Flight Line Ops today - some observations

nddons

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
13,304
Location
Waukesha County, WI
Display Name

Display name:
Stan
I double shifted on the flightline at Airventure today - I love it. I was at Bravo on the north side of 9/27 - 100 ft from the green dot. Here are some observations:

1. Congrats to those of you who actually hit the green dot! I figure about 30 of you between 9:30 - 4:30. The rest of you were short - or long. Or cleared for the orange dot.

2. "Hilton" is not one of the window signs listed in the NOTAM.

3. Speaking of window signs, they should be readable from 50 feet. Sentences can't be read!

4. Worse than unreadable signs are no signs whatsoever. Or signs that are laying flat on the top of your panel. Please let your marshallers know your intentions. Pointing doesn't count.

5. I marshalled the AOPA Caravan today! They bounced the landing by the way.

6. After the mid-afternoon weather came through, the winds changed from the southwest to the ESE. For at least 30 minutes, the controllers continued to land planes on 27 despite a rear quartering tailwind of 12-13 knots out of 120. That HAD to be tough. Kudos to the few of you who used forward slips to get down fast. (Note to self: practice downwind landings!)

7. Cessnas and Bonanzas seemed to touch down the smoothest. RVs seemed to float long. And a few very loaded Cherokees seemed to make a very firm landing.

8. No ground loops today, as far as I could tell. Though a few RV taildraggers made me hold my breath.

9. I think I marshalled a Rutan late this afternoon. I saw "Rutan" on the left side of the plane. The problem was he whipped by me so fast, with no sign at all, I had no clue where he wanted to go. But he did, and he went that way fast. Kind of rude IMO.

10. Thanks to the majority of you who gave a wave to the marshallers. We notice and appreciate it.

Have a good week, everyone! I will be back next Friday and Saturday.
 
Sounds like you had fun!! Love the "Hilton" one!

It was, and actually pretty educational. I've never been able to be that close to a runway for such a long time, and I enjoyed seeing the different "styles" of landings, including the:

1. Hold it, hold it, hold it, ooops - short of the green dot

2. Perfect glideslope-like approach right to the green dot

3. Cut the throttle when right over or 50 ft past the green dot - and float long to pretty long

4. The forward slip right on the green dot - it seemed like mostly Canadian planes were able to do that

5. The ones who know how to come in at the correct approach speed, vs. those that seemed to give an extra 10-15 knots on approach - coming in noticeably hot, just to be "safe" I guess - and then touch down 1,000 ft past the green dot.

Be safe, everyone! See you this weekend.
 
i saw a friends facebook status that he watched a 195 groundloop. i wondered if they were landing with tailwinds again
 
I saw a pretty scary landing on Sunday when I was hanging out with Troy in the north 40. A guy in a Turbine Commander came in on a left base for rwy 9, and got turned in real close. IIRC he as cleared to land on the numbers, and he proceeded to fly one of those teardrop stall spin inducing base to final turns. The guy must have been close to a 45 degree bank at 2-300'. I'm glad he made it, but I was ready tu get out of the way of the shrapnel if he hadn't.

Remember it's not a sin to go around. Don't try to salvage a bad landing especially at OSH
 
and he proceeded to fly one of those teardrop stall spin inducing base to final turns. The guy must have been close to a 45 degree bank at 2-300'
Nothing about that is going to kill you. It kills you when you stall the airplane in a skid, not because you were banked in a coordinated turn or slip. 45 degrees isn't that steep.
 
When you consider 30 degree turns in the pattern are the norm 45 isn't too bad. The stall speed does not increase that much with a 45 degree turn but it begins to increase exponentially as your bank increases.

Say your stall speed with flaps is around 40 kts (picking a nice even number) and you fly your approach at 65 kts until short final. At 45 degrees bank your stall speed is around 48 knots. So you have a pretty good safety buffer if you're making coordinated turns. Even if you're a tad sloppy, probably still fine

At 60 degrees your stall speed goes up to around 56 knots. Here you'd really better be watching your airspeed and keeping that ball centered
 
If you just roll into the turn and don't pull on the yoke and load the wings up, you're not going to stall. It's the pulling that does you in. That said, you need to be able to roll out before you hit the ground :)
 
""Hilton" is not one of the window signs listed in the NOTAM."

Maybe so, but it told you exactly what you needed to know..... what would you have suggested as a better choice?
 
""Hilton" is not one of the window signs listed in the NOTAM."

Maybe so, but it told you exactly what you needed to know..... what would you have suggested as a better choice?

