Conventional gear question - 3 point vs. wheel landings

[Waldom]

Interesting thread. Too bad there is not a black and white answer to the original poster's question. I agree with the consensus that the type of landing is dictated by the aircraft type/ wind conditions/ landing surface/ personal proficiency.

I do have two other points to ponder.

Have the type of landing you intend clear in your mind before beginning your approach. Changing your mind in the flair rarely provides good results.

Some conventional-gear aircraft are designed with the main landing gear too short to do full stall landings. By this I mean that the airplane attitude in an unaccelerated stall leaves the main wheels a foot in the air when the tailwheel contacts the runway and provides an ungraceful "flop" onto the main gear. You can make smooth three-point landings in these airplanes but by definition they are not full-stall landings; they are wheel landings in which the tailwheel happens to contact the ground at the same time as the mains. A Champion Citabria is an example of this type. When a version [the Scout] aimed toward the utility/ bush flying market was designed, Champion put taller main landing gear legs on the airplane to facilitate full-stall landings. This is not a problem on the Cessna 170 though.

So how about it, Fearless T.? Did we help or completely confuse the issue?

 

[svcta]

I can land shorter in a wheel landing than I can with a 3-pointer in my Maule...just because it's a wheel landing, doesn't mean it has to be FAST. I do 'em tail-low, and when I raise the tail, I can get better braking action on my grass strip (translated: the wheels don't lock up and skid when I apply the slightest amount of brakes like they do 3-point). Obviously, care needs to be taken, but it can be done safely.

I can land shorter over an obstacle in a wheel landing than I can 3-point in my Maule...I use a high sink rate, which takes a fair amount of energy to arrest. Energy is either speed or power, and I prefer not to require large amounts of instantaneous power to avoid a hard impact. To make a 3-point landing, the extra speed results in extended float, and proper speed results in a shallower descent angle past the obstacle. Either of which has me touching down beyond where I get stopped with the wheel-landing.

It's fun and interesting to get everyone's different takes on this. In a light a/c(PA-18, J-3, Husky, etc)I find a good ole slip over an obstacle(some more aggressive than others) allows me to manage the energy developed from getting down past the trees(or power lines, barns, etc). Hold it right up to the flare and you can really get it on and stopped. In the Super Cubs if you get the flaps up either right as you touch down or even just before you'll get great braking action, too, for really really min. landing distance.

And, yes, whoever you are(not you, Maule), I'm talking about a configuration change.

 

[Waldom]

I think Rez. O's concern about a configuration change on roll-out has to do with standard F.A.A. recommendations to their inspectors and designated examiners. They frown on config. changes at this time due to an accident history of inadvertant landing gear retractions while pilot's eyes are "outside" of the cockpit. That's kind of hard to do in a Cessna 170. I agree that there are situations where retracting the flaps on touchdown is appropriate.

There is one caution, though. When placing the flap handle to the up position on the 170, your forward view is mometarily interupted because you have to bend over to get the lever nearly to the floor. When you do this during roll-out, that view through the windshield may be a different one than you started with when you come back up.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

I think Rez. O's concern about a configuration change on roll-out has to do with standard F.A.A. recommendations to their inspectors and designated examiners. They frown on config. changes at this time due to an accident history of inadvertant landing gear retractions while pilot's eyes are "outside" of the cockpit. That's kind of hard to do in a Cessna 170. I agree that there are situations where retracting the flaps on touchdown is appropriate.

There is one caution, though. When placing the flap handle to the up position on the 170, your forward view is mometarily interupted because you have to bend over to get the lever nearly to the floor. When you do this during roll-out, that view through the windshield may be a different one than you started with when you come back up.

That is correct...... even the pro's can get distracted or "reach" for a handle and not find it only to look down for a moment..... I don't know... if you have to make config changes while going 40 +/- knots down a runway do you really need to be operating off of that strip? I've never flown in AK so maybe you do....

When flying jumpers in a C182 the "trick" was to select the second notch of flaps at rotation to give the aircraft sudden lift.... however, as a simpleton pilot it seems that no energy is gained...only traded....

I see the other gents point in raising the flaps to move lift and weight off of the wings and onto the wheels and brakes.... maybe in really short fields but I always thought that the key to max perf landings was airspeed control and brakes.... Finally... that is why I said the PIC is the man... do whatever you want, just ensure you can explain it the Feds....

Another word of caution is suggesting personal techinque to a new tailwheel pilot... As he gains experience I am not sure he needs ideas of fumbling around for levers as he is learning to master tailwheel landings...

 

[A Squared]

I can land shorter in a wheel landing than I can with a 3-pointer in my Maule...just because it's a wheel landing, doesn't mean it has to be FAST. I do 'em tail-low, and when I raise the tail, I can get better braking action on my grass strip (translated: the wheels don't lock up and skid when I apply the slightest amount of brakes like they do 3-point). Obviously, care needs to be taken, but it can be done safely.

