Wheel landings 2

[Shiny Side Up]

Nah, people try to tromp on those too, or you get the odd bigfoot who can't keep their skis off of them. Its easier to see the student going for them theough, they have to do that wierd leg thing like they have a ball out of place or something. I also saw one fellow bend both of the brake pedals when he got a little rambunctious during his ground loop in his champ.

[Colonel Sanders]

These guys really like to use their brakes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4oOhumKco4


It's not a car.

This picture is worth 1000 words. Look at the
skidmark leading up to the crash:



Oh well. As long as they got a "greaser" landing,
that's what's important.

STAY OFF THE F__KING BRAKES

[Pop n Fresh]

WAT? That look's more like a "screecher" than a "greaser."

[imac0960]

PS I teach tailwheel with no brakes at all
for the student. Builds character.

pfft, who needs brakes anyway. Towing gliders in a Citabria I only ever used brakes to turn the airplane around on the runway at a very controllable speed.

[Colonel Sanders]

I try to explain this to people:

An airplane is not like a car. The steering
wheel (God, I hate that abortion) does not
work the same.

The brakes are not used the same. In a car,
you simply must have brakes. In a little
airplane on a long runway, they are a luxury.

Lunatic friends of mine that fly Challenger
ultralights on amphib floats have no brakes
on wheels. I am not making this up. They
drive off the taxiway onto the grass to slow
down. The brakes are simply non-essential
and left off. Cost and weight saving.

On a light SEL certified (or homebuilt) aircraft,
brakes are over-used and over-heated and
abused. You really only need them:

- for the runup at high power. No brakes,
check the mags and mixture during taxi
like a floatplane.

- turning out of a strong wind (or trying to
stop the aircraft from turning ie weathervaning
into a strong wind) while taxiing.

Unless you are doing a runup, or unless there
is a strong (cross)wind, you actually don't need
brakes on a light SEL to taxi. I can prove this.

Some quiet evening, pull your aircraft up and
down the runway using the towbar (nosewheel)
or by pushing on the tail wires (tailwheel). Try
to get it up to 20 MPH (ha ha ha) then stop
pulling (or pushing) and tell me what the aircraft
does. It will rapidly come to a stop.

I remember a while (ok, more than a few years
back) a friend of mine was going flying and his
right brake was shall we say, maintenance
challenged. Flatter than the praries. But I
noted that the crosswind was from the RIGHT
so he actually didn't need a right brake. He
only need a good left brake, which he needed.
I warned him that the only catch was that he
could not do a 90 degree turn right - he would
have to turn 270 left - remember, he had a left
brake.

He had a good flight.

[Pop n Fresh]

I never even finished CPL training and I used to routinely exit first taxiway without brakes. Often after an instructor would ask, "Are you sure you can hold short of the intersecting runway?" Uh? Yes I'm sure.

Aren't they just there for high powered taxiing?

[Colonel Sanders]

A guy down the taxiway from me, has a
homebuilt supercub which is on floats
nearly all the time. A couple of times he
put it on wheels, and never bothered to
put brakes on it.

This will probably result in all of the usual
@sshole legal beagles which rat to Enforcement
all the time about useless and trumped up
crap, getting outraged and screeching and
honking.

Screech and honk away, ratfinks. You live
in a dark and twisted little world.

[Indanao]

Some good advice there from , " Cat Driver ". Now.....where did he go...

[Colonel Sanders]

My understanding is that his lack of
political correctness and sensitivity
towards nuturing the feelings of others
outweighed the value of his knowledge
and experience.

Fascinating insight into the superficiality
and intolerance of our culture.

[cgzro]

. - for the runup at high power. No brakes,
check the mags and mixture during taxi

My brakes are not strong enough to allow much above a 2000rpm runup so I often end up skittering for a few hundred feet during the runup, but I sure would not be pushing on them hard during a 2 pointer.

[trey kule]

At the risk of being branded a useless pilot, the brakes are on planes for a reason, and over the years I have found them to be very helpful on occasion.

Lots of fun though to post pictures of people who used them inappropriately. Flat spots on tires.
But a bit on the extreme end. Lots of taildraggers are landed everyday without problems.

The lesson of not using them when wheel landing is a valuable reminder, but lets keep things in perspective here.

It is not about the brakes. It is their inappropriate use of them.

As far as wheel landings go, to be honest , I was never 100% sure of what type of landing I was going to make until pretty much just before touchdown, in many many instances.

And....I hate heel brakes...

[pelmet]

As far as I'm concerned, a wheel landing requires much less skill than 3 point. In a 3 point, your visibility is much worse and your control response is less because you are on the edge of a stall. Meanwhile you are trying to just keep the aircraft off the ground in the proper attitude while the crosswind is trying to drift you and on pavement and it is really preferred not to be drifting or not straight on touchdown.

Meanwhile on a wheel landing you have better flight control response and better visibility. Just do a bit of a flare like in a normal aircraft and then touch down and as soon as you touch down, check forward to hold it on and then do your tailwheel flying stuff as it slows down.

But that is just an opinion and you know what they say about opinions.

It is one of those endless debates. After taking into consideration the aircraft handling issues for the type, the best way to land is probably the way you are most comfortable with.

Heel brakes can be quite natural to use on some aircraft like the Citabria. I didn't like them when I flew the Champ but that was my very first taildragger so maybe I was just not used to them at the time.

[Indanao]

My understanding is that his lack of
political correctness and sensitivity
towards nuturing the feelings of others
outweighed the value of his knowledge
and experience.

Fascinating insight into the superficiality
and intolerance of our culture.

Cut him some slack - it's the price you pay for experience.

[Colonel Sanders]

Really?