by a stabilized power on approach (unless you are really good and can do it power off) and personally I think that for the average Joe, a stabilized trim setting is the way to do it - because if the excrement hits the air movement device, you do not have to overcome a lot of extra trim, or if you let go of the stick at the wrong moment to swat at a wasp, the plane does not go into a dive.

They may be shortening ground roll, and they may get better visibility, and of course, the tail comes up a lot quicker on takeoff. I have played around with the technique - and still do - but I would say it only adds benefit to those who have really honed their skills with normal settings already - it then adds a little extra.

I make EVERY landing a challenge to myself to see where I am going to land. If somebody else is in the plane I will tell them where I intend to touch down. If you always do that, it becomes subconscious that you can put it where you want it. Me? I need to practice... 8)
 
Before I comment, recall that this applies to my old Champ, which lacks both flaps and power. It also has long oleo-strut landing gear that doesn't bounce much.

My approach (pardon the pun!) to accurate landings is to have a fairly steep descent angle; considerably steeper than 'normal'. The Champ has only 90 horsepower, so dragging it in under power always scared me.

A steep, slow approach can be scary but it's hard to stall an airplane while descending rapidly, even at low speed with the nose up in the air. I control airspeed with the stick, and descent rate/angle with the throttle.

Aim a bit short and add a heap of throttle at the end to cushion the crash. I recall Redeye's comment about me going to "pancake" when I landed at New Holstein in the short-field competition. Yeah, I would hit hard but the No-Bounce gear sucked up the impact and rolled out nicely without launching me back into the air.

Drop a Cub in like that and you'll bounce into next week!

Different airplane; different technique. Read Fred Potts' book if you can find it. "Guide to Bush Flying" or something like that. It's good!

Jon B.
 
I can tell you what works for me and my cub.

#1 I alway try to turn into final with one notch of flaps at the same distance and speed (65mph) from the landing spot. If you roll out of base into final at the same speed and distance overtime you become pretty proficient at setting the plane down on that spot you picked before you turned final.

#2 I now reduce my RPM to about 1250 RPM. I have a bore prop might not be a good choice with a cruise prop.

#3 I set my trim to the point I have no back pressure on the stick and establish my glide. I don't think you want to have full trim forward if you are coming in light you may find your flare out to be sluggish. Least thats my experience.

#4 At this point forget all those numbers you have running through your head and focus on pulling full flaps at the proper distance. Learning when to do this comes with practice. Following tips #1,2 and 3 will help your practice become more efficient.

#5 When the tires touch the ground I pull the throttle to idle and dump my flaps. If you came in at the right speed when you dump those flaps the plane is done flying. Apply brakes if needed.

Let me know how that works for you.

Cub_Driver
 
Cub Driver

You set up for a spot landing is very close to what I have been trying, a similar approach by the numbers that you are working with ( I also have a Bore prop). 1250 RPM light will put me at the flare point at about 50mph and that is where you are pulling the second notch of flaps?

I will play with that set up and see if I can make it work bettter by changing my aimpoint and quit trying to drag it in.
 
Dale,

Humbly, maybe if you painted it CAT yellow it would behave better :lol:


Couple of ideas: send the bird down here for me to test< I will let you know what I find :wink:


But, for learning yourself, first, think of this as your stress relief. Take some of the suction soap deals and COVER THE AIRSPEED! The airspeed is about as useful as a cessna performance chart- worthless where you want to operate.

Next, Put some weight as far back in the baggage as you can (add a baby bushwheel for a few extra pounds). This will allow you some leeway on the brakes.

Now, go up to 2,000 feet and fly to Shell Lake and back with full flaps, start at 50, then slow down a little every five minutes until you find where she just will not fly, add a couple miles an hour and fly back at this speed. You now have your short final attitude... use it!

Trim: full forward trim makes you push the stick forward, which creates lift on the tail, which adds to the total lift of the plane. No, I do not use this much, but you can fly slower doing it this way. Frankly, you sound like you need to get a handle on the feel, so make it easy on yourself and trim for comfort; if you go around, you will thank me :p

Again, forget the numbers, stabalize where she is comfortable about 1 mile out with full flaps, then on short final, (over the fence????) slow her down to the attitude I talked about. This may be different with a heavy load, so takes practice. A gentle touch to begin with, then slowing down, (less power) after refined may be your best method for keeping your maintenaince bill low also.

