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Transitioning from Supercub to C180

On landing flaps up, cowl flaps open and trim to zero (the 185 has all three on the tunnel so makes a nice flow),..
The cowl flaps are on the lower right side of the instrument panel. That is the tail wheel lock on the tunnel unless your plane is different.
 
Big engined tailwheel types obviously dial up the torque effect, especially on take off. Starting your take off run with right aileron (American engines), helps a lot with torque effect, in addition to a nice smooth application of power.


Sent from my iPad using SuperCub.Org
 
Well....tonight's flight was MUCH better than last time. Or at least it started out that way. The wind was much more co-operative and my first couple of landings felt more comfortable. It started to slide the other way after that. I think I am focusing too hard on one thing. I feel like I want that 300' per minute decent....and maybe I am chasing it a bit. My biggest problem seems to be the flare right now....as in....there is none. I feel like I am coming down too steep and then when I start to flare...I may be starting too late and it is really hard to get it flared. Might be that I need more trim too....

Not a bad night overall....but if I could just forget the last two or three landings. :) Did get to practice a go around after a majorly botched landing. That was exciting but really good to experience too.

Back at it again tomorrow. Going to be a nice weekend here...although hot so hoping to get out lots this weekend.

cafi
 
I was talking to my CFI yesterday and told him I was feeling much better about flying the 180. He pointed out that I had not been flying it the last three weeks, and I replied that was why I was feeling better about it!!!;-) Bill at BWI insurance said trim to landing speed 60-65, do a 2-3 sec pull back when let it go back to trim right as you land, this would slow you down but landing would be smooth. I am still working on cub STOL (Skwentna this weekend ) after that I will have to grab the bull by the horns.
DENNY
 
Laura,

That sure sounds familiar, in order to three point be sure you are trimmed hands-off neutral on final (like the POH says and especially with the big engine & prop) and be slow or it won't want to flare and 300fpm isn't steep... and if you're a bit fast with a shallow decent and try a three point you can actually practice that at home on your hippie-hop.

PS. and you have to share, Molly wants too fly this weekend too!
 
From "the guy checking her out" perspective, everything is coming together very nicely and ahead of "schedule". In six landings yesterday, I touched the controls once and that was just to demonstrate (by pushing forward) where we wanted to be on wheel landing attitude once on the ground. It is way more important to me to know that someone can recover from a botched landing than make a perfect one every time.

Someone suggested that right aileron helps the left turning tendencies, maybe in some other planes but in this particular 180 you really don't have any aileron until you are in the mid-50's and by then you are off the ground.

This is a really helpful thread and I appreciate all the comments!

sj
 
My biggest problem seems to be the flare right now....as in....there is none. I feel like I am coming down too steep and then when I start to flare...I may be starting too late and it is really hard to get it flared.....cafi
Where are you looking in order to make your flare judgement? If you look towards the other end of the runway you will get a more accurate view of your rate of decent, height above ground and when and how much to adjust the rate of sink and flair. When you look at the ground close to the nose of the plane your perspective is not as accurate.

Might be that I need more trim too....cafi
I fly the 180/185 the same as I do a Cub or any other plane. Close the throttle (fully closed against the idle stop) opposite the point of landing on the down wind leg. Adjust the size of the pattern accordingly. Of course, if you are at a large controlled airport you have to mentally adjust that throttle close point. Once you close it, under most circumstances it will not need to be opened again. (Just like practicing a forced landing on every landing.) Trim to hands off (or as close as possible) pressure. In my case this usually means full nose up trim on a 180/185. Flaps as desired. Maintain a chosen speed with elevator. Judge height above ground and rate of descent by looking towards the far end of the runway. Land in the three point attitude with light additional elevator pressure. Use appropriate cross wind correction. When a plane is heavily loaded I will use some more power.

Your visual judgement will be more accurate when you look far ahead of the plane rather than close to the nose.

I know that most people will likely disagree with this method, since most of the time when I'm at an airport I can hear when other pilots close their throttles at the end of the approach in the flair. Waiting until the last minute to close the throttle increases the required back pressure just to maintain the descent rate never mind raising the nose to flair. I've also found that when the approach is made with the throttle at idle in turbulent air the nose will be pointed down more than it would if the throttle was not at idle. With the nose pointed more down the wind gusts will not balloon the plane as much, making the pilot work harder than need be. The gust can not get under the wing. The wing actually slices through the air waves rather than riding on top of them. I like to have the trim set so that I can remove my hand from the control without the airplane deviating from it's path. In the 180/185 this usually means full nose up.
 
It is way more important to me to know that someone can recover from a botched landing than make a perfect one every time.

