How hard do you need to land a Piper Arrow too...

CaptLabrador

CaptLabrador

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Adam
Put the landing gear strut through the top of the wing :mad2:

Sorry not pictures but its not a stretch to picture. It wasnt me but happened in the Arrow I will need soon to take a CFI checkride in. SOB!!!

Im thinking it was a solid 3 feet of free fall :dunno:
 
I am thinking 3 feet would be a routine landing. I probably did 3 feet one night in my Warrior when the landing light went out.

no damage occurred.
 
One of the local arrows to me had a similar issue with a hard landing and some fairly large cracks in the wing, but I don' t think it went through the wing. Jeez had to have been hard considering some of the things students do to them.
 
IIRC there were a bunch of older Arrows that had this issue, the A&Ps here will know better but I thought this was also an inspection point for Older Arrows.
 
That's insane and scary kind of dont want to fly one now. Although I did a few weeks ago with Ryan from this board and it was smooth and a really nice flying plane. That seems like a crazy thing to happen.
 
marcoseddi said:
That's insane and scary kind of dont want to fly one now. Although I did a few weeks ago with Ryan from this board and it was smooth and a really nice flying plane. That seems like a crazy thing to happen.
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I've heard of it but having flown one as a student, I can say if the gear came out the top of the wing, they made a 'crater' landing or 'pancake' landing. Had to be well more than 3 feet. IMO
 
flyingmoose said:
One of the local arrows to me had a similar issue with a hard landing and some fairly large cracks in the wing, but I don' t think it went through the wing. Jeez had to have been hard considering some of the things students do to them.
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I think I know that plane
 
Warrior said:
I am thinking 3 feet would be a routine landing. I probably did 3 feet one night in my Warrior when the landing light went out.

no damage occurred.
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I have done far worse than that, no damage, related to the landing anyway!
 
marcoseddi said:
That's insane and scary kind of dont want to fly one now. Although I did a few weeks ago with Ryan from this board and it was smooth and a really nice flying plane. That seems like a crazy thing to happen.
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I wouldn't worry about it
 
Not very hard!

If you go to Alaska, (where I flew the bush in DHC-2) you will find numerous Cessna 207s with 35-50,000 hours, used as bush planes.

You will also see Piper Cherokee Sixes just bulldozed off to the side of the road. They are too fragile to use as a bush plane.

I like Cherokees, and own one, but would never put it to work off pavement.
 
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The surprising part for me is that it was, well, the Arrow. I heard it happening with Cherokee, where you can slow it down quite a bit, while generating a lot of sink, and thus pancake it down. Arrow II that I flew sinks nicely but any slower than that and it will dip the nose. I suppose if you slow it just right, but not slower, and do not flare at all, it may be done. That student is a real ace.

P.S. Actually, on second thought, I imagine one may dive on the runway at, say, 120 mph. Then, flare too late, too hard, and basically perform an accelerated stall. Yeah, that may be a simpler way to do it. Pilot needs balls of steel though.
 
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Well this was a high wind situation where the student, im told, was flying more with trim than the actual yoke, not ready or willing to use control inputs when a gust carried him up a few feet just before touchdown. Also, Id be willing to bet he was flying like a robot, full flaps on final every time not accounting for wind conditions. I cannot tell you how many students I see just think they can fly the same exact profile every time regardless of conditions.
 
CaptLabrador said:
Well this was a high wind situation where the student, im told, was flying more with trim than the actual yoke, not ready or willing to use control inputs when a gust carried him up a few feet just before touchdown. Also, Id be willing to bet he was flying like a robot, full flaps on final every time not accounting for wind conditions. I cannot tell you how many students I see just think they can fly the same exact profile every time regardless of conditions.
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Oh, I see....you're new here and didn't lurk much before posting.
 
Similar story with me except my Piper Arrow (before CFI checkride) was totaled by commercial student during cross wind landing. I ended up flying Mooney M20J which not fun airplane at all for power off 180s

Hang on there
 
Isn't this one of the situations where it will just buff right out?