Have fun, and it is not the short landing to enjoy, but the journey there!
 
George

I had a long talk with my cub and it doesn't want to come to Juneau, Skagway or Haines maybe :roll:

Instead it has decided to stick around and burn a few more tanks of Av Gas teaching me how to fly :lol:

Your comments and others were appreciated, I am acustomed to a much heavier airplane that slows down much faster (a heavy M5 on floats has the glide ratio of a rock) and hence the trouble with hitting the spot. So with all the valuable advice and a few chuckles along the way I will go out and work through a few hundred landings until I feel the airplane and quit trying to drive the airplane by the numbers.

The weather is clearing and it will be time for my cub to go back to teaching me the finer points of flying a light airplane. It is a feel thing and I will get it worked out, just wanted to make sure I was taking the right approach.

Thanks again for the helpful comments.

Dale
 
Stewart

Maybe I need to clarify the comment, it will fly slow and I have done a bunch of slow flight and stalls with it. It just doesn't want to quit flying when light. I have been flying it too much like I used to fly the Maule and it doesn't bleed off energy as quickly as I expect it to. I really think it is more my technique than anything else. I will spend a few hours on a sand bar this weekend changing the way I fly an approach by slowing it down much earlier.

I will report back on the results.

Thanks
Dale
 
Dale

Be carefull coming in to hot and trying to spot land. If you try to force the plane down and your a little fast you run the risk of balloning up. This can be a little of a surprise so be ready to push the stick forward and bring in the throttle.

If you really want to work the plane in slow flight I would recommend you contact Arctic and have him work you and your cub out for a while.

Cub_Driver
 
I'm not comfortable trying to teach you my technique over the web but if we ever get a change to meet face to face I'll tell ya what works for me. I'll be at the trade show next month. My best advise for now is to cover up your airspeed-alt-VSI with post-it-notes and go practice power on, full flap, stabilized approach landings, and never dive at the runway. You will need to add power at the flare to smooth it out. Don't try to land at first. Instead just arrest the decent and fly down the runway for about 10 seconds just inches above the surface without touching down before you make your go-around. Learn how to make approaches before you learn how to land.

It's hard to say the following without sounding like a jack-ass so please understand that I'm only stating what I have observed over the years and I'm sincerely not trying to hurt anyones feelings or even stir the pot. It's merely and attempt at trying to add constructive criticism. I'm only trying to share what I have observed. We all need to take a moment from time to time for self evaluation. Please consider my thoughts as a suggestions or alternatives rather than insults.

There are many different pilot types and in my experience the majority of the ones that have the hardest time learning true "seat of the pants" precision type flying are the ones that tend to be strong "left brain" thinkers and feel that instruments and engineering data is what it takes to make an airplane fly. There is way more "information" available to you with your head outside the cockpit once you learn how to make the airplane an extension of yourself and think ahead of the plane. Sometimes you have to be like Luke Skywalker in Star-Wars, turn off your targeting computer and use the force! You can't learn how to do that over the internet, but you can pick up some basic training info. I recommend finding someone you trust and have them teach you. We should all strive to combine the Art of flying with the Science of flight.


Jason
 
jgerard said:
We should all strive to combine the Art of flying with the Science of flight.

I LOVE that sentence.
Science = understanding what's happening,
Art = getting the feel of it.
Gawd, now I wanna go fly.
 
NimpoCub said:
Science = understanding what's happening,
Art = getting the feel of it.

Jeeze, Nimp, that might be the most profound statement on the topic I've ever heard. Can't wait to share it with my science students Monday. THANKS!!!
 
The last two evenings I have gone out and practiced with a change in technique, after reviewing eveyones comments. The result is I am flying this more like a cub and having a lot better results. The key for me was to understand that with the light wing loadings and a bore prop you have to get it slowed down very early and then fly the throttle to landing. By pulling full flaps after turning base and greatly reducing the throttle setting I am having much better results. I am now flying final at approx. 1200 RPM and using the throttle to control the descent rate and this is working much better. This plane is new to me and the combination of being very light and a bore prop was contributing to my frustration.

Thanks to everyone for the consructive comments.
 
