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07/08 - Take Offs and Landings

By Steve Krog
Steve Krog is a flight instructor and EAA member

The first solo flight is one of the most memorable, exhilarating events a student pilot will experience. Ask any pilot young and old about learning to fly and they will tell you the date, time, type, and color of the airplane and weather conditions when they made their memorable first solo flight. Before one can solo though, he or she must first master take offs and landings.

There are many light-sport aircraft (LSA) available today in which to take flight lessons. The majority employs the tricycle (nose wheel) landing gear design, but there are also a number of (conventional gear) tail wheel airplanes in which to learn to fly. I’ll use the tail wheel Piper J-3 Cub as our example training aircraft for this article.

After six to ten hours of dual flight instruction mastering climbs, descents, turns, stalls, emergency procedures, and ground reference maneuvers, you will have advanced to the lesson every student has been waiting for—take offs and landings!

Beginning with the second or third lesson, your instructor had you lightly grasp the control stick, place your feet on the rudder pedals and follow him or her through the take off. By lesson four you will be making each take off under your instructor’s guidance and with each, your proficiency improves. Let’s analyze the take off, step by step.

After conducting a thorough pre-flight inspection of the aircraft, we will want to check the airport windsock or wind tetrahedron to determine the surface wind direction and velocity. Once we know that we can select the runway that is most directly aligned with the surface wind. For example, let’s say the wind is coming from the west (270 degrees) at 10 mph and the runways available to us are 11, 29, 18 and 36. Runway 29 would be the desired runway as its alignment (290 degrees) is only 20 degrees different than the wind direction.

After taxiing to the runway and completing our pre-take off checklist, we’re nearly ready for the take off, but we must check the approach end of runway 29 to ensure there are no airplanes that are landing, as they have the right-of-way. Once we have cleared or visually checked there are no other landing aircraft, we will taxi our airplane onto the centerline of the runway.

At this point you can feel the anticipation building, but anxiety accompanies anticipation. Anxiety causes your leg muscles to stiffen, you can feel the sweaty palm of your left hand wrapped around the throttle handle and your right hand is so firmly grasping the control stick you’ve lost all feeling in it. We commonly refer to this as the “death grip.” Anxiety and the resulting responses are very common at this point.

To reduce any anxiety just prior to beginning the take off I suggest to my students they take a long, deep relaxing breath and while doing so, wiggle their fingers and toes. This really helps relax the body muscles. Now that we’re a bit more relaxed, lightly place the balls of your feet on the rudder pedals; gently grasp the throttle with your left hand and calmly wrap your right hand thumb, index, and middle finger around the top of the control stick. Pretend the control stick is one of those huge old $1 carnival cigars and grasp the stick as if it were a cigar.

Forward visibility is restricted in most tail wheel airplanes when sitting in the three-point attitude, so we must compensate. We do this by establishing a “line of sight,” which is nothing more than looking slightly left or right of the nose and picking a reference point that we can clearly see and keep in sight. Note in the illustration that follows, forward visibility is restricted but by looking slightly to the left and forward we can see a tall object.

One last thing before advancing the throttle for the take off: Remember engine torque and propeller “P” factor. The engine crankshaft and propeller are rotating clockwise as we sit in the airplane cockpit. When advancing the throttle, both the torque and “P” factor are going to try and force the nose of the airplane to the left. To remain on the centerline of the runway, we need to compensate for this by applying slight right rudder pressure.

Take another deep relaxing breath, wiggle your fingers and toes, establish your line of sight and pull or position the control stick all the way to the back or aft stop. Begin advancing the throttle smoothly and as the airplane starts rolling forward, continue advancing the throttle moving from the idle position to the full power position in a time span of 3-4 seconds. As the engine rpms climb and our ground speed increases, you’ll need to tap the right rudder to offset the effects of torque and “P” factor. Tap the right rudder rather than pushing and holding it. Pushing and holding overcompensates and will cause the airplane to move to the right.