A great deal of truth here. Contrary to popular beleif, a wheel landing is not necessarily a fast landing. It seem often that they are taught and executed at just slightly under cruise airspeed. However, like David says, you can do a wheel landing at juist slightly above stall speed, and if you immediatly transition to a tail high attitude, you have much, much more braking effectiveness than in the first part of a 3 point rollout. THe braking effectiveness is of course directly proportional to the amount of weight on the mains. If you roll-out in 3 point attitude, you give up a great deal of this effectivness. Sure, you're below flying speed, but you still have the wing out there, at an angle of attack close to CL max, and it's still going through the air at nearly enough speed to generate lift equal to the weight of the airplane, say 80 % that means that you have about 20% braking effectiveness. Sure, you can dump your flaps, that helps, maybe adds another 10%, And certainly it gets better as you slow down. Once you lose 30% of your stall speed, you are all the way up to 50% of braking effectiveness. Compare that to rolling the tail up until the wing is in a neutral angle of attack. You now have 100% (or very close) braking effectiveness as soon as the tail is up, without dumping your flaps.

The other advatange to this is it gets your horizontal stab up our to the way of the rocks you will kick up. (You didn't think a strip short enough to require max performance techniques would be paved, did you?)


I've seen some breathtakingly short landings by Super Cub pilots who use this method skilfully.

Now this technique has some obvious pitfalls and should be practiced thouroughly before being used agressively in a "have-to" situation, but that could be said about *any* max performance technique in an airplane.


Just to stir the pot here, a little, David, how do you feel about Maule's strong reccomendation against wheel landings?

Some conventional-gear aircraft are designed with the main landing gear too short to do full stall landings. By this I mean that the airplane attitude in an unaccelerated stall leaves the main wheels a foot in the air when the tailwheel contacts the runway and provides an ungraceful "flop" onto the main gear. You can make smooth three-point landings in these airplanes but by definition they are not full-stall landings; they are wheel landings in which the tailwheel happens to contact the ground at the same time as the mains. A Champion Citabria is an example of this type.

Yep, I can attest to this, being a Citabria owner. If you land the airplane at minimum speed, you *will* hit taiwheel first, and "flop" is an excellent description of what happens next. True 3 point landings are a little faster than full stall.

 

[Waldom]

Good stuff, Mauleskinner and a-squared. Now that you have jogged my feeble memory, the short-field technique using the wheel landing you described was our short field (not really tight though: 2600') standard operating procedure in the DC-3. It worked very well and did indeed provide the best brake effectiveness. On this airplane, we did not retract the flaps on roll-out [transport catagory airplane, 121 operation, probably not much lift dump anyway with spit-type flaps].

 

[avbug]

That is correct...... even the pro's can get distracted or "reach" for a handle and not find it only to look down for a moment..... I don't know... if you have to make config changes while going 40 +/- knots down a runway do you really need to be operating off of that strip? I've never flown in AK so maybe you do....

If I happen to be the other gent to whom you referred, my flap selector is on my power lever, and flaps are routinely raised and lowered as one banks and unbanks the airplane, to say nothing of taking off and landing. Lowering the flaps during takeoff and raising them after executing a wheel landing is fairly normal, and after putting the mains on the ground, it's the best way to get the tail down, especially in wind.

Do I recommend a new pilot try this? No. It's a fairly advanced aircraft that's outside the capability of some many pilots (we had one take one trip in it a few years ago; he returned immeaditely and parked it, and walked away). Some techniques are appropriate based on experience only. I know of others who would yank this airplane into reverse with the tail in the air. I don't do that, I don't think it's wise, but for those who will, I certainly hope their experience level is commensurate with the results, because they're in for the ride of a lifetime if not.

In many operations, I don't make configuration changes on the go; in this type of aircraft or in this type of operation, it's par for the course, and in many tailwheel airplanes, it's common. In certain types of operations, it's common. Make the landing and use the techniques that benifit the situation and aircraft, appropriate to the conditions and pilot experience level and ability at the time. Whatever that may be.

 

[MauleSkinner]

Just to stir the pot here, a little, David, how do you feel about Maule's strong reccomendation against wheel landings?

Everybody's entitled to their opinions, even aircraft manufacturers

The main problem with this recommendation is that I've never actually seen it in writing (other than a fax I have from Ray Maule that says, "Recommend against wheel landings per 61.31(i)(1), Ray Maule"). The conversation with Ray amounted to "We don't prohibit them, we just don't see any need to do them."

