Yoke, Flaps, Brakes, and Landings

[RJBrown]

" I can't think of a reason for holding the nose off during a normal landing"

I feel this statement is perfectly backwards. I can't think of a reason for NOT holding the nose gear off during a normal landing.

If you hold the nose off on a Mooney you do at least 3 things.

#1 It increases your margin of error in relation to porpoising. (most landing damage is directly related to landing on the nose)

 #2 forces better habits

#3 protects your nose gear and prop.

 I flew a Rocket for 800 hours and I took pride in keeping the extra weight off the more delicate nose wheel and protecting that longer prop.  I consider the the mains the landing gear the nose wheel is only for steering on the ground. The mains are very simple and strong the nose gear is not.

[bd32322]

shadrach - yeah i will need to do a high speed taxi test - but I am pretty suspicious that my brakes are not as good as they should be - e.g. on a short field take off my brakes dont hold as I reach full power.

 

anyway its not that I am running out of runway - just that the stopping distance surprises me - I expect it to stop here and it goes and stops there - I thought txbyker was noticing the same thing - its could be because of the higher weight of the aircraft I now fly combined with maybe bad brakes.

 

RJBrown - I agree with you - there seems to be no reason to not hold the nosewheel off - it doesnt brake - it gives a tiny amount of useless drag (induced drag and next t0 0 parasitic drag, compared to braking) - but I'll take it and it just plain feels bad when it goes over bumps at speed on my bumpy airport runway.

 

[PTK]

 

PK-

   Just like jetdriven mentions- the AOA at which airflow seperates from the wing( a stall occurs) is always the same.  So if you're in a loaded up turn with your gear down at max gross weight, you'll stall at the same AOA as a min weight power off stall.  Same holds for accelerated stalls.....

By having an AOA indicator you're not only giving yourself a constant on-speed AOA for the approach, no matter what your weight... you'll also know exactly at which point your aircraft will stall, no matter what condition you're in (turn, loaded up, light weight, straight in, etc, etc). 

If you want safety... an AOA gauge is worth more than an aspen upgrade IMHO... it gives you a piece of the puzzle you don't already have, and simplifies any approach by giving the pilot only 2 numbers to remember- what is your critical AOA where you'll stall and what AOA to use for the approach (crtical plus a buffer).

Like I said- I'm partial to AOA, as that's what we use for our carrier traps in the Navy.... Meatball, Lineup, AOA... Meatball, Lineup, AOA...

Thank you for the explanation Job.  I see it now. With an AOA indicator you don't care about anything else, It makes it simpler.  Which one do you have in your Mooney?  I like the idea.  

And I'm no Aspen fan!!  I'm waiting for a PFD only unit from Garmin.  Rumor has it it's coming!!

 

[Hank]

I went out last night and paid attention to what I was doing. Made 3 landings:  3500 x 30 with a hill that prevents a straight final [halfway through base leg, 45 it towards the runway]; 2000 x ~50 grass [short final is a slot carved through the trees]; and home, 3000 x 75, hold 150 agl to clear trees on short final.

Results:  winds were near calm, so I was a little high on both paved runways, requiring more flaps than normal. The first one I had full flaps halfway through base, kept speed at 90 mph in order to descend, throttle to idle early, smooth flare, gentle touchdown. Still think the runway lights are too close to my wings . . . The nose was down about 1 second after the mains, fairly normal for me, with the stall horn chirping before the mains. It is easy to hold throttle at idle and reach the flap up switch, but then again, I have a quadrant with three levers rather than the push-pull knobs.

It's really hard to tell when the nosewheel hits grass . . . but yes, I raised the flaps with my right hand on rollout and kept LOTS of up elevator as I bumped along on rollout and on back-taxi. This was a more normal landing, 15" on downwind with TO flaps, drop gear, start descent and adjust trim, retard throttle to maintain descent at 90 mph. Retard throttle again turning final, slow down, cross the [wooden] fence ~10' at 80, slow down, buzz-buzz, bump, bump, bump with lots of UP and raise the flaps.

On pavement in still or light winds, I don't use much UP elevator on rollout unless I need significant braking. As it is, even with 3/4 flaps and crossing the trees at 150' agl at idle, descending across the 4-lane road cut, I think I landed on the 2nd stripe, rolled out with almost no braking and was turning around before about 2500'.

What are you talking about, "making the exit"? Both paved fields had one, near the center, for parking and FBO; the grass field has two uphill ramps to the [only] hangar and FBO; parking is along the side of the grass.

[Txbyker]

Exits??  My homefield has 4 or 5 along the runway.  On touch down I hear "88 Golf exit echo",...as I pass echo, "check that 88 Golf exit foxtrot", "um can you make golf?" 

