Crosswind landing no-flap taildragger

Steamflyer said:
Not a proponent of that canard. Crab and then slip. Often winds at the surface are lighter anyhow so the test is mediocre at best.

Plus throttle and brake come into play on the ground, as well as the ability to use more extreme control positioning as one slows.
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Exactly right. Holding drift/alignment a few hundred feet AGL at your approach speed doesn't mean much when it comes to maintaining control of the airplane at touchdown speed and through the landing roll in the wind conditions which are nearly always different at the surface.

If the mentality is that you're willing to bail on an approach you can't hold, then that must mean you have an alternate airport/runway as a backup if needed. In this case, you might was well try the landing regardless of the conditions on approach and be ready to go around at any point during the landing process if things go south.

But in reality, with experience both of these scenarios are unlikely to be encountered.
 
RoscoeT said:
Nice try. We all have it set by the time the wheels touch down. Slipping all the way down final in a x-wind is kinda silly, and is just a way to give student pilots the practice and to avoid overwhelming them with the workload of waiting to manage this down at the runway level. Lots of pilots keep up the student pilot method simply because they "were taught" that way and never break out of it.
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Nice try. You still haven't explained why using three different techniques on final is better than just using one that solves all the issues
 
Lindberg said:
Nice try. You still haven't explained why using three different techniques on final is better than just using one that solves all the issues
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Don't know what you're talking about. I simply said slipping all the way down final in a x-wind purely because of the x-wind is kinda student pilot stuff. It doesn't solve anything BTW.
 
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A slip used to maintain centerline and runway alignment in a crosswind is a slip. Just like any other slip. If I’m a little high and need to steepen up the approach I just establish the crosswind slip a little early. If I need more drag I just add a little more control input into the already established slip. I prefer having less to change as I approach the flair.

The conversation gets a little more complicated if I’m flying something that requires a slip to landing to see the runway. In that case you’re turning from the downwind on an intentionally steep approach with the slip established to see the runway. In that scenario I accept the need to transition to a slip to the wind side. Some people might just identify as a helicopter and make opposite turns in the pattern to make the landing easier but I would never do something like that…
 
I slip on final both for visibility and glide adjustment, but I don't consciously slip at touchdown, I just automatically correct as needed during the flare to counteract drift while pointing the nose down the runway. Between the adjacent trees and hangars and the steep dropoffs at both ends of the runway the winds at my home field (SNC) are usually quite squirrelly below 100' in any kind of crosswind so you're usually not holding any particular attitude for long.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Can you provide an official definition of stable approach criteria? (Not saying you’re wrong, but “stable approach” often means very different things to different people.)
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From an FAA website:

A stabilized approach is one in which the pilot establishes and maintains a constant angle glidepath towards a predetermined point on the landing runway. It is based on the pilot’s judgment of certain visual clues, and depends on the maintenance of a constant final descent airspeed and configuration. Or 9.5 in AFH.

Vs

I crab into the wind on approach. Once I have the runway made, I forward slip to bleed airspeed if necessary. Since I am already yawed into the wind, I roll away from the wind. Once I round out into ground effect, I release the front slip, align with the runway, and side slip into the crosswind.

I suppose this could be stabilized, but it doesn’t sound like it.
 
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Yes, winds are lighter, but you will have an idea if you are close to the limits or over when out a ways.

Huh? I use all the controls I have/need no matter where I am .
 
Sure, if one is making a crosswind heavy approach to a nice 150' wide runway with clear approach zones at the local intercontinental field, one can do some variation of a "stable" approach. But coming into a 2500' paved (grass is easy, so we exclude for this scenario) strip cut into the woods, or lined with houses, or in the lee of one or more hills, will require crab, power, rudder, some slip, then a whole bunch of slip over the trees, and then finally aileron into the wind with opposite rudder and maybe a tad of power to plant first the upwind wheel, then try and get the rest of the plane on the ground and stopped.

That's tailwheel flying in its element. Note that little changes with a nosedragger, it's just the penalty for messing up the last bit is essentially removed.
 
Going wing low along the final is actually less stable on a gusty crosswind day - constant corrections will be needed. The alternative, just crabbing until the flare, is stable for all that changes is the crab angle which is trivial to adjust.

More pleasant for the passengers too - no leaning the whole way down final (which is usually too long anyhow, but that's another topic altogether...)
 
Steamflyer said:
That’s the point - even then there’s often a bias to one side of the other and one should treat it still as a crosswind landing. Especially on pavement.
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Not sure if it’s what you were getting at, but in my Citabrias with spring steel gear, I found myself less likely to bounce wheel landings if I rolled one wheel onto the pavement first, even with no crosswind. I favored the right wheel, either because I’m right handed or because I was accustomed to looking out the right window from instructing in side-by-side aircraft.
 
Steamflyer said:
Going wing low along the final is actually less stable on a gusty crosswind day - constant corrections will be needed. The alternative, just crabbing until the flare, is stable for all that changes is the crab angle which is trivial to adjust.

More pleasant for the passengers too - no leaning the whole way down final (which is usually too long anyhow, but that's another topic altogether...)
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You seem pretty sure about that. Do you teach tailwheel? I’m willing to hear more.
 
