Emergency Landing: Tailwheel or Tricycle?

Lead with the left?

It was a single engine airplane. It's only got so many lefts.

In a multi engine airplane, however, I don't lead with one throttle over the other, be it two engines or four. They go up together.
 
MAKG1 said:
Sliding wheels don't care if they slide backwards or forwards, so what is to be gained over just locking the wheels straight ahead, aside from not being able to see where you're going?
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Sliding tires will slide sideways just as easily as straight ahead, which is why cars and some aircraft have ABS. Locking the mains removes their ability to roll the airplane straight ahead; full down elevator lifts the tail and reduces traction, and introducing yaw will cause it to spin around the nosewheel and most likely ding a wing as well.

Dan
 
Tom-D said:
Anyone ever actually seen the gear ripped out of aircraft?

that cockpit gets tore up really fast, and the Cessna gear is attached at 2 places. the hump in the center of t he fuselage, and the outer door post. The outer door post acts as the fulcrum and the inner end of the gear leg tears loose and rotates thru the leg area of the cockpit.

The fortunate gets their legs broke, the unfortunate loose them.
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Yikes :yikes:

I never knew that.
 
Dan Thomas said:
Sliding tires will slide sideways just as easily as straight ahead, which is why cars and some aircraft have ABS. Locking the mains removes their ability to roll the airplane straight ahead; full down elevator lifts the tail and reduces traction, and introducing yaw will cause it to spin around the nosewheel and most likely ding a wing as well.

Dan
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Huh? Unlike a car, which has brakes and steering on the same wheels, the nosewheel has no brake and can still be used to steer. Furthermore, unless conditions are virtually frictionless, there is a big backwards force from the sliding tires behind the CG on a tricycle. This is a stable configuration.

You'll still stop faster with threshold braking; that's what anti-skid buys for you. Skidding the tires is never advantageous.
 
MAKG1 said:
Huh? Unlike a car, which has brakes and steering on the same wheels, the nosewheel has no brake and can still be used to steer. Furthermore, unless conditions are virtually frictionless, there is a big backwards force from the sliding tires behind the CG on a tricycle. This is a stable configuration.

You'll still stop faster with threshold braking; that's what anti-skid buys for you. Skidding the tires is never advantageous.
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The nosewheel isn't skidding; the mains are.

When ABS first came out it was on the rear wheels only. When the rear wheels lock up, directional control is lost. And this is in cars where the CG is ahead of the mains, too, just like the trike. The "backwards force" of skidding rear tires (or aircraft mains) has less traction than the rolling front tires (or nosewheel) and the vehicle will want to swap ends.

Go out in a clear parking lot, get a little speed, and use the park brake to lock the rear tires and see what it wants to do. Introduce a little yaw with the steering. We used to have lots of fun that way when we were young and brave and tires were cheaper. Icy surfaces were even better, and gravel will demonstrate it nicely.

Dan
 
Dan Thomas said:
The nosewheel isn't skidding; the mains are.
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Yes, I know. That's part of the point.

Dan Thomas said:
When ABS first came out it was on the rear wheels only. When the rear wheels lock up, directional control is lost. And this is in cars where the CG is ahead of the mains, too, just like the trike. The "backwards force" of skidding rear tires (or aircraft mains) has less traction than the rolling front tires (or nosewheel) and the vehicle will want to swap ends.
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This misunderstands ABS rather substantially.

The reason RABS came out first was (a) because it's simpler to have a one-channel controller than two or three, and (b) because braking force is being applied from the front (it's all four wheels, but as much as 80% of the stopping power comes from the front wheels). This means, in a car, force is applied at the front and the rear is loose (skidding). This will make a car spin.

In a tricycle airplane, there is no front braking force; it is always applied from the rear. Both the braking/skidding force and the loose end are behind the CG. This is totally different from a car.

Have you ever tried to lock up rear wheels only with drum brakes and a handbrake? Really? It's a lot harder than you seem to think without hydraulic assist.
 
MAKG1 said:
Have you ever tried to lock up rear wheels only with drum brakes and a handbrake? Really? It's a lot harder than you seem to think without hydraulic assist.
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Have you? We did it all the time, even on the old drum brakes. Don't need hydraulic assist for parking brakes.

Dan
 
Difficult question since the real D B (if there is one) doesn't post here. The guy with the 40-paragraph answers isn't him.

bbchien said:
T-D "gets it". But so does Doug B.

Reviewing this string, it is so tempting to post

"Is D__g B__er a j__k? Discuss"........
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MAKG1 said:
Have you ever tried to lock up rear wheels only with drum brakes and a handbrake? Really? It's a lot harder than you seem to think without hydraulic assist.
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Only a few hundred times all through high school. It's not nearly as hard as you seem to believe. Put about 4 beers in a teenage boy and a giggly girl in the other seat and he'll pull that brake handle clean off the hinge if he has to.
 
