Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/323139
EAA Experimenter 27 the throttle forward, go around, and put fi ve more minutes in your logbook. We fl y because we love it, so just do a little more lovin' while you come around and make a better approach. Still, that doesn't answer the question about why making a good approach in a taildragger is so dif cult. NOSEDRAGGER/ TAILDRAGGER: THE APPROACH DIFFICULTIES ARE THE SAME First, when it comes to the approach, the fact that the airplane is a taildragger is neither here nor there. Making a truly good approach in any airplane can be difficult because it takes everything you know about flying and crams it into a couple of short, fun-filled minutes. During the actual ap- proach, the difference between a nosedragger and a taildrag- ger has nothing to do with the airplane. It has to do with the fact that on landing the nosedragger will tolerate less precise flying skills because it doesn't really care if it's landed a little crooked. The tailwheel airplane is more difficult to fly cor- rectly because the definition of "correctly" is much tighter, much more insistent on exactitude being part of the equa- tion, so you don't arrive in ground effect slightly out of shape or off profile. One of the mistakes you never want to make in a taildragger is to be sitting there in ground ef ect waiting for it to touch- down, knowing all the while that your set up is fl awed. Never land when you know you're out of shape thinking you're going to sort it out on the runway. Some taildraggers will let you get away with it; many others won't. So, the dif erence is that the taildragger driver has to have it right, while the nosedragger guy only should have it right. This puts more skin in the game, and it behooves the taildragger pilot to fl y as correctly as he can. I T 'S A L L A BOU T GE T T ING T HE B A SIC S RIGH T So there is that word again, "correctly." Exactly how do we define correctly in this application? It really doesn't need defining because virtually every pilot knows in his heart what flying "correctly" means. It's just that some pilots don't. The most persistent basic weaknesses I have seen in nearly 6,000 hours of tailwheel dual given are the following: 1. A general misunderstanding of adverse yaw and the rud- der required. Anywhere in the approach, if an aileron is hanging out even a little, the ball isn't going to be in the middle so the airplane is crooked. If in flare and attempting to work to- ward the centerline, the higher adverse yaw that is caused by the higher angle of attack is hugely aggravated by even tiny bits of extraneous aileron. So, the nose is moving op- posite to the aileron movement, making it impossible to land lined up straight. Lots of rudder is needed when slow and making corrections. 2. No understanding of, or no correction of, P-factor. On climb-out the nose is trying to move left and the ball is moving right. Right rudder is needed. Power-of in approach, the nose moves right and the ball left, so left rudder is needed through the entire descent. This complicates coordination, but for maximum ef ciency and directional control in fl are it has to be done. Photography by Jim Koepnick The SE 5A is just one example of the many antique-era taildraggers. E A A E X P _ J u n e 1 4 . i n d d 2 7 EAAEXP_June14.indd 27 6 / 3 / 1 4 8 : 4 0 A M 6/3/14 8:40 AM