This is a really helpful thread and I appreciate all the comments!

sj

My old instructor would say " It's not important what you do wrong, it's important what you do right after the wrong that counts "

Glenn
 
I learned to fly in a Piper Clipper in Breckenridge Texas and flew it with Howard Pardue once. I will never forget him and Nelson Ezell, both very accomplished warbird pilots, tell me over and over again, "You gotta make the airplane do what you want it to do". That use to drive me crazy until I got it. 8)
 
This is a great thread. Interesting how people all fly the same plane differently, but I think its the same in cubs too.

I transitioned to a 180 from a cub type (Rans S7) a little over year ago. Only thing I haven't seen mentioned is related to weight and balance. When flying light, as you probably are to learn the plane, the CG will be way forward. I throw some weight (usually a case or two of water) in the baggage or extended baggage if you have it. I think the plane lands much better with some weight in back.

What Steve said is really the best advice. You'll soon learn its just a plane and will do what you make it do. Have fun!
 
cafi, I had a dear Aviation Maintenance Engineer (AME in Canada) flying buddy who serviced Hurricanes in Britain during the war. He had a saying, "It's only a Cub," meaning they're mostly all the same. It's the same with the 180; fly it like your Cubs. All the other things to do are just bookkeeping. The 180 got a reputation as "a pilot's airplane" for its flying qualities. Same with SCs.
 
I learned to fly in a Piper Clipper in Breckenridge Texas and flew it with Howard Pardue once. I will never forget him and Nelson Ezell, both very accomplished warbird pilots, tell me over and over again, "You gotta make the airplane do what you want it to do". That use to drive me crazy until I got it. 8)

That is exactly right. It is very much like dog training (which should really be called "people training"), if you are not consistent and clear about what you want the dog to do, you are both going to get frustrated :)

I was flying with a pilot who was getting current in her taildragger. We were getting off course and she said, "Come'on little airplane, get over there" - and just accepted what was happening rather than DOING something about it. This is absolutely NOT the case with Laura as except for a few interesting touchdowns, you would think she had been flying this plane for years.

sj
 
A 300' per minute final would be a formula for inconsistent landings for me. Too flat. Landings are simply making the airplane stop flying when and where you want. That's easier to control with a steeper final approach.
 
When I transitioned from the PA 12 to the 54 180, my instructor had me do some stalls and slow flight. Then we came down to Paullina's narrow strip where I'm based to practice landing. I wasn't expecting much and figured my instructor would have to take over since I "knew " what a hand full I was trying to tackle. He had me land with just 20 degrees flaps and I pretty much approached like the PA12 and ended up doing the best stall landing I've ever done. I'm like, that wasn't so bad so thought if I actually tried pretty hard, I could do even better. My instructor told a friend later that he wondered what we going to do for 5 hrs for insurance requirements. The next few landing I ran off the runway so we quit for the day. The next day---same thing. Finally I talked to myself and said I was going to get it right and the third day I got signed off. Today, I prefer wheel landing.
 
I learned to fly in a Piper Clipper in Breckenridge Texas and flew it with Howard Pardue once. I will never forget him and Nelson Ezell, both very accomplished warbird pilots, tell me over and over again, "You gotta make the airplane do what you want it to do". That use to drive me crazy until I got it. 8)

Absolutely.

MTV
 
It's called muscle memory. Takes awhile to develop.


I learned to fly in a Piper Clipper in Breckenridge Texas and flew it with Howard Pardue once. I will never forget him and Nelson Ezell, both very accomplished warbird pilots, tell me over and over again, "You gotta make the airplane do what you want it to do". That use to drive me crazy until I got it. 8)
 
A 300' per minute final would be a formula for inconsistent landings for me. Too flat. Landings are simply making the airplane stop flying when and where you want. That's easier to control with a steeper final approach.

Bill White's article suggests a 500 fpm descent,
but when I look down at the VSI I usually see more than that.
I'd need to carry a lot of power to achieve 300 fpm the way I fly mine.
 
And if we are all paying attention 100% of the time this normally works :roll:

Glenn
Yeah, and it's that 100% thing that gets you. 99.5% will get you in trouble!

During my tailwheel training, my CFI was a bit bored and frustrated, because other than my very first landing (which was with about a 5-knot crosswind), I was having zero issues. We even talked about it after one of the sessions, with him speculating that my helicopter background had "trained my feet" and it was just a matter of "waking them up again"... He even talked about the fact that he would sign me off right then and there, except for the fact that he really wanted to see me recover from a bad landing before he would be really comfortable turning me loose.