Steamflyer said:
Going wing low along the final is actually less stable on a gusty crosswind day - constant corrections will be needed. The alternative, just crabbing until the flare, is stable for all that changes is the crab angle which is trivial to adjust.

More pleasant for the passengers too - no leaning the whole way down final (which is usually too long anyhow, but that's another topic altogether...)
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Why is the crab angle more trivial to adjust than a slip?
 
Steamflyer said:
Going wing low along the final is actually less stable on a gusty crosswind day - constant corrections will be needed. The alternative, just crabbing until the flare, is stable for all that changes is the crab angle which is trivial to adjust.

More pleasant for the passengers too - no leaning the whole way down final (which is usually too long anyhow, but that's another topic altogether...)
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Hmm, don't you have to bank to change crab angle, using both the ailerons and rudder? So the same amount of corrections.

Also, only slightly mentioned, if you crab and kick a nosewheel airplane and get it wrong, the airplane wants to correct to going straight. Screw up in a tailwheel and the airplane wants to swap ends and roll backwards.
 
Pinecone said:
Hmm, don't you have to bank to change crab angle, using both the ailerons and rudder? So the same amount of corrections.
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It's more corrections, actually. To adjust crab angle, you need a coordinated turn to the new crab heading and then return to level. If you didn't guess correctly, repeat. As many times as the wind gusts or shifts, repeat. To adjust a slipping crosswind correction, you just do more or less of the same thing you're doing.
Pinecone said:
Also, only slightly mentioned, if you crab and kick a nosewheel airplane and get it wrong, the airplane wants to correct to going straight. Screw up in a tailwheel and the airplane wants to swap ends and roll backwards.
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And it's very easy to get it wrong if you wait until you're in the flare and hope you guess correctly while "kicking."

I also question whether approaching the runway sideways is really more comfortable for passengers in a small plane than approaching it head on with one wing lower.
 
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I'm not sure a stable approach is a realistic expectation for an aircraft with no flaps landing at a short grass airstrip with trees on approach.
 
Damn, I guess I am the only one on this site that can fly a stabilized approach in a plane without flaps. (Not that it is difficult).
 
Clip4 said:
Damn, I guess I am the only one on this site that can fly a stabilized approach in a plane without flaps. (Not that it is difficult).
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That, or you’re the only one who only flies them into strips with clear approaches.
 
It's funny how quickly this thread devolved into "you aren't a real taildragger pilot if you don't land exactly like I do."

Clearly there are experienced and skilled pilots on both sides of the debate.

I like trying different techniques, being creative, and stretching my stick and rudder skills. That's why I like taildraggers and aerobatics. Rigid procedures are boring.

You do you.
 
IME, flying a nose dragger (C-172) vs tail dragger (C-170) is not much different all the way to short final. The difference is in the flare, touchdown & rollout. But then a C-170 is a pretty tame taildragger with good forward visibility. Maybe other taildraggers are more different, though I will say that learning to fly the C-170 made all my landings better even in the 172, M20J and other airplanes.
 
Ed Haywood said:
It's funny how quickly this thread devolved into "you aren't a real taildragger pilot if you don't land exactly like I do."

Clearly there are experienced and skilled pilots on both sides of the debate.

I like trying different techniques, being creative, and stretching my stick and rudder skills. That's why I like taildraggers and aerobatics. Rigid procedures are boring.

You do you.
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Agreed that there's more than one way to skin a cat, but it should be possible to determine which is easier and more stable from a standpoint of reason and logic, not emotion.

IMO, as an instructor, it's easier, when taking someone from scratch, to help a rookie student achieve a good touchdown with the longitudinal axis of the aircraft aligned with the direction of motion if that rookie isn't trying to figure out how much they need to kick the rudder to get the plane transitioned from the crab to the wing low. Crabbing is waaaaaay overrated.
 
I went up tonight to get night current in ASEL. My taildragger has flaps and I’m a wheel landing weenie, especially at night. Wind in the pattern was 320 at 28. Wind at the surface was reported 220 at 9. I used runway 30. The rapid change in wind direction from a slight right crosswind to a decent left crosswind was a lot easier to navigate by adjusting a slip than it would have been by making a coordinated turn to crab the other direction.
 
Sounds awfully complicated. In a crab you are coordinated, aligned with the wind and your ground track is aligned with the runway. If you're too high and need to slip just align the nose with the runway and tada, you're in a slip. Back on glideslope let go and back into the crab. Ready to land align the nose again and set her down. Try not to over-think it.
 
I just never figured I’d see where coordinated turns to track a course were too much work. :rolleyes:
 
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Steamflyer said:
Crabbing is sooooo the way to go. :)
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I literally don’t care what people do once they are proficient, but with something like 800 hours of experience teaching tailwheel it seems a whole lot easier for a student to correctly transition from wing low to upwind wheel-low landing than from a crab.
 
