Full Stall Landings

Mooney Fan

Mooney Fan

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Mooney Fan
I was taught to have the stall horn chattering to blaring after a stable flare. Video attached is short final today Rwy 35 Dicskon Tn (M02) and I got the horn to honk. I was flying a C-172.

So what to you all think? How were you taught when it comes to stall landings and if not, what are some of the concerns

Thanks
-MF

 
Looks nice to me. Did you let the nose plop down or did the tail quit flying? Not saying I can always do it, but I try to let the 182 nose down easier than that if I can. Cessna nose struts can take a pounding but if I can avoid it...
 
The stall warning comes on five to ten MPH/knots before the actual stall. Blaring doesn't mean stalling. It's pretty much impossible to stall most ordinary airplanes in the flare; the angle of attack isn't nearly high enough.

Airplanes whose "tails quit flying" mostly don't get certified. The early 177s had that issue and they had to have a slot put in the stabilator to stop it. The older 182s had a bad habit of hammering the nose down, and I think it was because the main wheels were just a bit too far aft. A bit of power makes it a lot easier. The R182 (182RG) had the mains further forward and it landed like a pussycat.
 
Dan Thomas said:
The stall warning comes on five to ten MPH/knots before the actual stall. Blaring doesn't mean stalling. It's pretty much impossible to stall most ordinary airplanes in the flare; the angle of attack isn't nearly high enough.

Airplanes whose "tails quit flying" mostly don't get certified. The early 177s had that issue and they had to have a slot put in the stabilator to stop it. The older 182s had a bad habit of hammering the nose down, and I think it was because the main wheels were just a bit too far aft. A bit of power makes it a lot easier. The R182 (182RG) had the mains further forward and it landed like a pussycat.
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Well I was thinking more in terms of a heavy wind for the Cessnas. You can roll forever with the nose in the air with a little power in a 15 knot headwind at landing.

I don’t see many 182s where the tail gave up and honked the nose gear down. It’s usually that the pilot is reluctant for whatever reason to keep coming all the way back with the yoke after touchdown.

Usually with the excuse that it’s “too heavy” when they easily did it during “Flight controls free and correct” just before their run-up to go flying in the first place. :)

You usually can “fly the nose gear on” softly if you try in Skyhawks and Skylanes but they’re often a tad nose heavy when loaded for the typical training flight with two aboard and somewhere between full and half tanks, so you have to get that yoke back.

That’s one of the indications I can tell I’m getting lazy on landings in ours. The nose wheel will plop on. Not hard, just kinda “thump”. It means I wasn’t fast enough on that yoke to the rear which means I relaxed at landing instead of following through.

(I’ll often also notice the ailerons aren’t hard over at the stops in the direction of the cross wind component when I see the nose thump down. For me the relaxing and lack of follow through happens for the entire yoke when I get lazy.)

The aft main wheels theory is a good one though. Probably combined with the typical two person loading it doesn’t help. But we’re almost always way forward on the W&B chart too. I’ve seen people recommend tossing a tool box in the back of the baggage area to help a touch with that. Any rearward loading helps make for nice landings in a 182.
 
denverpilot said:
Looks nice to me. Did you let the nose plop down or did the tail quit flying? Not saying I can always do it, but I try to let the 182 nose down easier than that if I can. Cessna nose struts can take a pounding but if I can avoid it...
Click to expand...

Yea, I let it down in that I wanted to get on the brakes for an early turn-off but it was moot, I had to make the second turn-off instead. Carried a little extra speed I that needed to bleed off. I was aiming for the Captain bars and was a little long. Today I'll be flying the Archer and will focus on the numbers. Today's task is to work with the coupled A/P to the Garmin 650

-Geaux

-MF
 
I had flap gap seals on a 172. The airplane would float all day on landing. Never could get the stall warning horn ,on landing in the flare.
 
My goal is, conditions permitting, to have the stick or yoke hit the aft stop as the mains plotz - or squeak - onto the runway. It’s an elusive goal, but I could land my Cirrus very close to the 60k stall speed, and my Sky Arrow at or very close to its 40k stall speed.

