m.tucciarone(at)hotmail.c
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 Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 11:02 am Post subject: Landing RV-8 |
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I appreciate all the suggestions on the landings.
Bill, I am going to keep trying for the tail low wheel landings. I have about 8 hours in this plane and I have not been signed off to fly it by my self yet. It is frustrating but I will keep at it. My instructor is a good Citabria tail wheel instructor and he signed me off in his plane in 2.5 hours. I don’t think he is the best RV instructor. Can’t change now because he is my neighbor and I don’t want any hard feelings.
From: Bill Judge (bjudge(at)gmail.com)
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 1:46 PM
To: rv-list(at)matronics.com (rv-list(at)matronics.com)
Subject: Re: Landing RV-8
Guess who blew a tire a KMMH and will now be practicing minimum airspeed landings...
Bill
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:16 AM, Bill Judge <bjudge(at)gmail.com (bjudge(at)gmail.com)> wrote:
[quote] Matt,
The RV-8 has a different gear configuration than the -4, -6 and -7 so what works well in those planes doesn't necessarily apply in a -8. The 8 has spring gear like a citibria or a C-170 while all the others all have Whitman style tapered rods.
In talking to people who fly the tapered rod type gear you find out that the tapered rods have an issue with changing the direction of the wheels when they get compressed which makes tailwheel flying interesting and less so when you go slower. So lots of them prefer a min speed 3 pt to minimize capital losses and hurt pride.
If I land my -8 in a 3 pt attitude it will "crow hop" many times: the angle of the 3pt attitude isn't steep enough to stall the wing. It seems like everything has to be just right to get a smooth 3pt, you basically have to fly the right attitude on to the pavement and continue to fly that attitude during the roll as opposed to the C-170 and Citibria where you can get down to a foot off the ground and totally get away with gradually putting the stick in your gut and not bouncing at all.
You could do the sailplane technique and land tail first but I think this "belly flop" type landing is abusive and so we're left with the other alternative of doing a wheelie.
So, unless I'm landing on a rough strip I do tail low wheelies, touching down at around 60 knots. After you get the technique down pat(on pavement) you can have a butter smooth landing every single time which, to me, is less wear and tear than the regular crow hopping and tail first alternatives.
Once you get the technique of wheelies down pat doing a 3pt or a tail first becomes very easy when you need it.
I personally like wheelies because you get to pick more accurately where the wheels will first touch as opposed to the "wait for it" full stall landing.
The kicker is that once you're really on your game you can brake aggressively just after touch down while managing the attitude with the elevator then stop the braking when you start to lose elevator authority, put the tail down, stick in your gut, and start breaking again. This is an advanced technique that is right out of stick and rudder, nobody teaches it anymore but it can be done and end up with very short landing rolls while still doing a wheelie. The advantage here is that you get more control over where you touch down by virtue of doing a wheelie and then if you need to you can brake aggressively and end up with landing roll that is very similar to a 3 pt min speed roll.
Bill
N84WJ, RV-8, 665 hrs, KSEE based
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