A How To Guide for Wrecking Your Nose Wheel

[rackley16]

Thank You so very much Claude for sharing all of this. I am a very low time student pilot with the "mid life" dreams of piloting my own airplane. All of the things you have described are struggles I have encountered in the not so distant past in my training. All in a 172...... I still have a CFI sitting right seat to help rein me in. So that is comforting. I don't know how I will ever solo. I sometimes really start to question my own human abilities to be able to learn what it takes to land a plane. ANY PLANE....let alone an RV someday. I also fear the day I will be exactly in the place you were in, and will I be able to handle it to a safe conclusion as you did. I think about these things alot when I am not flying.

All of the posts here are very helpful in so many ways. Just knowing it is not just me, but that it is somewhat normal to struggle with landings is comforting. The insight on what might go wrong and how to correct it is food for my brain to "chair fly" the problems in my head.

I am grateful to all that contribute in this RV community.

[leok]

Originally Posted by rv6ejguy

Approach speed has little to do with your actual landings, just how much runway you use up as excessive speed bleeds off in ground effect where you better already have proper attitude established if you want smooth touchdowns.

I've done hundreds of approaches at anywhere between 60 and 85 knots with full flap, half flap and no flap with greasers resulting in the end. Obviously if you cross the numbers at 85 knots, you're going to float a long ways as the aircraft wants to just keep flying. If you try forcing the thing down on the runway at excessive speed, that's where you'll have trouble due to the level attitude which means the nose gear will probably touch first.

I find with full flap, leaving a trickle of power on improves the arrival at touchdown if you misjudge the roundout.

Get that nose up, especially in a 9A with the long nose gear, at about 5 feet and just hold it there until you touch down. I've found RVs are the easiest airplanes I've ever flown to land consistently well, once you establish the proper attitude at touchdown.

+1 for Ross.

Attitude at touchdown is the key. With plenty of runway, speed over the numbers is less of a concern to me as establishing a nose up attitude and letting the plane slow and settle before touchdown.

A good way to practice setting the correct attitude is to find a long runway, approach a landing, then hold the plane just off the ground and ease in a little power. Hold the wheels off the ground. Fly most of the length of the runway. Then power up to go around, or power down to land. This is great practice for holding the center line in a cross wind as well. You can even ease into this by doing repeated approaches to land starting at higher speed and reducing the speed each time until you get minimum speed for holding the wheels off the ground. Plan on a go around each time until you reach the speed where you feel the plane wanting to settle. Not drop, just settle.

I find in most cases, when I get everything just right, the wheels kiss the ground a time or two in the length of the runway. Especially if there is a little wind variability. My landings are much better after a session of this type of practice.

[ClayR_9A]

In my 9A I've found that it is super easy to land but only when you aren't going too fast. Then you need to hold it a foot or two off the runway until it stops flying. If you're too fast, that can take up a lot of runway, because it will glide forever. Passengers don't even notice you've landed. If you touch the ground above stall speed, it will fly again.

The nose gear doesn't need to touch the ground until a lot later in the landing rollout. Just hold it off with back elevator until it won't stay up anymore.

Get comfortable flying very slow. This plane can do it. It is quite different than landing a 6 or 7 to me.

[rvbuilder2002]

And what is best practice, when talking about landing technique.

Sure, a landing can be accomplished even if crossing the threshold at cruise speed, if the runway is long enough, but that fact is of no help to someone freshly transitioning to RV's or still at the low end of the lower time in type scale.

There is a reason that the professional pilot community is required to have a stabilized approach within a specific margin of proper speed for landing, and it isn't just to assure they can get down and stopped within the length of runway available.

Main point..... giving advice to someone that has been open about having trouble getting slowed down to a proper landing speed... that it doesn't matter if you can't slow down... you should still be able to make good landings.... is not helping them improve.

[rocketman1988]

?...Apparently, the landing gear on my Lancair is different enough from the RV gear that I can make "level" landings with no problem...?

Again, go for it if it works for you. I stand by my comments, though. I would NEVER recommend this for any of my students...

Also consider that even with oleos, the landing loads must go somewhere; they are not magically dissipating those loads into thin air...

[rv6ejguy]

Originally Posted by rvbuilder2002

And what is best practice, when talking about landing technique.

Sure, a landing can be accomplished even if crossing the threshold at cruise speed, if the runway is long enough, but that fact is of no help to someone freshly transitioning to RV's or still at the low end of the lower time in type scale.

There is a reason that the professional pilot community is required to have a stabilized approach within a specific margin of proper speed for landing, and it isn't just to assure they can get down and stopped within the length of runway available.

Main point..... giving advice to someone that has been open about having trouble getting slowed down to a proper landing speed... that it doesn't matter if you can't slow down... you should still be able to make good landings.... is not helping them improve.

I'd also recommend a stabilized approach at a consistent and reasonable speed since the touchdown results should be more predictable and consistent, especially when new to ANY airplane.

That being said, only the last 3-6 feet count to make smooth landings and speed over the numbers has nothing to do with that gentle touchdown as I said. It's all about a smooth roundout at the appropriate height above the runway and holding the correct attitude until the plane gently settles to the ground.

RVs require minimal and slow stick movement to initiate that roundout compared to something like a 172. I see many people used to less sensitive or heavy airplanes, over control in the roundout and do a series of porpoises while the try to establish the correct attitude and feel for the runway. Time those wrong and you can touch on the nose wheel first.

[rocketman1988]

Yep and the dreaded PIO usually doesn?t end well...

[snopercod]

Oh well lookie here. Chuck_KC just posted a video of some Touch & Goes in his RV-6a. He lands his RV-6a exactly like I land my Lancair! Brother!

http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...d.php?t=169995

[rvbuilder2002]

I learned a long time ago that a demo of something in a video posted on youtube does not prove that it is the proper way to do something.....

If you look close at his video (pause at the moment that the mains touch) I think you will see that it is far from being a 3 point landing, though he certainly could have held it off longer and touched down at a higher AOA. Better form, is to also hold the nose wheel off as long as possible and then softly set it down before it drops on its own.

[lr172]

Originally Posted by rvbuilder2002

I learned a long time ago that a demo of something in a video posted on youtube does not prove that it is the proper way to do something.....

If you look close at his video (pause at the moment that the mains touch) I think you will see that it is far from being a 3 point landing, though he certainly could have held it off longer and touched down at a higher AOA. Better form, is to also hold the nose wheel off as long as possible and then softly set it down before it drops on its own.

And there are differences in aircraft. The 6, in that video, sits at about 5* positive AOA on it's gear, compared to a 7 that appears much closer to 0 (don't own one so going off visuals). The 6 needs to be held at a more agressive angle of atteck when touching down to keep a good margin between the nose wheel and the ground.

Larry