In no way do I want to insult anyone or hurt their feelings but I am having trouble understanding what exactly one has to look for when using " seat of the pants " information to replace instruments to determine the attitude and air speed the airplane is at in a given moment in time.

I understand that covering up all the flight instruments and flying a visual attitude and visual/aural rate of descent profile is a good teaching tool....but I find it difficult to believe it is more accurate and thus safer than using the flight instruments to determine your present attitude/airspeed/ rate of descent.

What am I missing here?
 
flying

Old crop duster/coyote hunter told me years ago if you are still looking at the airspeed indicator your not ready for low level operations. It is about useless in the kind of low level close to the edge flying required to make max performance low level turns while trying to keep track of a moving object on the ground or line up for another pass. I will glance at the ball from time to time to keep myself honest with the rudders but almost never look at the airspeed while low level.

You need to be to tell by feel when the wing or tail is approaching a stall at all times and be quick in correcting it. Sometimes at high angles of attack all it takes is a little turbulence to drop a wing or the nose or even the dreaded "down wind turn"

dave
 
Old crop duster/coyote hunter told me years ago if you are still looking at the airspeed indicator your not ready for low level operations.

Interesting opinion that guy had.

I started crop dusting in 1960 and was in the business for seven years flying both fixed wing and helicopters.

I flew as captain on heavy water bombers for fifteen years.

I was an air display pilot for eight years in Europe and held an unrestricted air display license until I retired in October of 2005.

True I do not rely solely on instrument information , but I do use it as a cross check when I want to confirm that I am seeing and doing.

In training I teach the use of instruments as a cross check for arriving at and maintaining a stable attitude/ air speed and rate of descent or maintaining a given rate or lack thereof.

Funny thing is I never banged up any flying machines during my career....I wonder if I would have had I not used instruments for cross checking when I felt I needed to?

I would like to add that there were some real moments of total loss of control during practice sessions fine tuning flying on the edge in unlimited aerobatic practice.....but we made sure we were high enough to recover...obviously.

Once again these comments are only my own experience and are based on my own methods of flying and teaching of same and I am aware others have their own opinions and experiences to guide them in how they fly.
 
Instruments tell you where you are or more likely where you've been due to lag, even at cub speeds. For precision low level and off airport type flying you need to be thinking ahead of the plane. I agree that a quick cross check of a few primary gauges is good practice. You should only need to look at a gauge and do so quickly to confirm what your seat of the pants is already telling you. With training and practice you will start to make the necessary corrections before the gauges would even be capable of indicating the deviation. A pilot needs to be proactive not reactive to stay ahead of the plane and avoid becoming a passenger in the pilots seat.

I feel that by trimming nose down for slow flight & landing the stick now becomes an instrument. By having to hold a slight bit of back pressure to maintain a constant airspeed the control stick now becomes a device in which to measure airspeed changes. Stick pressure changes are more noticeable now with airspeed and power changes. Less stick pressure means you're speeding up, more means slowing down. Pumping the stick back while on approach gives you a sense of how much "extra" lift/drag or AOA you have to play with before stalling or creating a higher rate of decent. There is so much to cover with this subject I'll leave the rest to be shared at the next campfire BS session.

I'm sorry for drifting off topic once again...

Jason
 
Instruments tell you where you are or more likely where you've been due to lag, even at cub speeds. For precision low level and off airport type flying you need to be thinking ahead of the plane. I agree that a quick cross check of a few primary gauges is good practice. You should only need to look at a gauge and do so quickly to confirm what your seat of the pants is already telling you. With training and practice you will start to make the necessary corrections before the gauges would even be capable of indicating the deviation. A pilot needs to be proactive not reactive to stay ahead of the plane and avoid becoming a passenger in the pilots seat.

Yes, I agree that at low level one should use outside references to determine where the airplane is going and its attitude....however you should as you say use quick glances at the airspeed to confirm you have a safe energy cushion to allow you energy to correct an unsafe attitude and airspeed or to arrest an unwanted loss of altitude.

I feel that by trimming nose down for slow flight & landing the stick now becomes an instrument.

The airplane will find the trimmed attitude if left on its own, therefore it will head for the ground unless you prevent it.

When trimmed to the desired attitude the stick is also an instrument that helps you to keep the airplane flying at the desired attitude.
 