Lots of good replies here.  After reading the many great ways everyone has to roll out I think my issue is that of speed.  As I think about it, I rarely hear my stall horn.  I think my mains are touching around 60-65 full flaps.

[Shadrach]

60-65kts?

[Hank]

I target 90 mph downwind & base, 85 mph final, 80 mph short final - 5 mph every 300 lbs below gross.

[jlunseth]

Let me clarify what I said, because in light of these comments it appears I was not clear:

"If you hold the nose off on a Mooney you do at least 3 things.

#1 It increases your margin of error in relation to porpoising. (most landing damage is directly related to landing on the nose)

 #2 forces better habits

#3 protects your nose gear and prop."

I was not talking about the flare.  It is necessary to flare.  Porpoising is caused by landing nose gear first, and that would be caused by not flaring.  What I was talking about, was that once the nose gear is on the runway, absent special circumstances such as a soft field, there is no good reason to hold back pressure.  In fact, there are good reasons not too.  The principal reason is that in gusty crosswind conditions, steerage with the nose wheel off the ground is different from steerage with the nose wheel on the ground, and going back and forth between the two (which can happen if you get a gust while holding the elevator back), can make the plane skitter across the runway unpredictably, on the nose gear one minute and the rudder the next. 

Once the nose wheel is on the ground, keep it on the ground. 

A Cessna is different, the gear will shimmy if the nose gear becomes too heavily loaded to quickly.  The Mooney nose gear may not be as strong as the mains, but it is certainly strong enough to be relied on to steer the aircraft. 

[Parker_Woodruff]

jlunseth - I disagree.  backpressure after the nosewheel is on the ground is still helpful in keeping weight on the main gear (even if it doesn't visibly raise the nosewheel off the ground).

[Shadrach]

jlunseth - I don't raise the nose wheel once it's on the ground, because under normal circumstances it won't touch the ground until right before I run out of elevator to keep it there.  Certainly I adjust technique as necessary for X-wind landings. If you can nail your numbers all day long and choose to drop the nose then fine.  I see a lot of folks that don't/can't and should IMHO, they should learn how to control their planes at low speed. As I've said before, I have a "Flight Safety trained" neighbor with a Bravo and his runway minimums are 3500ft... I think that is sad. If he would approach his landings the way many of us here are advocating, he'd quickly see that he's not landing but flying the wheels on... he uses 1/2 flaps to "help" get it down faster. I've consistently seen poor speed control within our ranks and it's why we get razzed by the pilots of other makes.  

There's a reason why the guys the work the pilot shop at 2W2 (1840ft 2.1% downhill) come outside to watch whenever they hear a Mooney self announce on freq, and it ain't because we have a stellar reputation for having them "on the numbers", over the numbers...  

[David Mazer]

Shadrach, I believe that a Mooney is different than most other makes of GA SEL planes and that is a good thing.  Many GA SEL planes are excellent at their particular mission and a Mooney's mission is to fly as fast and efficiently as possible at a given power.  To do that means it needs to be a slick airplane that doesn't slow down as easily as other planes with other missions.  To expect a Mooney to land as short as another comparable airplane (power and cost of operation wise) isn't reasonable.  Yes, we can do better than most of us do on a routine basis, and I'm sure I'm one of them, but we didn't buy Mooneys to go into tiny, rough, back country strips either.  Buy or use the appropriate airplane for the mission and you have a lot better chance of completing the mission successfully.

[jetdriven]

Mazer if someone can't land their Mooney in a 2500' strip below 2000' elevation then they should go get a CFI and practice until they can. Without drama. Same with a 15 knot crosswind.  Their insurance underwriter and their passengers deserve better.

Mooneys demand precise airspeed control.  Nail the airspeed as Shadrach and others have pointed out, idle power when clear of obstacles, and max braking with aerobraking.  This airplane does not land and stop all that different than your 182s, warriors,  etc. But it demands close airspeed control.  We used to land and stop the Beech 1900 with passengers on in ~900'.

[M016576]

>>>>>Thank you for the explanation Job. I see it now. With an AOA indicator you don't care about anything else, It makes it simpler. Which one do you have in your Mooney? I like the idea. And I'm no Aspen fan!! I'm waiting for a PFD only unit from Garmin. Rumor has it it's coming!!<<<<<<<

 

PK-   No problem!  I looked into the Alpha Systems AOA kits.  They have a bunch of different indicators, but the one I like the best is the dash mount mechanical kit. (AOA-5070K)..

