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Ground handling on skis; tight turns

spinner2

MEMBER
Montana
Rather than hijack the no-chains thread, I started this one. Courierguy made this comment that prompted this: “I could be fooling myself, wishful thinking, but I think having a steerable tw when on skis lets me make a tighter turn around, when I goose it with stick back and full rudder.”

I’d like to hear what others have to say on turning tight on the ground. My experience with both straight board skis and Airglas LW2500s is that I can make my tightest turn when I put in full left rudder, gas it and put in some forward stick to lighten the tail. Depending on the conditions it’ll swish around pretty darn quick like this. Especially with the board skis.

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This picture is from this winter on the LW2500s and shows somewhat how the turn went. There is a lot of snow here, probably 6’ or so but there’s a hard crust where the sun had worked on it.

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This is my tail wheel setup. No ski needed on the crust but I like it when there’s a lot of powder. And a steerable tail wheel is a must on skis.
 

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Left turn to use the P factor, full left rudder, stick forward, tail in the air and give'r..
 
I have AWB 2500 B Skis with 2 inch plastic and tail ski on my cub. If I power on too hard they will dig in and stop sideways. For a tight turn it is proper trim, tail just off the snow, start with full power full right or left rudder and modulate power trough the turn as you come back to the track give the rudder a double kick to make sure tailwheel locks in. Left is tighter then right but not by that much.
DENNY
Edit: Got to thinking about this and I do unweight the tail but keep the tire/ski on the snow to help with the turn. Especially the start and finish.
 
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I have AWB 2500 B Skis with 2 inch plastic and tail ski on my cub. If I power on too hard they will dig in and stop sideways. For a tight turn it is proper trim, tail just off the snow, start with full power full right or left rudder and modulate power trough the turn as you come back to the track give the rudder a double kick to make sure tailwheel locks in. Left is tighter then right but not by that much.
DENNY

As the others implied, full left rudder, stick forward and BLASTS of power. Of course if you hold that power in, your skis may dig in. So quick blasts of power. It sounds rude. I once asked a Lycoming tech rep whether he thought this was abusing the engine. He asked two questions:

1. Is the engine warm? I answered yes
2. What’s the alternative? I answered “Lots of digging, shoving etc

His response: blast away.

But turning with the tail wheel or ski on the surface: Better have lots of room.

MTV
 
Plan Ahead, manage your energy, left rudder, stick forward to lighten the tail and like the above said, bursts of power
 

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What others have said above

Get tail up and use short blasts of power.

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Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Get it moving. Keep it going. Tail up. Power as needed. Left turns preferred. Inside aileron down. Full rudder. Power. Power. Once you get the hang of it you can make very tight turns.
 
I got the hang of turning JP. I went around 4 times this morning on the ice covered grass we have due to lack of snow. Stopping the turn is the hard part. LOL!
 
On the 180 I found if I lifted the tail and kept it flying it would turn tight, but I would gain speed and extend the diameter.

My best turn radius was to go full left rudder, power up where if I push the yoke forward it would lift the tail, not full power, but enough, (used full flaps on the 180 to assist this), then I would bump the yoke forward just enough to get the tailwheel to clear the snow and let it back down. The tail would move just a short ways, so I would not get momentum to put side loads on the plane, or cause the turn to get wide.

Took some practice, but worked good. FYI: this was done in 2' of fresh snow or more usually.
 
Some nice tight turnarounds shown above! I just shot a dozen or so landings right before sunset, and now I feel the need to backup, or not, my statement that tail down /stick back is better. Looking at a lot of pics of mine, I see it appears i keep the tail UP a lot. These two shots are my typical areas I operate in, I land on level snow rarely, and most of the upslopes have a camber left/right, just to keep things interesting. Whatever I'm doing, I'm going to keep doing it...., but the next time I'm out and the conditions are good I'll do some comparative turnarounds using both techniques. The one thing we all agree on is POWER! I think the answer may be something along the lines of "it depends on the conditions." Flat ice V steep hill powder, etc.
 

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Be careful with high power tight turns with spring landing gear. It is possible to tuck the outside leg. Not good....
 
Be careful with high power tight turns with spring landing gear. It is possible to tuck the outside leg. Not good....

Haven’t seen that but have seen the inside gear endure pilot assisted realignment as it didn’t have forward movement during a tight turn.


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org mobile app
 
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This is myself firmly stuck 90 degrees to the takeoff run at this strip. Had to unload everybody, tramp a turnout, and full power, full forward stick, some flaps, and some working back and forth of all of the above to get out.


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Haven’t seen that but have seen the inside gear endure pilot assisted realignment as it didn’t have forward movement during a tight turn.


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org mobile app

Interesting - more than once I've seen the inside gear attachment assembly FAIL during pilot assisted realignment as it didn’t have forward movement during a tight turn. The sound of breaking bolts 100 miles from the nearest settlement is eerie.
 
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Be careful with high power tight turns with spring landing gear. It is possible to tuck the outside leg. Not good....

Yep, for sure... Years ago we had a 185 go to Teslin to help recover an Apache that had made an emergency landing on a frozen lake. Ferrying equipment in, the pilot made a tight “step turn” and promptly folded the outside gear. Luckily, a local native man they had hired to help was savvy enough to jump out and start gathering wood and setup a camp. Took 4 days to get them all out to Teslin. This was in the mid 70’s. Fast forward to last year, I’m flying my Cub to Alaska. Stop in Teslin to wait for weather to improve and a guy drives up who saw me land and wants to know if I need anything. He takes me to town for coffee, and on a whim I ask if he knew anything about the double plane rescue in the 70’s. He smiles and said “I was in the right front seat of the 185, how are Steve and Barney?”
 