GAP (General aviation parking) or GAC (general aviation camping), unless you were a Vintage or Homebuilt. I know the NOTAM. I don't know what Hilton means, other than you want to park near the hotel. But with the volume of arrivals, we were told that everyone except those going to the FBOs (or turbines or other large aircraft that couldn't go on the grass) were being exited on the south side of 27. I was told that they couldn't allow planes to move around the grounds where ever they wanted to go, or camp where ever they wanted to camp, in the interest of traffic flow.

What if half the crowd wanted to park on the north side of 9/27? There were no parkers there to handle that.

That being said, I didn't want to be an a-hole, and couldn't allow him to cross 27, so I checked for taxiway conflicts and sent him west on Bravo.

If it's an official designated area, they should put it in the NOTAM. While they're at it, "TENANT" makes sense to put in the NOTAM, for logical reasons.
 
Between one marshaller's signals and the way the cones were lined up on the south side of 27 today I almost made a runway incursion.

Then a stuck mike blocked my t/o clearance just as I lined up for 27. That was a thrilling 30 seconds.

First time I've ever had a problem in 6 yrs.

At least I didn't have an engine fire like the C-47.

Or run off the end of the runway like the Mooney, F-16, and FJ-1.

Or "arrive" like the Bo that almost collapsed his gear dropping in and left the pavement in a somewhat ungraceful manner.

The other 24,000+ aircraft movements were rather uneventful.
 
At least I didn't have an engine fire like the C-47.

I was working the south side, west end of 27 Saturday morning. Until the C-47 engine fire, I had a lot of traffic being routed past me. Then they closed down Bravo, and were sending all the aircraft east. So for 2.5 hours I had literally nothing to do. And then the flightline ops folks forgot about me at the end of my shift - I had to call them and tell them that I was still out here. Pretty frustrating.
 
i saw a friends facebook status that he watched a 195 groundloop. i wondered if they were landing with tailwinds again
I watched that one happen. Don't recall a tailwind. It was 7:55 p.m. and they were trying to get everyone in and out and people were landing pretty close together and they reminded every one of them to exit the runway as soon as possible. The 195 landed fine and the roll out looked good...seemed like the ground loop started as he headed for the grass to get off the runway.
 
I was working the south side, west end of 27 Saturday morning. Until the C-47 engine fire, I had a lot of traffic being routed past me. Then they closed down Bravo, and were sending all the aircraft east. So for 2.5 hours I had literally nothing to do. And then the flightline ops folks forgot about me at the end of my shift - I had to call them and tell them that I was still out here. Pretty frustrating.

Yikes. I hope that was an isolated lapse of personnel accounting. Too bad we couldn't hook up during the week and compare notes inre MSU.

Several volunteers were on board at the time getting a recognition ride by the Cavanaugh museum crew. A little more excitement than they planned on.

I was driving the tug that dragged the -47 back to WB. We had to go to the west ramp to get a towbar that fit (-3s and -47s use two different sizes and it took a few phone calls to verify which one was needed). A landing Baron was a little confused when he saw we were blocking B1 where he wanted to turn off with a big a$$ bird. He finally took the grass and worked around the cripple to the parallel.
 
Yikes. I hope that was an isolated lapse of personnel accounting. Too bad we couldn't hook up during the week and compare notes inre MSU.

Several volunteers were on board at the time getting a recognition ride by the Cavanaugh museum crew. A little more excitement than they planned on.

I was driving the tug that dragged the -47 back to WB. We had to go to the west ramp to get a towbar that fit (-3s and -47s use two different sizes and it took a few phone calls to verify which one was needed). A landing Baron was a little confused when he saw we were blocking B1 where he wanted to turn off with a big a$$ bird. He finally took the grass and worked around the cripple to the parallel.
Maybe we did meet! I chatted with several warbird crew Saturday morning around 0900 while several T-34's were departing for Texas out of concern about Sunday's Wx.

I think we need PoA hats or something!
 
I've got a photo of a pretty little yellow Taildragger having a bad day (prop strike) on 27 on the morning of the F-16 crash. He tried a little too hard for the green dot with a very light quartering tailwind.
 
My greatest concern was Thursday morning waiting in the que to depart 27. The F16 over ran 18/36 which closed that runway so all departures and landings were directed to 27. More than once, multiple AC were on base, final, and big jets on straight in finals at the same time. Several aborted landings with the trailing AC overflying the lead that was on the ground. We counted as many as 5 on final at one time.

