Recommended techniques on flying a tail dragger

[Waldom]

[QUOTE/ Oh yeah, if the stick ain't in your gut it's not going to land full stall (in a Cub anyways).[/QUOTE]

This statement is true, and essential for a three-point landing in a Cub, but a Citabria is not a Cub.

If you land a Citabria in a full stall, the main wheels will be about nine inches above the runway when the tailwheel touches. This will cause an inelegant "flop" onto the runway. The main landing gear legs are too short on the 7 series airplanes to allow a three-point landing in a full stall. The designers fixed that with the Bellanca/Champion - American/Champion "Scout" and put longer main gear legs on the airplane.

You can do a nice three-point landing in a Citabria, but the airplane is not fully stalled when you do it. Perhaps the best way to describe it is a tail-low wheel landing in which the tailwheel happens to touch down at the same time as the mains.

Have fun with your tail-wheel checkout: you're going to have a lot of fun and you won't regret the time and money you spent on it.

 

[avbug]

The Cub and the Citabria can both be landed three point easily enough.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Yet the Citabria easier than the cub!

 

[A Squared]

[QUOTE/ Oh yeah, if the stick ain't in your gut it's not going to land full stall (in a Cub anyways).

This statement is true, and essential for a three-point landing in a Cub, but a Citabria is not a Cub.

If you land a Citabria in a full stall, the main wheels will be about nine inches above the runway when the tailwheel touches. This will cause an inelegant "flop" onto the runway. The main landing gear legs are too short on the 7 series airplanes to allow a three-point landing in a full stall. The designers fixed that with the Bellanca/Champion - American/Champion "Scout" and put longer main gear legs on the airplane.

You can do a nice three-point landing in a Citabria, but the airplane is not fully stalled when you do it. Perhaps the best way to describe it is a tail-low wheel landing in which the tailwheel happens to touch down at the same time as the mains.

Have fun with your tail-wheel checkout: you're going to have a lot of fun and you won't regret the time and money you spent on it.[/QUOTE]


Very true, in fact, as I was reading this thread, I was composing pretty much this exact post in my head. Now I don't have to, good work.

 

[A Squared]

The Cub and the Citabria can both be landed three point easily enough.

Certainly, but a perfect simultaneous 3 point in a Citabria with normal length gear legs is not stalled. You do a full stall landing, the tailwheel *will* touch well before the mains.

 

[avbug]

That really depends on the person performing the landing. One can stall level or nose up, and one can do a full stall landing level and in a two point attitude, if one wishes to take the risk.

The cub is the same way. On gravel strips, I generally put the tailwheel down first followed by the mains in a full stall. It's cheating a bit, I think, because rather than feeling for the ground through the stick, the cue is the tailwheel running along the surface.

 

[A Squared]

That really depends on the person performing the landing. One can stall level or nose up, and one can do a full stall landing level and in a two point attitude, if one wishes to take the risk.

Not sure I'm getting your meaning here. Granted an airplane can be stalled going straight up or straight down, but, if you fly a Citabria parallel to the landing surface, holding it airborne as long as it can possibly stay airborne, the tailwheel *will* be much lower than the mains when the wing finally stops producing lift.

Guaranteed.

I own one, have spent numerous afternoons playing around with just this phenomenon.

If the wing stalls at say 16 degrees aoa and sitting on the ground on all three wheels, the wing is 12 degrees to the horizontal, your tailwheel *is* going to be lower than your mains when you stall in level flight.

 

[avbug]

AoA isn't measured with respect to the horizontal, however; AoA is measured at the wing, and includes upwash.

If the wing is done flying, the wing is done flying, whether the nose is up or down. Just as one can stall an airplane level or nose high to demonstrate it to a student, one can do the same on or near the runway, in or out of ground effect.

Granted, ground effect is actually a reduction in induced drag along with a reduction in upwash (and an attendant reduced local AoA), but the airplane will eventually pay off if held off, nose to the horizon or no.

Perhaps I don't do enough three point landings any more; most of the conventional gear flying I do is all done two-point, for some good reasons, and I usually don't full-stall them on.