Flying off paved runways

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Posted

Now that the Avid Mark IV is about ready for some serious flying I want to start working on my paved runway skills.Having those skills will open up a lot of more airports for me.  I have flow off grass all of my Avid life. I have literally made one paved runway landing in this thing. I have not tested the approachable speed limits of this thing because of the trim issues and I find myself making approaches faster than I need to. I have to say I am a little intimidated because the plane I trained in was such a handful it made me gun shy about short coupled tail wheel planes on pavement. I have the option at my field to use the grass but that not what its about......its about being able to land wherever I need to and be proficient at it. 

I have several hours flying a Champ off pavement with no issues. 

I would love to hear from you guys who fly these off pavement on a regular basis. If you could share the techniques you use (type of approach, flaps, speeds...ect.) and the things you have learned I would appreciate it and I'm sure other who are putting one of these together could benefit from it also.  

 

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Posted

There is one sure fire way to get a perfect landing every time.

Unfortunatly nobody has discovered it yet!

Seriously,a stabilised approach is a good starting point,if things don't feel right go round.

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Posted

I'm in a speedwing so my speeds might be a little to fast but on final I stay around 60mph and once I'm over the runway and about to land it's usually about 50mph. This is with no flaps and a speedwing on a paved runway. Oh and I'm in a sissy nose dragger too haha. On take off I wait until 60 to start climbing, this makes me pop off like a rocket and I keep my climb at 70 instead of the recomended 60. At 60 I can't even see over the nose so 70 is what I like. Everyone has their way of doing it but again I fly a true speedwing so I keep the speeds up. I cut power and I descend like a brick. I have to fly my approaches with power . Oh and this is with no flaps at all.

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Posted

The one simple tip I've got for ya (after a couple ground loops of my own early on) is to chant in your head "go around... go around.... go around" as you come down to touchdown.

If it doesn't setlle on just right... or if it gets the tiniest bit squirreley on rolllout,  put some power in (bringing the tail back to life) and go around.

With that in my head (cocked and loaded to go around) I haven't had any further stories to tell...  but I have gone around plenty of times!  :)

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Posted

I was nervous the first time too now all I land on is the pavement. Like yamma fox said if it don't feel right just add some power. My first attempt I just came in fast touched the wheels down and just let it roll for a bit then I added power and went around. Nothing to it.

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Posted

Pavement makes you work harder because the tires grip better, so any misalignment in yaw is multiplied a lot. In my many bad landings, I have found a few tricks to try:

1) learn what straight ahead is. Seriously, and be sure you are absolutely straight ahead at the last several seconds of the landing. Watch what the angle over the cowl is as you taxi, spot the picture and make it happen on landing.

2) work yaw like crazy. I found that “happy feet” is the best trick for me - wiggle your feet on the pedals rapidly in small oscillations so the nose wiggles at your command, maybe 200 feet on final. It’s kind of like the way a pitcher will shake his hands before he sets in his stance. You get ready for the rapid small inputs right after landing where you get to tell the Avid that YOU are in charge.

3) whatever your approach speed (55 in a big wing, 60 in a small wing) be sure you land 6” above the runway and hold it off until the stick is in your belly and the whole thing has been strangled into not flying. Done right, there is it not a prayer of it trying to skitter into flight once down, and the drop to the runway is less than an inch.

4) Now you are rolling out, the weight will be on the main wheels solidly, and the stick should be back in your belly so the tail wheel gets the weight it needs. The ground loop starts when you are cocked in yaw and the tail wheel isn’t loaded enough to help you stay stray, so keep stick in the belly.

5) In the rollout work the pedals like crazy in fast tiny inputs, don’t keep any input too long. Mostly you want to detect the first swerve, squelch it with a small pedal stab to stop the swerve rate, and stop the swerve even if you are t pointed perfectly straight. The trick is to stop the yaw rate first, and then put the pedal back to neutral, all in a half second or so (thus the happy feet practice.)

6) With idle throttle, stick in your belly and a brisk rollout, your speed will die quickly and you are home. Fly the beast all the way to parking, I have been run off the taxiway by a small gust when I relaxed for a few lazy seconds!

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Posted

This is why I love you guys. I knew you would give me good advise. Thank you for the great comments and instructions. 

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Posted

I second landing straight. I struggled on my new gear on pavement with a sight picture for a while. WHEN not if you get a swerve you have a split second to make the go around decision. These will fly slow enough that you can pull it off in a pickle. I’ve flown away 30 degrees from centerline more than once. If you freeze up your along for the ride. 

I’m a 3 Point guy in these but I don’t want to start that debate. If you get a shimmy at high speed neutralize the stick to take some weight off the tail. 

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Posted

This is so obvious that it will seem stupid to most of you. On landing I used to setup looking over the prop which would always start my touchdown with yaw... right from the get-go. It was sub conscious. I even flew that way. Looking over the center of the cowl. Didn’t even know I was doing it. 

Somewhere along the way I realized straight ahead was looking straight over the center of the diagonal brace right in front of me. I put a piece of tape in the middle of the brace to keep reminding me where “straight” was. What a difference! My swervy(sp?) landings and flight in general got a lot straighter and easier once I had that epiphany!

 

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Posted

That just makes to much damn sense.  Good tip. 