The worst was a taildragger that was ahead of a Cessna Citation and when he landed slowed considerably. The Citation aborted the landing at 50 feet approx and had a max power, high angle of attack very slow climb out that my flying buddy exclaimed he was going to stall. ATC would try to sneak a few departures in between the arrivals and this was marginal as the arrivals were faster and some departures were slow on the throttle and lagging in acceleration.

Our departure in a C172 was accompanied by a Long EZ to our left that when airborn, accelerated past us as if shot from a cannon.

ATC was working hard in a difficult situation, however I beleive a better contingency plan is in order for such situations to prevent a serious incident.
 
Or "arrive" like the Bo that almost collapsed his gear dropping in and left the pavement in a somewhat ungraceful manner.

I think I got that one on video--but haven't looked at my footage yet. I set up the camera and recorded about 2 hours of arrivals on 27 one day. Tires squealing, and he exits on the north side grass, ends up shutting down the engine just as he clears, think he caught the prop in the dirt or on a light.
 
My greatest concern was Thursday morning waiting in the que to depart 27. The F16 over ran 18/36 which closed that runway so all departures and landings were directed to 27. More than once, multiple AC were on base, final, and big jets on straight in finals at the same time. Several aborted landings with the trailing AC overflying the lead that was on the ground. We counted as many as 5 on final at one time.

The worst was a taildragger that was ahead of a Cessna Citation and when he landed slowed considerably. The Citation aborted the landing at 50 feet approx and had a max power, high angle of attack very slow climb out that my flying buddy exclaimed he was going to stall. ATC would try to sneak a few departures in between the arrivals and this was marginal as the arrivals were faster and some departures were slow on the throttle and lagging in acceleration.

Our departure in a C172 was accompanied by a Long EZ to our left that when airborn, accelerated past us as if shot from a cannon.

ATC was working hard in a difficult situation, however I beleive a better contingency plan is in order for such situations to prevent a serious incident.

THAT's the day I filmed for two hours... now I understand why it was so crazy on the 9/27 runway. You're right, it was NUTS. I'll try to get it uploaded later to Vimeo for those that want to see.
 
THAT's the day I filmed for two hours... now I understand why it was so crazy on the 9/27 runway. You're right, it was NUTS. I'll try to get it uploaded later to Vimeo for those that want to see.

That means you have ME arriving (with Jesse and Tommy, of course).

Mine will, upon further review, be proven to have been flawless in every respect.
 
If you just roll into the turn and don't pull on the yoke and load the wings up, you're not going to stall. It's the pulling that does you in. That said, you need to be able to roll out before you hit the ground :)
I don't know how many times I've gotta post this but one more time...

There's virtually no advantage to rolling into a steep bank without loading the wings appropriately with one small exception. A 45° bank requires 1.4g and a 60° bank needs 2g. Anything less and your actual turn rate will be about the same as if you used a smaller bank angle that matched the g force applied because it's the g force that makes the plane turn, not the bank.

The exception I mentioned is when you let the nose drop during the turn. In that case more lift can be applied to turning the plane since less is being used to oppose gravity. A side effect of this is that the plane accelerates gaining both forward (airspeed) and vertical speed. This effect can be used to supply a needed increase in airspeed to prevent a stall once you do apply up elevator and generate enough lift to arrest the acceleration. Of course that also makes it necessary to generate more than 1g in the vertical direction at some point (typically while still in the turn). IOW you can borrow from the bank but you've gotta pay it back soon.
 
If you just roll into the turn and don't pull on the yoke and load the wings up, you're not going to stall. It's the pulling that does you in. That said, you need to be able to roll out before you hit the ground :)

Put some throttle to it and you can bank and pull all you want. You put yourself into a bit of a corner, but it's low margin risk. You can also come in low clean and hot and chop power, climb steep and do a 180 turn back on the climb as you dump in half flaps then as you come through the top you dump in the gear, stabilize your turn and descent to the runway and adjust power and flaps as required from a 300' short final. This is my preferred in really cold weather because the engines never get a chance to cool down until you're ready to put them to bed.
 
I don't know how many times I've gotta post this but one more time...

There's virtually no advantage to rolling into a steep bank without loading the wings appropriately with one small exception. A 45° bank requires 1.4g and a 60° bank needs 2g. Anything less and your actual turn rate will be about the same as if you used a smaller bank angle that matched the g force applied because it's the g force that makes the plane turn, not the bank.

