Landing downhill (video)

FastEddieB

FastEddieB

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Fast Eddie B
On another forum a discussion started about special techniques when landing on a downward sloped runway.

I hold there really aren't any - you just stay in the flare a LOT longer as the runway falls away beneath you.

My old base, Blue Ridge Skyport (57GA) is a converted dragstrip with a steep grade on the north end.

I realized I had lots of videos of landing to the north, but none landing to the south. Today was a beautiful day to fly, and the winds were southerly, so what better excuse to go flying!

Here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkHmA8LYTmA&feature=youtu.be
 
Wow. I hadn't thought about this point. You keep trying to land, but the damn runway keeps moving away from the plane!
 
That is a mighty impressive grade. It almost looks easier just to go long and touchdown past the hangers, like you did.
 
I'd have touched down on the flat part up top ;)
 
Wouldn't it be best to fly it onto that part and then brake? Much more effective way to slow down.
 
Short of hurricane force winds always land uphill.
 
I just make a habit of...

1) Trying to use all avalaible runway - or ar least as much as possible, and...

2) Landing as slowly as possible.

Those habits are hard to break.

But with my Light Sport only needing a few hundred feet to land, I could have easily come in higher and steeper and landed farther down the runway. Truth be told, by staying out of ground effect, it might even result in a shorter landing. I may try that next time conditions permit.

And I just don't like "planting" a plane fast. I'm capable of it, but it just seems wrong!
 
Cool video.

For safety's sake, you could say add 25% or better to your margins when landing downhill looking at that vid.

maybe more.:dunno:
 
When going into Prestonburg, KY (changed from K22to KSJS) for the excellent Cloud Nine Diner, landing downhill is an experience. It's just a long, long flare. The runway has ~500' flat then starts uphill when going north; going south, the runway start on the downhill slope.

But it sits on a reclaimed strip mine, so we're just glad it's there. And the food is good! Uphill takeoffs are fun, the plane just flies off like always, it just takes a little longer. The uphill taxi for a downhill takeoff takes lots of throttle, though, often past turkeys and elk.
 
NiceRunway.jpg



Dan
 
txflyer said:
Cool video.

For safety's sake, you could say add 25% or better to your margins when landing downhill looking at that vid.

maybe more.:dunno:
Click to expand...

Maybe a LOT more. Twice or three times, anyway. We used to use a training strip on a farm that had a 40 foot slope between its southern threshold and the crest, about 2000 feet away, and if you were landing to the south you'd better be on the ground at the northern threshold, about 300 feet from the crest, or you'd glide clear to the bottom in ground effect. I visited another strip (didn't get a chance to fly it) in South Africa that had maybe 100 feet of slope in about 1500 feet of runway; definitely a one-way strip no matter what the wind was doing unless it was almost hurricane force.

This is it:

plane+lift+off.jpg


Dan
 
That was nuts! Those trees looked mighty close. Seemed like it wasn't your first rodeo though.
 
Prefer to land uphill,let the runway meet the airplane,unless wind is too strong.
 
Cool video.

I have landed on uphill and downhill runways. And strips that, regardless of wind you were gonna land uphill, and regardless of wind, you were gonna take off downhill.
 
Nice. I remember a notation on a performance chart, and it's escaping me which plane, but I remember a correlative figure between tail component and negative grade that used the same correction line on the Distance to Land calculator flow through work graph thing to add a distance correction at the end.
 
Irish_Armada said:
That was nuts! Those trees looked mighty close. Seemed like it wasn't your first rodeo though.
Click to expand...

The GoPro always makes approaches seem lower and "flatter" on video than in real life. I set the GoPro to "Med" rather than "Wide" to try to minimize that illusion, and it helps but does not eliminate it.

Still, for someone who spent most of his flying career in S FL, this type of mountain strip did take some adjustment. Coming down in a notch between higher trees on either side is "different" - and precludes landing with any significant crosswind.
 
I did one time try to video three nearly identical approaches, each with the GoPro set to different fields of view:

http://youtu.be/HhycU4UV90k

I may have mislabeled the three fields of view - I think they're ULTRAWIDE, MEDIUM and NARROW.

Regardless, the last one most closely approximates the real view from the cockpit.
 
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