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Posted

I had been flying a single seater Himax and then a Champ before I got my first Avid Flyer.  I also was used to looking through the prop and tried to do the same thing with the Avid.  Made for some interesting landings before I put a mark on the wind screen to aim with.  Another thing was to glance at the ball just before touchdown.  That would tell me I was crooked/crabbed.  A friend of mine also trained in a Champ, and then bought a Chief.  First flight, ground loop.  Next flight ground loop.  He had a devil of a time landing the plane, and I kept telling him what he was doing wrong.  It did get better eventually, but he spent a bunch of money of different tailwheels and stuff trying to fix a problem that he was causing.  

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Posted

I had tape on both my KF's, it's rather surprising seeing the correct sight picture vs. what you might convince yourself is straight without the aid. I was consistently off and the tape helped a lot. IMO, these round cowls and tailwheel are a P.I.T.A. for short folks. I would have swapped out for a smooth cowl in a jiffy but that also required a very pricey new FWF kit. 

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Posted

I started cracking up when I realized we were having a discussion about how to land on PAVEMENT haha 

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Posted

Vance, I'm bang in the middle of exactly what you're going thru.  I could taxi slowly but once the speed built up It got too wobbly with my jerky pedal movements.  I too am paying attention to the good tips in this thread you started.  One thing that helped me was to take out the slack in the chains linking the tailwheel to the rudder, eliminating most of the delay that was causing.  This allowed me to taxi faster with confidence, and certainly helps in that just-post-touchdown moment when you seemingly have sooo much speed.  Maybe it's just me, but it seems the minimum idle speed is just a bit high, and the plane doesn't really want to slow down very fast.  I am currently very carefully applying brakes - a bad habit, I know.

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Posted

Before changing my idler jets my plane would not idle below 2500. I dropped two idler jet sizes and now idle smooth at 1900-2000. You might try that for the high idle problem. 

There is a lot of good points here on this thread. In the Champ you are setting looking right down the center line and I have had little issue keeping it straight. Last week I made two approaches in the Avid and both times I could tell the nose was literally pointing at the center line as I rolled on. I didn't think about it being the fact that I was literally flying the plane where I was focusing. It makes a lot of sense and maybe the reason landing on a strip without any actual reference seems so much easier because you have less tendency fly to a point coupled with the fact that its a more forgiving surface.  

Joey brings up a good point......It is kinda funny that we are having a discussion about landing on the most standard runway surface in the world. I guess it goes to show you how nonstandard our little planes are.

:BC:

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Posted

Several of you have indicated that you use an aim point than the prop. Just out of curiosity what is your aim point on the ground? Are you using the reference point in our plane against the center line of the runway or are you using something else?

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Posted

One way to spot the right picture in yaw is to sit in the seat and then spot the line on the cowling that points straight ahead to the horizon, then put a stripe of bright masking tape on the cowling from the windshield to the front, right along that line you spotted. As you land, practice yawing the airplane to make the stripe line up with the runway, and be sure to land straight ahead.

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Posted

Several of you have indicated that you use an aim point than the prop. Just out of curiosity what is your aim point on the ground? Are you using the reference point in our plane against the center line of the runway or are you using something else?

That would be the opposite side of the runway. Don't look at anything else.

One more thing I did Was to do all my take offs  on pavement and landed on the grass. I guess I figured if things go wrong just keep the power in and get it off the ground. I don't really care for 3 point landings on pavement it seems easier to just fly it in till the wheels squeak. On grass I have tried the 3 point because you are so much slower works good there  but still prefer wheel landings. will do 50 wheel landings to 1 three point. thats just me and I am very green to tail wheels

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Posted

Made three pavement landings tonight. All went well. Happy feet for sure. I need to adjust some slack out of my rudder cables. It was very helpful changing my point of focus. Still work to be done. 

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Posted

It probably was mentioned, but especially on pavement, your toe in is real critical.  If one wheel is way off, it could make for and interesting ride.  0 to 1/8" toe out is considered to be about right.  I forgot to check my new High Wing gear for this when I installed it, so did that today.  Turned out it was right at 1/8" toed out.  Flew for a while this evening, and both landings were on my strip, so no pavement there.  

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Posted

How do you adjust that on the standard gear? 

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Posted

With an 8' long pipe.  Need I say more? :lmao:JImChuk

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Posted

I set mine 1/8 inch toe in and works great. And like Jim said a big pipe

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Posted

Toe in or toe out?? In the auto world we toe in.

I understand the pipe.....I was a millwright in my younger days.

 :BC:

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Posted

Most would say toed out.  If it's toed in, the wheel on the outside of the turn where there is more weight is pointed into the swerve which can make it get worse.  If it's towed out, the wheel is trying to drive out of the swerve.  At least that's how I've heard it and it makes sense to me.  JImChuk

PS  on the big pipe, if you have to bend the axel toward the back, tie a cable come along to the tail wheel spring and pull on the pipe with that.  Lots easier than trying to pull on the pipe by hand.  It does take quite a bit of force to bend the axel.  I've had the pipe in my belly, and holding a rope tied to the tail spring, and it took all I could do to get it to bend at all.  Trouble is with the cable come along, it's easy to go to far.  And put the nut back on the axel before you slide the pipe over it so you don't mess up the threads

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