Here's why-  My first impulse was the electric legacy display, which has a traditional indexer which is somewhat similar on first glance to what I use in the Hornet.  It is slightly different, however, in the way that it portrays On Speed AOA, (called OAA by Alpha systems), and different enough that I felt like I could potentially mis-read the gauge based on my previous experience with the Hornet's system.  Rather than set myself up for a human factors issue, I went with the significantly cheaper mechanical dash mount.

I like the Dash mount mechanical gauge for 2 reasons-

1) it doesn't require power and is self-contained- so if I lose vacuum, pitot or power, I still have an AOA reference that I can use to land with.

2) The needle and gauge are close to my line of sight as I'm landing and above the glareshield, thus giving me the ability to not have to "come back inside the cockpit" while I'm landing to check my AOA (or airspeed).

The one thing I wish I could get with the mechanical gauge is the audible tones you get from the electric models, but I weighed the pros of having a self contained system vs the con of missing the audible tone, and decided to go with the mechanical setup.  Either are fantastic choices if you're interested in an AOA gauge.

When flying with the AOA gauge, I add a single step to my approach procedure: I do an AOA cross-check with my A/S indicator once I'm stabalized either on downwind, or on approach at the FAF to ensure that the gauge isn't fouled and the needle isn't stuck.  I do this as soon as I put the gear down (I added it to my gear-down checklist)  Once I've done that quick crosscheck, I'm all AOA on in to touchdown....

The ramifications of trying to land using a stuck AOA gauge would be disasterous, as you can all probably imagine!

-Job

[jetdriven]

if your airspeed is proper for the weight and configuration, the AOA isnt needed.  Something else to get distracted with.

[sleepingsquirrel]

As far as AOA indicators, why wouldn't a woolen yarn trailing from the OAT give AOA? Given  that sailors use tell tales to see flow separation why couldn't I use a yarn on the wing to see the same thing?

 

 

[Shadrach]

Squirrel, 

My OAT is in the upper rt hand side of the pilots windshield (split windshield). Where is yours? A piece of yarn on my plane would only tell me when the boundary layer was separating from the roofline area, which is probably often given the angle of the the windshield. I don't think it would be a very good indicator of how the wings are flying.

[sleepingsquirrel]

Mounted in the side window above the storm window. Yes ,the prop slipstream may preclude using it here in tractor aircraft. I've seen too many pictures of tufts of yarn in wind tunnels to believe that a simple inexpensive indicator shouldn't be put to use. So tuft of yarn further out on the wing should be invaluable. A little Google showed a stick with yarn protruding forward of the wing giving AOA.  Yarn on a stick isn't rocket science, the Wright's used it as their only instrument.

[Shadrach]

"Shadrach, I believe that a Mooney is different than most other makes of GA SEL planes and that is a good thing.  Many GA SEL planes are excellent at their particular mission and a Mooney's mission is to fly as fast and efficiently as possible at a given power."  

And they do so swimmingly…

“To do that means it needs to be a slick airplane that doesn't slow down as easily as other planes with other missions.”  

Are you suggesting that because they take a bit more planning to slow down that they will not fly well once slowed down??…

“To expect a Mooney to land as short as another comparable airplane (power and cost of operation wise) isn't reasonable.”

I disagree WRT my plane. The differences in book numbers for 200hp retracts are “white noise” for the type of flying most do… 2000 ft is a walk in the park in the <=200hp machines. My POH says My F will easily do that over a 50’ obstacle, though I’d not try it unless I had to…  

“Yes, we can do better than most of us do on a routine basis, and I'm sure I'm one of them, but we didn't buy Mooneys to go into tiny, rough, back country strips either.”  

Don’t speak for everyone… Piperpainter??? Hello? Where are you? I hate to have to toot your horn for you but being that you’ve recorded so much high quality evidence:

D69 - elevation 869ft.       1471 x 50 ft.

http://www.youtube.com/user/piperpainter#p/a/u/2/0rc8a-gL_3o

28U - elevation 2678ft.     1840 x 30 ft.

http://www.youtube.com/user/piperpainter#p/u/8/1aytaxmadoM

 ID86 –elevation 5489ft.  1800 x 50 ft.

in...

http://www.youtube.com/user/piperpainter#p/a/f/0/69aBrPNKBZQ

and out…

http://www.youtube.com/user/piperpainter#p/a/f/0/69aBrPNKBZQ

“Buy or use the appropriate airplane for the mission and you have a lot better chance of completing the mission successfully.”

Clearly…

 

[M016576]

Jetdriven-

An AOA indicator isn't needed, that is a true statement.  An Airspeed indicator is all that's required as per Part 23. 