David
 
CaptLabrador said:
Well this was a high wind situation where the student, im told, was flying more with trim than the actual yoke, not ready or willing to use control inputs when a gust carried him up a few feet just before touchdown. Also, Id be willing to bet he was flying like a robot, full flaps on final every time not accounting for wind conditions. I cannot tell you how many students I see just think they can fly the same exact profile every time regardless of conditions.
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I do full flaps on landing every single time regardless of the wind conditions in nearly every airplane I've ever flown. I teach the same as well. There may be an exception out there but an Arrow sure the hell isn't it.
 
CaptLabrador said:
Put the landing gear strut through the top of the wing :mad2:

Sorry not pictures but its not a stretch to picture. It wasnt me but happened in the Arrow I will need soon to take a CFI checkride in. SOB!!!

Im thinking it was a solid 3 feet of free fall :dunno:
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3' wouldn't do it.

To put the gear strut THROUGH an Arrow's wing requires a crash, not a landing.
 
jesse said:
I do full flaps on landing every single time regardless of the wind conditions in nearly every airplane I've ever flown. I teach the same as well. There may be an exception out there but an Arrow sure the hell isn't it.
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My problem with that is on some training a/c such as the 152 in the need for a go around with full flaps its very easy to get behind the power curve or have a nearly nil rate of climb.
 
There was an Arrow in the San Antonio area that I believe was landed hard like that by someone who should have been a better pilot... I think they lost their job over it.
 
jesse said:
I do full flaps on landing every single time regardless of the wind conditions in nearly every airplane I've ever flown. I teach the same as well. There may be an exception out there but an Arrow sure the hell isn't it.
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I think ideally people should be able to land with full flaps as well as with no flaps
 
Arrows have some fairly stout landing gear (I can attest to that.) A 3 foot drop is nothing to them.

But it's comforting to know the gear mounting bolts will shear off before the wing itself breaks.
 
zaitcev said:
The surprising part for me is that it was, well, the Arrow. I heard it happening with Cherokee, where you can slow it down quite a bit, while generating a lot of sink, and thus pancake it down. Arrow II that I flew sinks nicely but any slower than that and it will dip the nose. I suppose if you slow it just right, but not slower, and do not flare at all, it may be done. That student is a real ace.

P.S. Actually, on second thought, I imagine one may dive on the runway at, say, 120 mph. Then, flare too late, too hard, and basically perform an accelerated stall. Yeah, that may be a simpler way to do it. Pilot needs balls of steel though.
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That sounds to me like someone heavily overshot their power off 180 point and tried their hardest to plop it down.
 
Really hard. I have landed an arrow hard enough to probably pop fillings out, and have not done any damage. That thing just tends to be landed hard, due to the yoke force required to make a real flare.
 
CaptLabrador said:
Well this was a high wind situation where the student, im told, was flying more with trim than the actual yoke, not ready or willing to use control inputs when a gust carried him up a few feet just before touchdown. Also, Id be willing to bet he was flying like a robot, full flaps on final every time not accounting for wind conditions. I cannot tell you how many students I see just think they can fly the same exact profile every time regardless of conditions.
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Full flaps. Every landing. Regardless of wind conditions....
 
zaitcev said:
The surprising part for me is that it was, well, the Arrow. I heard it happening with Cherokee, where you can slow it down quite a bit, while generating a lot of sink, and thus pancake it down. Arrow II that I flew sinks nicely but any slower than that and it will dip the nose. I suppose if you slow it just right, but not slower, and do not flare at all, it may be done. That student is a real ace.

P.S. Actually, on second thought, I imagine one may dive on the runway at, say, 120 mph. Then, flare too late, too hard, and basically perform an accelerated stall. Yeah, that may be a simpler way to do it. Pilot needs balls of steel though.
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Some Arrows have the older hershey-bar wing, in which it may be easier. Even then though, it would be a pretty rough 'landing' to do it. I've come in hard on transition from a piper to a 172 with 40 degrees of flap and can see how one could end up with bent metal. But, if a pilot was transitioning from something like an old cessna to a cherokee, its harder to explain how they ended up liike that. IMHO

Also, I've never liked that 'start trimming up with elec trim for round-out-to-flare technique. In the 90's a lot of the newer/younger instructors taught that. Especially so in the newer 'swept wing' 1's 161, 181, 201... It didn't feel natural to me. The older instructors i worked with at that time didn't teach it. While it's a heavier yoke than many other light a/c, it's not extraordinarily so. I was 17, 6' tall, and weighed 140 pounds. I wasn't exactly a 'body builder.'
 