Our ground speed continues to increase and more resistance can be felt on the control stick. Begin moving the control stick forward, but only slightly, and you will see and feel the tail of the airplane lift off the ground. The airplane’s angle of attack has now changed and you will once again feel the airplane wanting to turn slightly to the left, requiring several more taps of your right foot on the rudder pedal. While all of this is happening, don’t forget to keep looking at the object at the end of the runway to help you maintain a straight-line track down the runway.

With the airplane’s main landing gear still on the runway and the tail off the ground, we are now a half ground and half air vehicle. Continue holding the airplane in this attitude for several more seconds. As the speed increases the wings are generating more lift. When the wings are generating enough lift to support the aircraft in flight, the airplane will actually fly or lift itself off the ground.

Once airborne, relax the backpressure on the control stick, lowering the nose by one or two degrees. The airspeed continues to increase. When reaching approximately 60 mph indicated airspeed, apply slight backpressure to maintain this airspeed for the duration of the climb.

As you continue the climb you’ll see the airplane seems to be drifting to the left. Once again, torque and “P” factor have entered into the flight. To offset their effects, apply slight but constant steady pressure to the right rudder for the duration of the climb. Proceed with the climb straight off the centerline of the runway until reaching approximately 500 feet above the ground. At 500 feet, relax the backpressure, lowering the nose to the level flight position. This will allow you to see forward over the nose. Also, relax the right rudder pressure, as we are no longer in a nose high power configuration. Scrupulously check for any other aircraft.

You’ve just completed your first unassisted take off and never looked at, nor did you need to look at, the airspeed indicator until after we were airborne. It is important, in my opinion, that you learn to sense and feel what the airplane is doing rather than trying to fly it by staring at the airspeed indicator.

The take off was easy and flying the traffic pattern took little effort, but now it’s time to land the Cub.

At approximately midpoint on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern (see last month’s e-newsletter), apply carburetor heat and leave it on for the duration of the approach and landing. When you are abeam or directly across from the approach end of the runway, reduce engine power by approximately half. In the Continental powered Cub we reduce the power to about 1,700 rpms. As the power is reduced, you’ll see as well as feel the nose of the airplane wanting to pitch downward. Rather than letting it do so, apply enough backpressure on the control stick to hold the nose in the approximate 60 mph attitude. The airspeed slows and we begin a smooth gradual descent. Apply nose up trim so that the airplane will maintain the 60 mph attitude by itself, should you become distracted.

Continue flying the downwind heading until the airplane is at a point 45 degrees from the approach end of the runway. Make a 90-degree shallow bank turn and re-establish level wing flight. We’re now on the base leg of the traffic pattern. After looking for any and all other aircraft traffic, make another 90-degree shallow bank turn. We are now aligned with the runway and making the final approach to land. Adjust power as required to maintain a constant 60 mph descent.

The transition from an air machine to a ground machine begins at this point. As we approach the runway, reduce power to idle and continue with the glide until approximately 15-20 feet above the ground. Then apply enough backpressure on the control stick to stop the descent. While doing so, make your eye transition 20—30 degrees either to the left or right and continue looking down the runway.

The airplane continues to slow and as it does so, the wing generated lift is no longer adequate to maintain the flight 15-20 feet above the ground. Your line of sight, which also provides good depth perception, is telling you the airplane is descending. Apply a bit more backpressure to slow the rate of descent.

The next 10 seconds are nothing more than trading speed for lift by continuing with applying more and more backpressure on the control stick. Line of sight and depth perception tells you that you are but 1-3 feet above the ground. Continue the process until you feel the airplane make light contact with the runway. Ideally, you should be at or just below stall speed as you contact the ground. It is very important that you remain vigilant with your line of sight as well as continue to hold the control stick all the way back. Here’s why. Positioning the control stick all the way aft keeps the airplane control surfaces in the full stall configuration, preventing the airplane from bouncing down the runway.

Line of sight will tell you if you are keeping the airplane rolling straight down the runway. Slight tapping of the left and right rudder pedals will be needed to do so.

You’ve just made your first unassisted three-point (full stall) landing in a tail wheel airplane. Congratulations!

Next Issue: Fine tuning take offs, landings, and the traffic pattern.

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