Like I mentioned before, though, an AOA indicator gives you a piece of the puzzle that you are inferring through your airspeed charts.  If you have the money, why not get a $500 indicator that gives you the ACTUAL 'speed' to fly for your approach (if you choose to think of it as a speed)?

Saying that you don't need an AOA gauge is the same as saying you don't need an engine monitor.  It's a true statement, but when you're flying, you're not getting the total picture as to the status of your aircraft.  Up to you on how you operate.  I like knowing exactly when my wing is going to stall, instantaneously, no matter the density altitude or weight or CG loading of my aircraft.  If you use the airspeed charts, you're using an estimation.  If you're using an AOA indicator, you know for a fact how your airfoil is doing.

Squirrel-  You can use a woolen yarn, so long as you have a way to read it....  just make sure its outside the prop wash!

Here's the difference in how an approach goes with or without an AOA gauge:

Without an AOA gauge: 

reference your approach speed chart based on density altitude and gross weight of aircraft.  Get number to fly for final.  configure aircraft, make approach turn using rule of thumb numbers, on final reduce speed to number calculated previously.  fly airspeed, scanning lineup with a solid inside/outside scan. 

Most general aviation pilots I've met don't actually use different approach speeds, but just pick one that is high enough to be safe, easy enough to remember and work from there (90/80/70, etc).  This could potentially lead to flying inside the stall safety margin should the density altitude be high enough and your gross weight be high enough during a wrapped up approach turn (or a similar type scenario).  It could go the other way, too... some of these rules of thumb are so conservative that the extra few knots here and there for the "wife and kids" can cause you to carry too much smack over the numbers, possibly leading to porpoising or extended floating down the runway.  You might suspect basic airmanship at this point, but your monkey skills could be just fine... it could be your rules of thumb that are out of whack.

With an AOA gauge, your approach is like this: 

on downwind you configure.  Cross check your AOA gauge.  Set your "on-speed AOA" (navy term... Optimum Attack Angle is what alpha systems calls it) and fly that AOA all the way through your approach turn to final.  Your airspeed will vary through your turns to base and final, but if you keep your AOA constant, you will be in no danger of departure at any point during your turn (no matter what your gross weight or density altitude is).  When you roll out on final, fly your optimum AOA and you will be flying at the optimum aerodynamic angle for your approach (not too fast, not too slow… and you can SEE where your wing will stall).  You fly one angle to the relative wind.  One needle position, one number.  You don't need to adjust the target airspeed up or down... that is done for you by virtue of aerodynamics.  In fact, you don’t look at your airspeed indicator at all at this point- just reference centerline, your intended touchdown area and your AOA- it’s a fast scan that keeps your eyes outside (where they should be).  All you have to do is fly the on-speed AOA.  Of course... you may find yourself flying more like a Naval Aviator at that point: using your attitude to control speed(AOA, really), and power to control altitude (sink rate).... but that's a different conversation!

Regardless- you can safely land the aircraft either way... it's just that with an AOA indicator, you have a real-time indication of how much lift your wing is generating.  Airspeed doesn't tell you that.  Airspeed just tells you how fast your wing is moving through the air.  That alone doesn't mean anything until you reference other information (density altitude, gross weight, etc).

JMHO.  Not manditory equipment... but to me, it's like an engine monitor... I want the whole picture of whats going on in my approach... and you can't really get that without AOA.

[sleepingsquirrel]

I've always known that you can put one in but not be able to get it out. These are two of my favorite youtubes along with Mooney roll over Kansas.

 

[sleepingsquirrel]

delete 

 

 

 

 

[Hank]

Quote: M016576

an AOA indicator gives you a piece of the puzzle that you are inferring through your airspeed charts.

you may find yourself flying more like a Naval Aviator at that point: using your attitude to control speed(AOA, really), and power to control altitude (sink rate)....

[piperpainter]

I am so used to putting my flaps up for all the short fields I go to I've made it habbit and it really does help braking action getting them up quickly! The flap handle is just to the right of the throttle a bit so it's a fluid motion for me! Kind of like putting my gear up right after takeoff!

[Wistarmo]

Referring to Hank's two posts-- I have a '93 M20J (MSE) and I try to flare at 65kts by myself, 70kts with one passenger, 75kts with two passengers, and 80kts with 4 passengers.  My short final speed is about 5kts higher. My most embarassing landings have been with four on board and flaring at too slow a speed. 

[Shadrach]

Quote: Wistarmo

Referring to Hank's two posts-- I have a '93 M20J (MSE) and I try to flare at 65kts by myself, 70kts with one passenger, 75kts with two passengers, and 80kts with 4 passengers.  My short final speed is about 5kts higher. My most embarassing landings have been with four on board and flaring at too slow a speed.