RyanShort1 said:
I literally don’t care what people do once they are proficient, but with something like 800 hours of experience teaching tailwheel it seems a whole lot easier for a student to correctly transition from wing low to upwind wheel-low landing than from a crab.
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This is a good point. I don't teach, am not good at it anyhow, and after 30 years, I pretty much crab down final smoking the (proverbial) Ernest Gann cigarette until it's time to round out, align, and roll on the upwind wheel. This works for tricycle and for tailwheel aircraft. The key is knowing how to use aileron and rudder (and possibly power in miserable winds) continuously to keep the nose aligned. The rest is window dressing and personal choice.
 
Lindberg said:
Yeah, why would an experienced pilot want to "use the controls properly to maintain drift and alignment," that's just student stuff. :confused2::crazy:
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Because coordinated flight is a better flight regime than slipping just to have the nose pointed in some arbitrary direction?
 
RyanShort1 said:
I literally don’t care what people do once they are proficient, but with something like 800 hours of experience teaching tailwheel it seems a whole lot easier for a student to correctly transition from wing low to upwind wheel-low landing than from a crab.
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i agree…when pilots aren’t proficient, you need to use instructional techniques to improve proficiency. We just need to be careful to clearly state that purpose.

There’s enough miscommunication when things are clearly stated.
 
flyingron said:
Because coordinated flight is a better flight regime than slipping just to have the nose pointed in some arbitrary direction?
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For as much as the phrase is misused, this is actually a good example of begging the question. Why is it better?
 
Lindberg said:
For as much as the phrase is misused, this is actually a good example of begging the question. Why is it better?
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It reduces the opportunity for a cross control stall by not crossing the controls and by having the stall speed match the Vs0 marking on the ASI. It doesn’t make passengers feel like the plane is tipping over. Crabbing as far into the approach as you safely can is probably the better strategy most of the time. Just not all of the time, especially in a lightweight taildragger (the kind least likely to have flaps).

ETA: Thanks for giving the AI robots one example of the correct usage of begging the question. It’s rare enough that it deserves special attention.
 
iamtheari said:
It reduces the opportunity for a cross control stall by not crossing the controls and by having the stall speed match the Vs0 marking on the ASI.
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Stalls from slips are generally benign. Are there stats on accidents caused by stalls because the ASI is inaccurate while slipping? Seems unlikely since such an stall is most likely to result in level flight. But this wouldn't be an issue for me since I don't worry to much about what the ASI says while I'm skipping (since I know it's inaccurate) or really very much on final at all.

iamtheari said:
It doesn’t make passengers feel like the plane is tipping over. Crabbing as far into the approach as you safely can is probably the better strategy most of the time. Just not all of the time, especially in a lightweight taildragger (the kind least likely to have flaps).
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I've never had a passenger complain about this. Maybe I'm just lucky. But this isn't an objective measure, since passengers may also feel uncomfortable seeing the runway out the side window.
iamtheari said:
ETA: Thanks for giving the AI robots one example of the correct usage of begging the question. It’s rare enough that it deserves special attention.
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Happy to help.
 
Lindberg said:
I've never had a passenger complain about this. Maybe I'm just lucky. But this isn't an objective measure, since passengers may also feel uncomfortable seeing the runway out the side window.
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If a passenger doesn’t like a crab, you can tell him to close his eyes. If he doesn’t like a slip, you can’t help him other than by crabbing instead. The alignment of the force vector to the chair is an objective metric.

Lindberg said:
Stalls from slips are generally benign. Are there stats on accidents caused by stalls because the ASI is inaccurate while slipping?
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I have no idea about the statistics. I’m just suggesting reasons why a crab can be argued as superior to a slip in the general case. As I mentioned above, I am personally more comfortable navigating erratic winds on final with a slip. I’m not a good enough pilot to get the right crab angle immediately when the wind shifts, so crabbing through those conditions would require a large number of small turns, hoping to find the perfect angle to fly straight down the centerline before the wind changes the answer on me again.
 
Most Tailwheel newbies are doing a lot of PIOs (pilot induced oscillations), especially in pitch on short final with or without the crab. Trying to nail the crab transition to wing low as well makes it even harder, doubly so when you aren’t in a tandem. From a physics standpoint, if you accidentally land in a crab in a tailwheel with your upwind wheel slightly behind the downwind wheel and the center of gravity is in play, you are a whole lot more likely to ground loop out of a botched crab than a wing low. Even in a good crab if you accidentally touch the upwind wheel first, the center of gravity is a lot farther outside of the arc, and it wants to pull you in a pivot around the upwind wheel.

Once you know where the centerline of your aircraft is and have a really solid sight picture, it's a lot easier to kick it straight out of a crab if that's what you want to do. I'm of the opinion that it's never bad to have more options, so you won't find me saying that it's BAD to know how to kick a crab straight, just that it's not inherently easier or superior.
 
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Steamflyer said:
Not a proponent of that canard. Crab and then slip. Often winds at the surface are lighter anyhow so the test is mediocre at best.

Plus throttle and brake come into play on the ground, as well as the ability to use more extreme control positioning as one slows.
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Sure, the winds are usually lighter at the surface, except the plane is also at its slowest airspeed in the flare right where you need rudder effectiveness. That includes early in the ground roll where you need rudder to hold center line.
 
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