Turns depend on snow (or ice) conditions and airplane load. I spend much of my ski time on a creek too narrow to do a 180° turn so I hook a rope on the tail spring and pull it around. Walking back and forth from tail to skis to unload the torque load on the skis can wear me out in deep snow. When there's adequate space and suitable snow, like no big drifts or pools of overflow or water on smooth ice, and no unfavorable winds, turning is no big deal. The years parked at the end of finger 5 at Hood come to mind. Easy on some days, impossible on others.
 
Interesting - more than once I've seen the inside gear attachment assembly FAIL during pilot assisted realignment as it didn’t have forward movement during a tight turn. The sound of breaking bolts 100 miles from the nearest settlement is eerie.

True story that.....

MTV
 
I turn left when I can. My place is narrow and I turn to the right so that I'm turning towards the hill and not the slope to a swamp on the left. So most times I turn away from the hazards.

Glenn
 
Yep, for sure... Years ago we had a 185 go to Teslin to help recover an Apache that had made an emergency landing on a frozen lake. Ferrying equipment in, the pilot made a tight “step turn” and promptly folded the outside gear. Luckily, a local native man they had hired to help was savvy enough to jump out and start gathering wood and setup a camp. Took 4 days to get them all out to Teslin. This was in the mid 70’s. Fast forward to last year, I’m flying my Cub to Alaska. Stop in Teslin to wait for weather to improve and a guy drives up who saw me land and wants to know if I need anything. He takes me to town for coffee, and on a whim I ask if he knew anything about the double plane rescue in the 70’s. He smiles and said “I was in the right front seat of the 185, how are Steve and Barney?”

Aviation is a very small world.

MTV
 
I got the hang of turning JP. I went around 4 times this morning on the ice covered grass we have due to lack of snow. Stopping the turn is the hard part. LOL!

What is this stopping thing you speak of? We 90 hp people learn early and often that an object in motion likely will stay in motion and not get stuck or "turned out".

I have a whole new learning experience ahead of me as I transition to the new footware. They are a lot wider in the front than the Feds so it will be interesting to see how they turn.

Now, we just need snow. And lots of it.
 
Interesting - more than once I've seen the inside gear attachment assembly FAIL during pilot assisted realignment as it didn’t have forward movement during a tight turn. The sound of breaking bolts 100 miles from the nearest settlement is eerie.

The tightest snow turn I saw was when my neighbor asked to to be a human dead-man anchor on the left strut so he could power the plane around in deep snow. In the glimpses I got of the skis amidst being blasted with snow the torque in the inside ski was scary. I can't imagine duplicating that with a power turn alone. I used to think about tying one wing to an ice screw and power turning around it. I dismissed that idea. I never split my hydraulics to drop just one ski, either.
 
The tightest snow turn I saw was when my neighbor asked to to be a human dead-man anchor on the left strut so he could power the plane around in deep snow. In the glimpses I got of the skis amidst being blasted with snow the torque in the inside ski was scary. I can't imagine duplicating that with a power turn alone. I used to think about tying one wing to an ice screw and power turning around it. I dismissed that idea. I never split my hydraulics to drop just one ski, either.

There are about as many tips and tricks to ski flying as there are ski pilots. Holding on to a strut or raising a ski are only two. F. E. Potts suggests looping a rope around the inside ski to create drag. Some people even have short ropes tied to their wing tiedowns for the 'co-pilot' to hang on to. In all cases it is imperative to have forward motion during the maneuver so the axle is not torqued. And it is not just tight turns - occasionally the plane resists turning in the width of a football field without external 'help'. BTDT
 
Leaving your baby Bush wheel on and not raising the tail will get you that football field turnaround in a hurry.
 
Stewart's comment reminded me of a story from an old time Alaskan who now lives in Lewistown, MT. He spent a number of years as a game warden and pilot in Alaska. I asked him if he was a pilot when he went there, and he replied: "No, but there's a story". He said the first winter he was in Fairbanks, he headed north with a warden/pilot in a Stinson Reliant on straight skis. They landed in Beaver Creek somewhere in the canyon where it flows through the White Mountains.

And, they needed to turn around. The pilot tied a line to the tailwheel, and told the Cheechako to pull real hard to the side to help him turn.

It was almost 30 below zero Fahrenheit.....

Beaver Creek, by the way, is often the "home" of overflow. And, it's a pretty small stream.

Anyway, he said the pilot blasted him over and over, but they got that big machine turned around. He climbed into the co-pilot's seat, and the old timer told him:

"Sonny, you just learned an important lesson about Alaskan aviation: There are blasters, and there are pullers, and it is waaaay better to be a blaster than it is to be a puller."

He learned to fly that spring.

MTV
 
Doing a little ski art helps with turns.

aliens.jpg

Putting a cliff at the end also helps.


Jerry
 

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Nice. I don't watch 95% of flying videos but I always watch yours. Well done! Did you ski it?

Not yet but it's on the list. I'm not sure about skiing this one alone. You definitely want to have your stability guess correct and I haven't always been correct with my guesses.

Jerry
 
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