Now, you're probably asking yourself, "why in the world would he have a fax from Ray Maule that says that?" If your best guess is that I did something against my better judgement and felt the need to cover my butt, you'd be right. :0 And if you're wondering whether I actually needed it or not, the answer is no...not quite. Substantial damage WAS done to the airplane, but poor maintenance stuck out more than poor pilot technique.

Suffice it to say, Maule or not, I will quite likely never again do a tailwheel checkout (even with no endorsements required) that does not involve proficiency in wheel landings.

Fly safe!

David

 

[Fearless Tower]

Thanks to everyone for the comments....I was probably under the impression that a wheel landing provides better control in general based on my limited experience and the fact that I have only attempted 2 or 3 three-point landings and let's just say they were rather 'ugly'.....nothing bent, just ugly. I think I just need alot more time to get comfortable with both.

As far as short field landings go, I think I got the idea that wheel landings were better for short field from something I read in a DC-3 flight training manual - it mentioned that wheel landings were preferred in the DC-3 over 3 pointers and while it didn't specifically rule out 3-pointers in the DC-3, it did mention that you should not attempt them if field length was any concern. The logic was that during a wheel landing, as long as the tail was still 'flying', you could apply significant braking without fear of nosing over. However, once the tail stopped flying and came down, you were at risk of nosing over if you applied too much brake. While the flight training manual was DC-3 specific, the logic given seems like it would apply to any conventional gear airplane. Based on my current experience level, my personal minimums for taildraggers are a bit higher as far as field length goes than would be for say a 172, but I'm interested in hearing from the more experienced.

 

[avbug]

Braking is something you generally try to avoid as much as possible in a tailwheel airplane. Even where it's the only form of steering. Learn to stay off the bakes.

The logic was that during a wheel landing, as long as the tail was still 'flying', you could apply significant braking without fear of nosing over. However, once the tail stopped flying and came down, you were at risk of nosing over if you applied too much brake.

You're more likely to go over when the tail is in the air, than on the ground, but brakes are the way to get you there, either way.

 

[Rally]

What year C-170? C-170, A or B (3 types)? Which fly somewhat different. The 170 will make you a good pilot. One thing people don't think about for saying wheel landings are good for crosswinds is: if you have a correction in (wing down) and you get a gust from that side which gear with the brake that you need is in the air?
Wheel landings are'nt always the greatest for x-winds. I can make some smooth wheel landings though and you can expediate landings (busy airports etc) with wheel landings. The 170 with no flaps needs about 80+ mph to land level, this can be helpful say at a Class B with a highspeed taxi way etc. One thing about 3 points is you don't have to do as much for a two point you have to lower the tail and if you have a gust you are at risk for getting on too much brake etc and lifting the tail higher.

 

[Rally]

Interesting thread. Too bad there is not a black and white answer to the original poster's question. I agree with the consensus that the type of landing is dictated by the aircraft type/ wind conditions/ landing surface/ personal proficiency.

I do have two other points to ponder.

Have the type of landing you intend clear in your mind before beginning your approach. Changing your mind in the flair rarely provides good results.

Very good idea. Make up your mind 2 or three point. Also if you f-up the 2 point either do two things and ONLY two things. Go around or transition to a three point. Trying to redo a wheel landing RARELY works out and really just results in alot of purpoising and hard landings. The 170 really does'nt like it with that springy gear.

 

[Rally]

Braking is something you generally try to avoid as much as possible in a tailwheel airplane. Even where it's the only form of steering. Learn to stay off the bakes.



You're more likely to go over when the tail is in the air, than on the ground, but brakes are the way to get you there, either way.

You should also have a automatic reaction-when you step on the brakes you pull the yoke/stick back. Doing this with the tail in the air can be tricky and can possibly result in you going back in the air. I never teach brake application with the tail in the air. You CAN brake with the tail in the air, but I really don't recommend it unless you are A) familiar with the aircraft or B) have a enough time to "balance" it out its kinda like juggling in, but i can be done and is rarely a need to actually do it under normal circumstances.

Maybe like a engine failure after TO with very little room to stop put the aircraft down and get on the brakes get the tail down and brake hard.

 

[Fearless Tower]

Braking is something you generally try to avoid as much as possible in a tailwheel airplane. Even where it's the only form of steering. Learn to stay off the bakes.



You're more likely to go over when the tail is in the air, than on the ground, but brakes are the way to get you there, either way.

I agree with you Avbug on use of brakes.....that's exactly what I was taught and I make it a point to not touch the brakes until my speed has pretty much dissapated and very light braking is all that I need to complete the turn off. I just found it interesting that the DC-3 manual seemed to state otherwise.

As far as the model of 170, I'm not sure, but it was a 1948 C170, so I believe it is an A model.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

. I just found it interesting that the DC-3 manual seemed to state otherwise.

How else is the thing gonna stop....? It's a tailwheel but... it ain't no cub...