The exception I mentioned is when you let the nose drop during the turn. In that case more lift can be applied to turning the plane since less is being used to oppose gravity. A side effect of this is that the plane accelerates gaining both forward (airspeed) and vertical speed. This effect can be used to supply a needed increase in airspeed to prevent a stall once you do apply up elevator and generate enough lift to arrest the acceleration. Of course that also makes it necessary to generate more than 1g in the vertical direction at some point (typically while still in the turn). IOW you can borrow from the bank but you've gotta pay it back soon.

Exactly, and you can also store and withdraw Gs in the vertical dimension.
 
My greatest concern was Thursday morning waiting in the que to depart 27. The F16 over ran 18/36 which closed that runway so all departures and landings were directed to 27. More than once, multiple AC were on base, final, and big jets on straight in finals at the same time. Several aborted landings with the trailing AC overflying the lead that was on the ground. We counted as many as 5 on final at one time.

I've got a photo of that.

What time did you depart, and in what? I may have photos of your airplane for ya. ;)

It was actually going pretty well, considering that was their "nightmare" scenario... IFR early, everything's busy, then whole airport closed for 30 minutes, everyone stacking up out at Fisk and Warbird Island, and then only one runway opens with only hard-surface exits allowed due to grass condition.

The worst was a taildragger that was ahead of a Cessna Citation and when he landed slowed considerably. The Citation aborted the landing at 50 feet approx and had a max power, high angle of attack very slow climb out that my flying buddy exclaimed he was going to stall. ATC would try to sneak a few departures in between the arrivals and this was marginal as the arrivals were faster and some departures were slow on the throttle and lagging in acceleration.

Saw that one too, and have photos of the Citation go-around. I don't think he was going to stall, but he did enjoy showing off a bit. ;) We noticed that the command "go around" was interpreted by many pilots as "we just gave you a low-level aerobatics waiver"... :rofl:

Our departure in a C172 was accompanied by a Long EZ to our left that when airborn, accelerated past us as if shot from a cannon.

ATC was working hard in a difficult situation, however I beleive a better contingency plan is in order for such situations to prevent a serious incident.

C-172... got it. Toss me your tail number.

From where I was standing, they did an excellent job. The folks who did the poor job were the pilots who don't know what "1/2 mile in trail" means, nor what "go back out to RIPON and start over" means, either.

I got a kick out of the guy who was just about to touch down when the F-16 incident closed the airport... he tried really hard to put the wheels on the pavement anyway... the controller scolded him... "I said, GO AROUND... the airport is CLOSED." :)

Sitting there shooting photos for hours, the guys who got in the most trouble were the taildragger pilots who tried too hard to hit the dot, including the prop strike guy... no offense to any of them, but missing the dot by 10-15' and keeping the aircraft under control would be preferable to nailing the dot and bouncing all over the place. Saw a few nose-draggers do that trick too...

I'm calling it, "Green Dot fixation".

Interestingly, folks cleared to the Orange Dot seemed not to do such weird/silly things.
 
I was told that they couldn't allow planes to move around the grounds where ever they wanted to go, or camp where ever they wanted to camp, in the interest of traffic flow.

What if half the crowd wanted to park on the north side of 9/27? There were no parkers there to handle that.

I've put "ROW 543" underneath "GAC" a few times, when I departed and later returned to OSH - I didn't need any "parkers" I just needed to get back to my campsite.

One guy decided he just HAD to talk to me about it, and then get on the radio for someone to verify that there really was a campsite minus an airplane in that row. :mad2: The idiot damn near walked into my prop on the way over, forcing me to shut down for the process as well, and blocked the taxiway for a few minutes...

If it's an official designated area, they should put it in the NOTAM. While they're at it, "TENANT" makes sense to put in the NOTAM, for logical reasons.

Except that then, there would be people who printed up a "TENANT" sign so they could attempt to abuse the system too...

There's actually a special tenant arrival that's not part of the NOTAM as well. Those people who actually are tenants get to use it, but there's no reason to tell the whole world it's there, or everyone would be using it to skip the Ripon->Fisk arrival.
 
ATC was working hard in a difficult situation, however I beleive a better contingency plan is in order for such situations to prevent a serious incident.

Shhhhhh!!! :nono:

Last year - Er, maybe it was 2009 - Everyone was complaining that a single incident caused the entire airport to be closed.

Also, I don't think the problems were a result of ATC - Generally, ATC does a damn-near-perfect job, while individual pilots are unable to fly their airplanes as directed by ATC because they're out of practice/don't care/anti-authoritarian/etc and that's what causes the problems.
 
We just saw a whole lot of people who didn't know what "1/2 mile spacing" looked like.

My question is... How'd they get past Fisk without being spun by those controllers?