That goal is in place to minimize the energy carried at touch down. If things do go wrong, every extra knot is extra energy to be dissipated somehow, and that energy increases as the square of the increase in speed.

Landing at or near stall will not apply to all GA aircraft nor to all conditions, but works for the majority of situations.
 
My Mooney lands when its done flying. Sometimes I hear the stall horn, sometimes I don't.
 
In the 172, Cirrus, and TB9, I always had the stall horn singing to me on landing.

In my traveler, I have only ever heard the stall horn once and that was in a BFR.
I thought maybe the stall horn was inop or something but it doesn't sound on landing but the plane certainly is done flying.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
...In my traveler, I have only ever heard the stall horn once and that was in a BFR.
I thought maybe the stall horn was inop or something but it doesn't sound on landing but the plane certainly is done flying.
Click to expand...

I do believe they can be adjusted, not sure about the grum.
 
First off, there is no such thing as a full stall landing. Your aircraft is not stalled when it touches down. The warning horn is not the stall (it comes before the stall or else it isn't much warning). Lack of lift to maintain level fight does not equate to a stall.

A near stall AOA isn't always necessary for a smooth touchdown, but usually, it is.
 
Go do slow flight. Not to a stall but just before it. Attitude controls airspeed, power controls descent. Find your happy place in that relationship and use it for landing. The airplane isn't stalling as much as the ground is getting in the way of the descent. Ground effect factors into it.

In the video? Fast, long, drifting to the right of centerline in the flare. It looks like you're waiting for the airplane to stop flying, not controlling it to. Pick a specific spot on the runway and try to make the mains hit it every time.
 
Stewartb said:
In the video? Fast, long, drifting to the right of centerline in the flare. It looks like you're waiting for the airplane to stop flying, not controlling it to. Pick a specific spot on the runway and try to make the mains hit it every time.
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A bit nit-picky in my book.

I do usually like to aim for a specific point, often the numbers. But on a long enough runway it really doesn't matter all that much.

I thought it was a nice landing.
 
Mooney Fan said:
Yea, I let it down in that I wanted to get on the brakes for an early turn-off but it was moot, I had to make the second turn-off instead. Carried a little extra speed I that needed to bleed off. I was aiming for the Captain bars and was a little long. Today I'll be flying the Archer and will focus on the numbers. Today's task is to work with the coupled A/P to the Garmin 650

-Geaux

-MF
Click to expand...

What are Captain bars?
 
frfly172 said:
I had flap gap seals on a 172. The airplane would float all day on landing. Never could get the stall warning horn ,on landing in the flare.
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I have the flap gap seals too, and wonder if they reduce the effectiveness of the Fowler-action flap. In normal conditions I cross the fence pretty slowly, 55 KIAS with 20°-40° of flap. I get the Cessna "wheeze" to a pretty high pitch, but only occasionally does the horn itself come on before touchdown.

In a C-150 and C-172 (even at forward CG) it's fairly easy to roll on the mains after touchdown and hold the nosewheel off all the way down to a slow speed. V-tail Bonanza, too, and Grumman American Tigers and Cheetahs. Not so much the earlier Traveler (sorry, Bryan), with its smaller horizontal tail.

In a T-tail Arrow, the nosewheel comes down promptly and, in the words of our 35th President, "with great vigah." The PA-28RT stabilator is about 13% smaller than that on a low-tail Arrow or other taper-wing PA-28, and just doesn't have as much authority. Looking at all the aerodynamic gimickry (slots, fences, fillets) on a PA-28RT stabilator, I'm guessing Piper engineers had a heckuva time getting it to fly right.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I thought maybe the stall horn was inop or something but it doesn't sound on landing but the plane certainly is done flying.
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Yea. The reed might need to have an adjustment. One of our club planes used to be like that. You could go out and practice stalls and just barely hear a chirp out of the stall horn.

Some landings I hear the horn, others I don't. As long as I'm within my intended touchdown point or thereabouts, I don't worry too much about it.
 