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TriGear28 said:
Also, I've never liked that 'start trimming up with elec trim for round-out-to-flare technique. In the 90's a lot of the newer/younger instructors taught that. Especially so in the newer 'swept wing' 1's 161, 181, 201... It didn't feel natural to me. The older instructors i worked with at that time didn't teach it. While it's a heavier yoke than many other light a/c, it's not extraordinarily so. I was 17, 6' tall, and weighed 140 pounds. I wasn't exactly a 'body builder.'
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I adapted the "electric trim in the flare" landing technique after purchasing our Pathfinder back in '02. That big ol' 6-cylinder O-540 makes for a fairly nose-heavy Cherokee, so for smoother landings I use 2-notches of flaps, and roll the trim back as I'm holding her in ground effect.

*chirp* is my reward. It works extremely well.

BTW, Cessna 182s are equally nose heavy. Which is why trying to flare that bird without properly trimming in advance feels like pulling Thor's hammer from the stone.
 
Yeah I always used a hefty amount of nose up trim in the flare in the Arrow. I'm not sure what it was about it, maybe the sight picture or something, but what looked and felt like a flare in most other small airplanes was in fact a pretty solid 3 point landing in an Arrow/Cherokee/Warrior.
 
CaptLabrador said:
My problem with that is on some training a/c such as the 152 in the need for a go around with full flaps its very easy to get behind the power curve or have a nearly nil rate of climb.
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Which is an issue regardless of wind conditions so your point is moot.

I've spent the last couple months flying 182s/Bonanzas in 30-40 knot winds pretty regularly. Full flaps every time and I'm still alive.
 
I don't use full flaps in my 182 with more than about 10kts of wind. A couple weeks ago I did a full flaps soft field landing (simulated) with about 25kts of wind and a gust came up as i was lowering the nose. Airplane went promptly back into the air and I had to go around. It doesn't hurt anything, especially on a long runway to just use 20 flaps instead of 40 IMO.
 
DavidWhite said:
Which is an issue regardless of wind conditions so your point is moot.

I've spent the last couple months flying 182s/Bonanzas in 30-40 knot winds pretty regularly. Full flaps every time and I'm still alive.
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You have a huge advantage over most of us, in that you fly almost every day. With that sort of practice, your proficiency is unequalled.

The rest of us weekend warriors must play it safe(r), to make up for our relative lack of proficiency. Thus, I will continue to use 2 notches of flaps when the wind is howling.
:D
 
What about less flaps makes things safer in high winds? Less flaps means you carry more energy into your touchdown which means you touchdown spinning the tiny tires underneath you at even faster speeds.

What is the primary cause for loss of control during the rollout of a landing? You'll find it's carrying too much energy. The slower you are the less that goes wrong. Less flaps means more energy. More energy is bad when you're riding a very poorly made car.
 
Yep, another good trick is to go 0 flaps on touch down, dump a good bit of lift and keep from getting beat up as much by the wind.
 
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kgruber said:
Oh. That's easy. Aerodynamics. There is less turning moment into the wind.

I assume you are not a floatplane pilot.
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Uh huh, think about that a bit, with less flaps you will touch down at a higher speed. You will also slow at a lower rate. Right after touchdown is when people lose control.

So you think the recipe to a safe landing is to do so at a higher speed, slow at a lower rate, all while skating around on some wheelbarrow tires?

Ill take touching down at a slower speed with much less energy every time.

You still have to slow down if you land faster and your wings are still making lift at that point.
 
jesse said:
Uh huh, think about that a bit, with less flaps you will touch down at a higher speed.
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One of aviation's most misunderstood (and oft misquoted) theories.

Flaps aren't there to slow you down (on many airplanes).

Flaps are there to steepen your approach.

The difference in stall speed between 20* and 40* of flaps on my 182 is...

...Are you ready for this big number?...

1 MPH

Yes

ONE.

So, yes, with any significant winds...especially crosswind...and plenty of runway (over 1,000') and a clear approach, I use minimum flaps.

I just don't need those barndoors out there screwing with me.

A normal landing is alway full flaps.

Note...with a 15 kt headwind and 20* of flaps my approach is just as steep and my groundsheet just as slow (actually slower) than they are with 40* and a 5 kt headwind.

So, why do I need full flaps again?
 
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