So on our very next flight, he took advantage of the fact that there was a really cool Hatz biplane holding short of the runway as we were landing. He set me up by starting a conversation about that plane, mentioning that he had built a good bit of it before selling to the current owner, who finished it. Then he talked about the Rotec radial engine the guy had tried to use, but removed in favor of a Lycoming because the early Rotecs required a partial tear-down after every 40-50 hours, and what a great job the guy had done on the airplane, and how well it flew... (You have a LOT of time when you're in a 90-mph max cruise airplane, entering the pattern behind a Cirrus who flew a 3-mile final approach...)

Anyway, when it was just about time to flare he said "Hey, that's old 'so-and-so' flying it!" I started to turn my head and look, realized that was STUPID and re-focused on the landing... But that distraction was just enough to get me behind the airplane, and I did the only "bounced" landing I had during training... I got it down and under control after that one bounce, but now the airplane was headed 30º off runway, directly for one of the runway lights...

Well, let's just say that we didn't hit anything, and we didn't run off the runway, but both the landing gear and pilot got a bit of a workout... And I learned that the "sterile cockpit" rule is there for a reason. And my CFI learned that I could recover from a botched landing. LOL

Since then, my powers of concentration have improved dramatically.
 
I don't mind coming in like a rock and when getting close to the runway, then go into Bill White mode but not way out yonder.
 
I am coming in at 500 - 600' per minute at times. Just seems like I am dropping too fast. Definitely not looking long. In fact today I noticed that every time SJ said to look at the end of the runway I did....for about a second. Funny thing is...on my ride home from the airport I noticed I have no issue looking long in the car....so why not the plane.

My first landing every day seems to be my best....then it starts to slide a bit. Today we did work on wheel landings....but I would say that SJ cleaned up most of my landings today. Glad he got a work out. Wouldn't want him to get too comfortable to quickly sitting over there in the right seat.

Thanks for all the feed back. I do a lot of self review and reading the remarks here is helping to bring things out that I am doing right and wrong.

Oh...and there is no worry about SJ having to wait for me to screw something up. I have fixed a few and he has fixed a few. :oops: Hopefully I will make less and less and fix more and more on my own.

Back at it early tomorrow. No worries Kirby....I will share. Looking forward to seeing Molly!!!

cafi
 
I fly the 180/185 the same as I do a Cub or any other plane. Close the throttle (fully closed against the idle stop) opposite the point of landing on the down wind leg.

Doesn't landing power off increase your stall speed? I was under the impression that slowest and shortest Skywagon landings (staying on the safe side of the power curve - not dragging it in - a la MAF technique) carried some power. Am I confused?

Good discussion, by the way!
J
 
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Doesn't landing power off increase your stall speed? I was under the impression that slowest and shortest Skywagon landings (staying on the safe side of the power curve - not dragging it in - a la MAF technique) carried some power. Am I confused?

Good discussion, by the way!
J
Landing power off increases the rate of speed decay once the flair is begun. Your judgement needs to be more accurate. Your approach speed will be higher with a safer stall margin, but since the rate of decay will be quicker the speed when arriving at the runway will be the same. Landing power on your visual reference point will be forced to be further down the runway by virtue of the nose being higher. When doing a power off approach your eyes tend to look straight ahead which will be the end of the runway. You need to force the eyes to look further along the runway.

I do not know what the MAF technique is. Though I suspect that it is designed for generic pilots to fly in remote regions while doing minimal damage.
 
One of the differences between the cub and a 180/185 is that the cub responds to pretty light control inputs. The Cessnas require you to be, shall we say, somewhat definitive with control inputs. You need to make the airplane do what you want it to do, and "nudges" on the controls aren't going to make it.

Dont be afraid to use the controls....all of them, and if things seem to be getting a bit out of hand, don't be afraid to use differential braking.

Process is really all the same, but you're dealing with more mass and more velocity on the ground, so definitive control inputs will prevent it from getting too busy.

Great airplanes, in any case.

MTV

I didn't start to get in front of the 185 until Mike told me this and showed me this last summer. You'd better let that beast know who's in control, then it's fine. It's like a slightly sassy horse in that respect, not like the old riding school pony that is Cub.
 
I thought about this thread while flying last night. Beautiful in Anchorage but as soon as I took off I could see the dust blowing from the sand bars on the Su. That's an alert that my strip will be tricky in crossing winds that roll over terrain and trees. Both to stay above the dust and to allow for my preferred steep entry to better handle the winds I found myself at 1000' inside a half mile from the strip. One thing I love about Cessnas is when you want to go down you just pull the throttle and some flaps and pick an airspeed that works in the conditions, like 70mph, and the plane comes down very reliably with a very stable ride. Much more stable than running through the turbulence zone in a flatter descent. Make a potential rodeo into a non-event. That's the goal. Happy flying.

PS, for the Skwentna-bound guys. This morning it's flat calm. Good for flying and great for mosquitoes. Take bug dope!
 
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