Or were they 1/2 mile in trail at Fisk and can't hold 90 knots?

It was interesting to watch, that's for sure.
 
I've put "ROW 543" underneath "GAC" a few times, when I departed and later returned to OSH - I didn't need any "parkers" I just needed to get back to my campsite.

One guy decided he just HAD to talk to me about it, and then get on the radio for someone to verify that there really was a campsite minus an airplane in that row. :mad2: The idiot damn near walked into my prop on the way over, forcing me to shut down for the process as well, and blocked the taxiway for a few minutes...

There's actually a special tenant arrival that's not part of the NOTAM as well. Those people who actually are tenants get to use it, but there's no reason to tell the whole world it's there, or everyone would be using it to skip the Ripon->Fisk arrival.

Troublemaker! :D
 
We just saw a whole lot of people who didn't know what "1/2 mile spacing" looked like.

My question is... How'd they get past Fisk without being spun by those controllers?

Or were they 1/2 mile in trail at Fisk and can't hold 90 knots?

It was interesting to watch, that's for sure.

I arrived at OSH on Friday (my first time!) and as I neared Ripon I found another Cessna to follow, flew the tracks, 1800 feet and 90 knots. About halfway to Fisk, an RV on my left side blew by me like I was standing still! No harm, no foul, but I did manage a small smile when he got too close to the Cessna in front of me (despite his semi-acrobatic s-turns) on final to 36 and was ordered to go-around. He ended up 3 behind me.:lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws7d5qXpYto
 
I arrived at OSH on Friday (my first time!) and as I neared Ripon I found another Cessna to follow, flew the tracks, 1800 feet and 90 knots. About halfway to Fisk, an RV on my left side blew by me like I was standing still! No harm, no foul, but I did manage a small smile when he got too close to the Cessna in front of me (despite his semi-acrobatic s-turns) on final to 36 and was ordered to go-around. He ended up 3 behind me.:lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws7d5qXpYto

Good video, and welcome to PoA!
 
Ok, boys and girls. We're one week out. I thought I'd re-run this thread to remind you that I'll be watching! Read the Notam and hit the dot! Fly safely.

(Actually I may not make it out until Wednesday, but I will be volunteering on Flight Line Ops Wednesday through Saturday or Sunday.)

:happydance:
 
THANKS, Stan... no PRESSURE! :rolleyes: Relax... and may the Force be with us ALL next week! Fly Safe and Have Fun Everyone!! :D

IMG_1396.jpg
 
THANKS, Stan... no PRESSURE! :rolleyes: Relax... and may the Force be with us ALL next week! Fly Safe and Have Fun Everyone!! :D

IMG_1396.jpg

I did my best landing in my 310 on that taxiway to the right. They told me to land long and I was already low at the threshold so I trimmed to 92, Vr, and set power for a very gradual eeker of a landing":D
 
When I reposition to the HILTON, I start out with NORTH 40 or GAP signs but when I get up to the north end of PAPA I switch to the HILTON.

I don't worry about signs coming in, most of the parkers recognize my plane and where it goes.

Last year I had the following signs in my plane:

VAC

WHY CAN'T I PARK HERE?

I PARKED HERE LAST YEAR.

I KNOW TOM.

those were mostly for amusement.... I also had a THANK YOU sign that generally gets well received after I show the appropriate one.
 
I did my best landing in my 310 on that taxiway to the right. They told me to land long and I was already low at the threshold so I trimmed to 92, Vr, and set power for a very gradual eeker of a landing":D

LOL, I like remembering those perfect ones too, when the controllers will tell you "Nice job!". The first time that happened to me, I remember very clearly yelling "YEAH!!", doing a fist pump, and having my husband laugh at me and roll his eyes... MY first experience with a taxiway landing arose out of necessity on only my 2nd trip to OSH. Apparently, there was a NORDO airplane who took it upon him/herself to use 18 for landing when the rest of us were using 36. Fast thinking tower controllers stepped us all over to the taxiway, while I hope that other pilot got to have a "come to Jesus" meeting with the pink shirts on the Moo Cow platform(s)! :mad: Even Christopher (who was not a pilot at the time) couldn't believe that someone would continue a landing approach with a wall of airplanes clearly coming towards them. (It was a CAVU day, perfect in every way!). :hairraise:
 
At Ag school we had an open cockpit Ag Cat and one of the guys was practicing touch and go wheel landings and te rest of us were working on another plane when we see him just do the most perfect wheelie just rolling it on perfect and all of a sudden we hear "Woo Hoo!!!":lol:
 
Back
Top