I was a flight instructor in Northern Ontario. We only had 1 runway (18-35) and always got a west wind off the bay.

The problem with the "crabbing method" is that you have to have the purfect timming to get the aircraft lined up with the centre line. If they are late or early then they are going to have problems as well.

With the "wing low method" its just a matter of the student knowing that there are 2 peddles on the floor that need to be worked. And its just about finding the right combination of the 2.

I personally like the "wing low method" and find it vary succeddful. One day we had a horable west wind and after landing and scaring myself I then realized that it was a 23kts crosswind from 90 drgrees.

So who is going to describe how to teach students how to judge height for the flare from the approach and for the hold off until the wheels touch the runway in the desired attitude?

And not you Hedley or Big Pistons, lets give some of the younger instructors a chance to explain what they were taught. ( which in many cases was unworkable and wrong. )

Cat

Cat Driver wrote:And not you Hedley or Big Pistons, lets give some of the younger instructors a chance to explain what they were taught. ( which in many cases was unworkable and wrong. )

Damn it Cat, I just want to learn, let them post it!

Here is a hint cyyz, there is a method of teaching height judgement that works very well for any person with normal eye sight and depth perseption.

Cat

height above runway I can't answer but the cross wind one I think I can.

airport has one slab of pavement. Winds are more than 15 knots any directon...even right down the pipe. Student will be ready to go but the instructor says 9 time out of 10 "too windy today johnny...maybe tommorrow"...that is how my training went. Then there was the airport I flew out of that had 2 strips. Instructors would not let you request the runway with the larger cross wind. You had to go do it solo and try to learn by doing...or by reading the pretty purple book.I learned how to do x-wind landings when I got my first job flying charters and it was only too windy if you were on final and full inputs still had you drifting....then you had to try to line up far enough off the runway centreline to make up for the extra drift....THEN if you couldn't get in you could come back home

Hedley wrote: Funny you mention that. Given the number of people employed by Transport, you'd think that in a "thousand monkey's typing away at typewriters" there would statistically be at least one or two good tailwheel pilots in there, but ....

Funny you should mention that. Seems to me, I remember from another thread here just a couple of days ago, here's what happens when you put a TC inspector into a tailwheel airplane. I believe you said that was the original #4 no ?


But I digress, it's just toooo much fun late at nite, taking a poke at our overworked civil servants. Surprising as it may seem, I actually know a few TC inspectors that are quite reasonable people, and honest to god, very skilled pilots. Honest, I worked with 2 of them before they became TC inspectors, and hold both of those folks in very high esteem, even today after they have donned the badge of evil.

Now, getting onto this subject of x-wind technique, I'm just AMAZED at how hard everybody makes such a simple thing. My technique is COMPLETELY different than all of you folks. I normally start the process when i'm still 50 miles back, I set the alert on the RadAlt to 75 feet. While on vectors to final, I tend to push the 'armed' button located just below the HSI (right beside the one that says NAV). Usually (not always), by adjusting the heading bug to the numbers that spew forth from a controller over the radio, by some fluke chance, the autopilot manages to find a localizer, and when the ARMED button has been properly depressed, the airplane will actually turn and find the correct heading to stay on that localizer. Note, up to this point, the majority of the effort on my part has been setting a heading bug, and occaisionally dialing in a new altitude. From the point of capture, airplane does pretty good, and I wait for the radalt to make some noise. At that point, you take yet another cue from that prior thread, and, "First, you put down the newspaper". After the paper is properly stowed, its just about the right time to push the disengage button, and do a small amount of stickhandling to set it onto the runway.

Seriously tho, for my own purposes, I see no point to stickhandling the airplane until the flare, then it's all one smooth motion. At the same time, i think some of the instructors are right, you gotta learn the slip first, because it's NOT going to be automatic till you have it down pat. There are better ways to learn it than driving down final hanging a wing low.

Now, why does my technique work for me, the answer is actually pretty simple. Way back when i was 16 years old, and learning to fly, I quickly discovered that renting a 150 was hard on my pocket book. I bought an Aeronca Chief to finish learning in, and build some time toward my commercial license. I was one of those 200 hour student pilots, because I spent a year waiting for my 17th birthday so I could get the private license. The airport I was flying off of had 3 runways, all 3 were 5000 feet of turf. My instructor thought it was GREAT fun getting me to fly that chief down the runway on one wheel for a half mile at a stretch. After I had about 50 hours in the thing, I went out to the airport one day, and it was a little windy, blowing 20 from the west. I asked the same instructor to come ride shotgun with me for an hour, get used to that light airplane in a real wind, and he happily obliged. After departing runway 24, he promptly announced that we should turn downwind for runway 33, and do the rest of our touch and goes going back and forth on runway 33/15. I started that day as a 16 year old student pilot quite intimidated by a wind. By the end of the day, i was comfortable flying a 900 pound taildragger into a landing with a 20 knot crosswind. To this day, every time I arrive at an airport with one runway, and a significant crosswind component, as I flare and the slip is 'automatic', i still mutter 'Thanks tom' under my breath.

I find that just before flaring the acft that a quick glance to the side usually is sufficient to judge the height be it in daylight or by landing lights in darkness,works for me.

I just hang a poodle out the window on a ten foot rope. The co-pilot keeps his eye on the poodle.....when the poodle starts running, I flare. Now, what's so hard about that??

My instructor thought it was GREAT fun getting me to fly that chief down the runway on one wheel for a half mile at a stretch ... By the end of the day, i was comfortable flying a 900 pound taildragger into a landing with a 20 knot crosswind.

It's amazing what someone can learn in a couple hours of instruction in a tailwheel aircraft. People will make snide remarks about the Dukes of Hazzard, but the "one-wheel" landing extended rollout exercise really improves basic stick & rudder skills, which are essential for competent x/wind landings.

It's truly a pity that skilled tailwheel instruction is virtually unobtainable these days. With all the paper, the days of the "one-man" shop are gone.

Used to do that in the "Doug"....one wheel for a few hundred yards, followed by the other main for a few hundred yards, then "pin it"! Called it my "cross wind ballet" to demonstrate how good the Racer was in a cross wind......I still think it's a real hoot on a good windy day!

" It's truly a pity that skilled tailwheel instruction is virtually unobtainable these days. With all the paper, the days of the "one-man" shop are gone. "

There must be some around if you take the time to search them out.

There is no paper work required for giving instruction on tail wheel airplanes to licensed pilots.

And by the way I still have my Aerobat for sale, that would make an excellent toy for learning to fly T/W airplanes.

Some women have trouble with distance ,not their fault .All their adult lives they were told that it really is ten inches hence the problems measuring distance.

I always thought flying in a straight line uncoordinated at 500 feet at low airspeed could induce a spin which could kill ya. Hmmm.

But I don't know shit, I'm just enjoying the thread and had to put in my $0.02.

Back to the experts.

BYE!
-istp

2R - Sometimes 10 inches is really 10 inches.

RJ