Jason,

Great explaination. Thanks.

chuck,
I think you missed the point about getting away from Maule tecnique on this.

Also, we are not talking about landing a plane. We are discussing how to train ourselves to reduce every inch of landing distance from our landing, and being able to do it on the spot every time.

Dusting, show, aerobatics all require great command of the plane. But in relation to spot/short landings with a light bird, other activities allow the pilot to use way more instrument input- speeds are greater.

One must get away from the guages and learn the feel. If one can not tell by your feet, hands and seat of the pants what that bird is doing, much of the information is beyond the abilities of that pilot.

The trim tecnique is not one I have used, but I am going to try it this spring. It all is for correct reasons, but I may not have the correct feel to do it properly.

Dale,

Glad you have 'lightened up', isn't it great!
 
Back when I was a wee lad in the highlands of this lovely state of Maine, my instructor covered the panel of the 152 II taildragger with newspaper and had me fly manuevers and the pattern a few times to convince me that the airplane would, indeed, fly quite well without any instruments. He told me to concentrate on the feel of the airplane via the controls and the sound it made.

In my Cub I have no VSI and the airspeed seems a bit optomistic when flying slow, so I rely a lot on how things sound and the feel through the stick and rudders to tell me what's going on.

As far as "spot" landings, I just pick the spot that I want to hit and and adjust my approach so the "spot" is static (i.e. not moving towards me--too high take out power; not moving away from me --too low add a bit of power), airspeed constant (pitch to control).

Coming through about tree top height I slowly start pulling back on the stick so she's done flying over the spot for a nice three point. With the VGs she quits flying gently and settles right on. It's a satisfying feeling when you're having a good day and hit it just right... :)
 
I want to apologize for making comments about how to fly an airplane using the short landing area method as obviously I am not explaining myself properly.

In another thread I did mention that I spent a big part of my career flying on and off unprepared areas, in fact I even flew a Super Cub on big wheels in the high arctic for a summer in the late sixties. However most of my off airport flying was in DC3's on wheel / skis and Twin Otters which incidentally are more demanding than a Cub. In the eight years I flew the DC3 in the far north we would have been lucky to have used a paved runway 25% of the time, the rest of our operations were off airport.

Obviously from the responses I am getting some of you have the impression I have no understanding of how to operate airplanes off airports or at the edge of their performance envelope.

Once again I apologize for giving my opinion on how to fly and shall try and refrain from doing so here in the future.

I came to this forum for advice on how to build my Cub and rather than irritate others with my thoughts on how to fly them I will stick to asking questions on issues I don't know the answers to.
 
Chuck E. said:
In no way do I want to insult anyone or hurt their feelings
Chas, thanks for that consideration... no one here wanted to hurt your feelings either.

I am having trouble understanding what exactly one has to look for when using " seat of the pants " information to replace instruments to determine the attitude and air speed the airplane is at in a given moment in time.

You've heard the phrase "wearing your airplane". Well, that's it. :)
Flying @ 3000'AGL is like driving a truck. Close to the ground you're really paying attentiion.

EG: If it's sinking/mushing it's close to stalling, so add a few RPMs.
EG: If you're in a slow turn & your "pants" feel much more than 1G, speed up or level out a bit.


I find it difficult to believe it is more accurate and thus safer than using the flight instruments to determine your present attitude/airspeed/ rate of descent.

Like someone said above, by the time your instruments tell you you're stalling, you should have already corrected for it. When in slow/low flight, your instruments are "behind the curve".

(from your later post)
Once again I apologize for giving my opinion on how to fly and shall try and refrain from doing so here in the future.

Please don't take others' opinions/comments to heart (especially if you've been off your meds) :)
We value experienced folks, it's what makes this place tick. You asked a pretty basic question, so it got responded to in kind.

Now, if I've committed a fox paw, I'll have my flame suit on in the morn when I get back. :)
 
Chuck

I thought you gave good and prudent input. It's hard not to write a book for every question asked, as we all know there are many variables to most every flying situation. Most everyone gives opinions on personal experiance and are here to help not to harp.

I enjoyed your professional perspective thanks for taking the time to post it. Please don't stop posting the lifetime full of flying experiance you have to offer.

Cub_Driver
 
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