Tailwheel.

I learned in tailwheel and most of my hours are flying tailwheel, so for me if its the best plane to land in a x-wind, e land, etc I normally default to tailwheel

Also tailwheel gives me more options for what type of landing I want to do, I have also found that t/w works a heck of alot better in soft/crap field work, also having had a engine failure at night in a tailwheel plane and not even scratching the paint on landing, its proven itself to me
 
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On the topic of ground looping a nose dagger, this is an excerpt from yesterday's FAA safety e-mail on BINGO fuel:
The C-210 landed on the runway after announcing “BINGO FUEL.” Noting that the C-210 was not going around, the Tower told the C-172 to start an immediate take-off roll prior to the C-210 landing. Aggressive braking by the C-210 pilot led to the aircraft making a 180-degree turn on the runway resulting in a blown right main gear tire. Closest proximity to the preceding aircraft reported by the Tower was 300 feet.
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timwinters said:
On the topic of ground looping a nose dagger, this is an excerpt from yesterday's FAA safety e-mail on BINGO fuel:
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A few days ago I observed what has to be the worst landing I've seen of C90 King Air. The pilot touched down nosewheel first past halfway down a 4000 ft runway, slammed into max reverse thrust and smoked the tires while braking to a stop within 100 ft of the runway end. On the first contact the nose strut was almost fully compressed before the mains even touched the pavement.
 
gismo said:
A few days ago I observed what has to be the worst landing I've seen of C90 King Air. The pilot touched down nosewheel first past halfway down a 4000 ft runway, slammed into max reverse thrust and smoked the tires while braking to a stop within 100 ft of the runway end. On the first contact the nose strut was almost fully compressed before the mains even touched the pavement.
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:needpics:

Heh heh.
 
nddons said:
Yikes :yikes:

I never knew that.
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There is a reason you din't know that... and that's because it almost never happens.

I could come up with what happens when the roof of your car gets ripped off by a rampaging gorilla too, and it would not be pretty.

I would worry about the odds of both those things happening equally.

To be honest, if I am hitting the ground hard enough to ripp off the landing gear, I am worried about a lot more then breaking or losing my legs.
 
DouglasBader said:
A groundloop occurs when the tailwheel attempts (and succeeds) in passing the main gear.

Some tricycle gear aircraft can be made to ground loop, but it requires stopping or drastically slowing one of the main gear (or striking a wing).

If nose gear embeds, the aircraft usually doesn't go over; it usually tears off the nose gear or bends it back, often as not wrinkling or wrecking the firewall.

I watched a fairly spectacular ground loop in a large conventional gear airplane, recently.
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What type of airplane was it? Some of the older taildraggers (mostly warbirds I am thinking of) have wide gear and respond very well to a groundloop. I swear I remember reading a very old airplane magazine which praised a certain airplane for its stable groundlooping qualities on short field landings
 
dell30rb said:
I swear I remember reading a very old airplane magazine which praised a certain airplane for its stable groundlooping qualities on short field landings
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Yep, that's one way to get an airplane stopped on a short field. :) But I wouldn't generally recommend it though...that is if you want to be able to fly the airplane back out. ;) Imagine doing this today:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFvD7Ok0ghY
 
To be honest, if I am hitting the ground hard enough to ripp off the landing gear, I am worried about a lot more then breaking or losing my legs.
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It's not uncommon to rip the landing gear off the airplane or collapse it during a ground loop. Not uncommonly, when that happens, it also damages the wing, separating it, or tearing it open, and sometimes exposing the fuel, which can easily lead to a fire.

It's not an issue of hitting the ground hard enough; it's an issue of ground looping with enough energy to damage the gear. In a ground loop, it doesn't take much.
 
airguy said:
Only a few hundred times all through high school. It's not nearly as hard as you seem to believe. Put about 4 beers in a teenage boy and a giggly girl in the other seat and he'll pull that brake handle clean off the hinge if he has to.
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I never had any trouble inducing a 180+ degree rotation with the handbrake until I tried it in a car with AWD.
 
DouglasBader said:
This airplane doesn't use them. The pilot was shaken, but not hurt.

The airplane has ample power for it's weight; 8,500 lbs empty, it has 1,500 shp. Get it slow and cob the power, such as a strong bounce on landing and already slow, it turns left with a vengeance, and once it starts, especially under power, it's going to snap around. That can happen in the air or on the ground. Add to that heavy feet and a little brake, it's going for a ride, and it did, as it departed the pavement in a big cloud of dust and dirt.

The pilot learned several valuable lessons which I hope were driven home forcefully enough to stick.
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Doug - What type of airplane weghs 8500lbs and has 1500hp, twin engines and a tailwheel?
 
I don't know. I specifically cited a single engine airplane.

See post 81.
 
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