I am new to RV Flying. I recently bought an RV-4 and got local transition training from a local RV Pilot. So far so good, but I'm wondering a few things and thought I'd get some input before I tried them.
My transition instructor cautioned against doing a go-around on bounced landings, I mean like pretty big bounces. He said that trying to fly away from that low of airspeed would likely result in an extreme nose up climb out flying with excessive angle of attack and you might not have power to "fly out of it" meaning you would continue to struggle into the air at very high angle of attack, very high drag, and maybe not be successful in flying the plane out of this "minimum controllable airspeed" configuration and get it "up on plane", as in higher airspeed and lower angle of attack. He felt there was a considerable risk of struggling 50 or 100 feet into the air only to eventually stall and fall to the ground, much worse than the bounce would have been.
Is this thought by others to be true? Will an RV-4 (O-320 with C/S prop in my case) readily fly away from a bad bounced landing or is that indeed risky as described above. Of course you have the issue of getting the flaps up before you overspeed them, so that complicates the matter some, trying to retract flaps and not give up the little altitude you have.
Also, bad bounces more likely occur in gusty or gusty/crosswind situations. Usually landings on pretty days are pretty. I've focused on 3 point landings and flown in slight winds and even slighter crosswinds. Now I've become comfortable with this and am beginning to try slightly not so nice days. In my transition we talked about wheel landings in crosswinds and that although you touched down at higher speed which made the xwind more manageable, you eventually have to get slow enough to get the tail down, so before its over you have to deal with this low speed, minimum rudder effect condition before you can get the tail down, might as well deal with it before touchdown and deal with the hard ground at the lowest possible speed.
That seemed like good advice, hence my focus on doing good 3 pt landings, but now in practicing with more adverse winds I find that the chance of having a good 3 pt touchdown goes down with adverse winds, causing a risk of making the initial ground contact in an ugly fashion, making for a potential for things to get worse real fast with a xwind.
I'm thinking that a wheel landing gives better control in the initial ground contact and you can have a better chance of having a "clean" transition from flight to ground contact. Making ground contact "clean" and well under control lets you deal with the crosswind effects which will of course be more "pronounced" as your speed bleeds off on rollout, but at least you're dealing with this condition "under good control" and not dealing with it from a lousy touchdown with a rudder that's already of minimum effectiveness due to low airspeed.
This will probably open a can of worms/opinions but I'm interested in all of them, just please be gentle.
Also, regarding wheel landings, what is a good place to start practicing? What airspeed on touchdown and power setting specifically?
Thanks.
My transition instructor cautioned against doing a go-around on bounced landings, I mean like pretty big bounces. He said that trying to fly away from that low of airspeed would likely result in an extreme nose up climb out flying with excessive angle of attack and you might not have power to "fly out of it" meaning you would continue to struggle into the air at very high angle of attack, very high drag, and maybe not be successful in flying the plane out of this "minimum controllable airspeed" configuration and get it "up on plane", as in higher airspeed and lower angle of attack. He felt there was a considerable risk of struggling 50 or 100 feet into the air only to eventually stall and fall to the ground, much worse than the bounce would have been.
Is this thought by others to be true? Will an RV-4 (O-320 with C/S prop in my case) readily fly away from a bad bounced landing or is that indeed risky as described above. Of course you have the issue of getting the flaps up before you overspeed them, so that complicates the matter some, trying to retract flaps and not give up the little altitude you have.
Also, bad bounces more likely occur in gusty or gusty/crosswind situations. Usually landings on pretty days are pretty. I've focused on 3 point landings and flown in slight winds and even slighter crosswinds. Now I've become comfortable with this and am beginning to try slightly not so nice days. In my transition we talked about wheel landings in crosswinds and that although you touched down at higher speed which made the xwind more manageable, you eventually have to get slow enough to get the tail down, so before its over you have to deal with this low speed, minimum rudder effect condition before you can get the tail down, might as well deal with it before touchdown and deal with the hard ground at the lowest possible speed.
That seemed like good advice, hence my focus on doing good 3 pt landings, but now in practicing with more adverse winds I find that the chance of having a good 3 pt touchdown goes down with adverse winds, causing a risk of making the initial ground contact in an ugly fashion, making for a potential for things to get worse real fast with a xwind.
I'm thinking that a wheel landing gives better control in the initial ground contact and you can have a better chance of having a "clean" transition from flight to ground contact. Making ground contact "clean" and well under control lets you deal with the crosswind effects which will of course be more "pronounced" as your speed bleeds off on rollout, but at least you're dealing with this condition "under good control" and not dealing with it from a lousy touchdown with a rudder that's already of minimum effectiveness due to low airspeed.
This will probably open a can of worms/opinions but I'm interested in all of them, just please be gentle.
Also, regarding wheel landings, what is a good place to start practicing? What airspeed on touchdown and power setting specifically?
Thanks.