Ryanb said:
Yea. The reed might need to have an adjustment. One of our club planes used to be like that. You could go out and practice stalls and just barely hear a chirp out of the stall horn.

Some landings I hear the horn, others I don't. As long as I'm within my intended touchdown point or thereabouts, I don't worry too much about it.
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There are other possibilities with inop or reluctant stall warnings in Cessnas. That reed sometimes gives up, but more often it's due to leaks around the scoop inside the leading edge, or the scoop is cracked. It's just plastic, and age and sunlight wreck it. You should be able to get a beep with a gentle suck on that slot in the leading edge. If you have to pull hard, something's busted. We sometimes even find the reed has popped loose in the horn.

The slot position is also adjustable, to get the beep 5 to 10 MPH before stall. Moving it up brings it on sooner.

Make sure that leading edge is clean before sucking on it. I've even seen lipstick on it.
 
If you have a full stall landing should be near the end of your checklist. Did you pitch the nose down and apply full power?
 
Mooney Fan said:
Yea, I let it down in that I wanted to get on the brakes for an early turn-off but it was moot, I had to make the second turn-off instead. Carried a little extra speed I that needed to bleed off. I was aiming for the Captain bars and was a little long. Today I'll be flying the Archer and will focus on the numbers. Today's task is to work with the coupled A/P to the Garmin 650

-Geaux

-MF
Click to expand...

It looked deliberate. Yup. I hear ya.

eman1200 said:
initial report is that the plug lead nuts were cracked. hoping to get more details today.
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Eman has cracked nuts. Why is this not a surprise?

dmspilot said:
What are Captain bars?
Click to expand...

1000’ marker or equivalent on other types of paint.

Dan Thomas said:
There are other possibilities with inop or reluctant stall warnings in Cessnas. That reed sometimes gives up, but more often it's due to leaks around the scoop inside the leading edge, or the scoop is cracked. It's just plastic, and age and sunlight wreck it. You should be able to get a beep with a gentle suck on that slot in the leading edge.
Click to expand...

My Cessna has a little flappy switch just like a lot of them do. I don’t suck on it.
 
denverpilot said:
My Cessna has a little flappy switch just like a lot of them do. I don’t suck on it.
Click to expand...

It, too, is adjustable. And yes, I prefer that switch over the much cheaper vacuum horn. I don't get dead bugs or pathogens off it when I check it. But the switch assembly in there is awesomely expensive.
 
eman1200 said:
CRIKEY Hank, we know you had one good landing back in 1982 as we've seen this one video over and over. can't u get something from this century? holy moly, don't u have an iphone or something?
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I need a willing passenger to operate the camera . . . .

My wife did this one coming home from a 4-plane breakfast run, taking pictures most of the way. I noticed her aiming out front, asked what she was doing--she said don't worry about it, just land the plane, so I did. Saw the video that evening. I keep it on my desktop at work, so I can watch it when unable to fly. Guess I need a new one for my new home field, huh? This one was probably 2010 or 2011.

Too bad there are so few places to fly to and eat around here, and that I'm the only plane at my field.
 
Hank S said:
This is how I land. Listen for the buzz, then the chirps.

Click to expand...
Actually it looked like you dragged it in a bit, then floated.
Perhaps that's just the camera angle.
 
Kritchlow said:
Actually it looked like you dragged it in a bit, then floated.
Perhaps that's just the camera angle.
Click to expand...

That was the trees. Had to add power to level off at 700 msl, clear the trees, go to idle and land. Field elevation is 567 msl.
 
Hank S said:
That was the trees. Had to add power to level off at 700 msl, clear the trees, go to idle and land. Field elevation is 567 msl.
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Okay... my post stands.
I have no issues with your corrective actions.
 
Hank, I flew to 3W2 yesterday and I think my landing was just about like yours. Hug the trees, pull out the power and bring it down. Difference is mine was probably a bit bumpier. There are reasons why the interior of the Lucky Strike is a camera free zone.
 
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