First solo cross-country flight completed - question

TheSmokingGnu wrote in
news:nO4Bj.7418$wM2.2549@trnddc07:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Call it 17.4 to be safe.

Well, now you're assuming runway 29 was actually 290, when it could be
anything from 290 to 294 and still be labeled "29".

Throws your sig figs out a bit.

Yeah, that's right, not to mention the vagaries of wind. That's why it's
wise to consider it to be the full whack when you have 60 degrees or
more. In reality, though, I only use the wind as a planning piece of
info. That is, I mostly just use it as a decision maker as to whether I
will do the approach at all. Once I'm actually doing it, the picture as
it develops will tell me if it's a good idea to continue and this info
loop continues right to the runway. If at any time the airplane starts
telling me that it doesn't like it, I divert. Having said that, I've
been in the situation several times where I had to land where I was in
spite of realising that I was realy beyond the airplanes safe capability
as well as my own. I got down each of these times, but a large degree of
luck was involved in each case. Being a control freak I would rather
have been somewhere else.
Probably the hairiest was in a twin beech in Indiana. The crosswind
component was 44 knots iirc.The actual wind was blowing over 50. This is
somewhat beyond the 18's advertised 20 knot demonstrated limit.
The Beech 18 had some peculiar nuances, one of which was the loss of
rudder due to the roiled air off the wing washing it out as you
approached three point position. So even if you did a satisfactory
touchdown in a crosswind, it tended to turn into wind just before you
got the tailwheel on the ground. We mostly wheel landed Beech 18s.
The remedy for this was to have power on the upwind engine there before
the problem got out of hand. The best way to do this, I found, was to
have the throttles staggered all the way down the approach in order to
provide the yaw to counteract the wing down you neccesarily had to have.
You staggered the throttles to give the total power you needed to make
the approach and at the same time you had enough where no rudder was
necessary. This ensured that the thrust at touchdown on the upwind
engine was enough to keep you straight and had the added benefit of
giving you rudder in reserve in both directions to keep the nose
straight as you rolled out. The rudder became a sort of fine tuning
device, IOW, with the thrust providing the lion's share of directional
control. You'd find a place where the stagger was doing all of this for
you and then just keep the stagger the same as you manipulated the
throttles on the approach for speed and glide. On touchdown, the
throttles would be moved back, the downwind engine reaching it's stop,
and then you'd just leave the upwind engine where it was until the
tailwheel was firmly down. Then the upwind throttle could be smoothly
closed as required. I think I might have tried this in some other light
twins, but it just seemed silly and redundant in them. I don't think I
ever had anything else in quite so much wind though. It didn't work so
well in the DC 3 either.

Bertie

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:07:52 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:


Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

somewhat beyond the 18's advertised 20 knot demonstrated limit.

the demonstrated crosswind component is not a limit.
it is just the maximum value demonstrated during certification.

any crosswind landing is dependent on the skill of the pilot.

.....you knew that.

Stealth Pilot

On Mar 10, 10:24 am, Stealth Pilot
wrote:
On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:07:52 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
somewhat beyond the 18's advertised 20 knot demonstrated limit.

the demonstrated crosswind component is not a limit.
it is just the maximum value demonstrated during certification.

any crosswind landing is dependent on the skill of the pilot.

....you knew that.

Stealth Pilot


Rudder travel becomes an effective "limit" for all practical purposes
in the fwd slip (wing low) method.



Dan

Stealth Pilot wrote in
:

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:07:52 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:


Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

somewhat beyond the 18's advertised 20 knot demonstrated limit.

the demonstrated crosswind component is not a limit.
it is just the maximum value demonstrated during certification.


any crosswind landing is dependent on the skill of the pilot.

....you knew that.

Of course,. The word limit doesn'[t neccesarily mnean breaking point. In
this case it's imposed as a reasonable limit beyond which operations
safety margins break down. I use the word limit happily since I'm too
lazy to recite the whole "maximimum demostrated by a factory test pilot
blah blah blah" thing.


Bertie

On Mar 10, 7:41*am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Heh heh. I used the calculator on my laptop for that and it went on a
bit further, I think! Not very practical to use when you're sliding down
finals with a x-wind on the limit. With 60 degrees of the nose, i'd
count the entire windspeed as the componenet for several reasons, not
the least of which is the added drama when you're telling your buds in
the bar about it afterwards.

Bertie

LOL! Now that is the kind of wisdom I look for on this newsgroup.

Phil

Dan wrote in news:1ac687ac-1a84-4435-85c5-
:

On Mar 10, 10:24 am, Stealth Pilot
wrote:
On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 13:07:52 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip A...
@AA.AA
wrote:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
somewhat beyond the 18's advertised 20 knot demonstrated limit.

the demonstrated crosswind component is not a limit.
it is just the maximum value demonstrated during certification.

any crosswind landing is dependent on the skill of the pilot.

....you knew that.

Stealth Pilot


Rudder travel becomes an effective "limit" for all practical purposes
in the fwd slip (wing low) method.


Well, in nosedraggers you can accept a certain amount of drift on
landing if you run out. And the crosswind version of a slip is a
sideslip . the identical manuever done to lose altitude but with the
centrrline of the airplane misaligned with the runway CL is called a
forwad slip.
I've landed cherokees in very high winds with the rudder at the stop and
just accepted the drift on touchdown. Nto a very pleasant airplane, but
they are built like brick ****houses.




Bertie

Phil J wrote in news:875a9d86-bc96-437c-92b0-
:

On Mar 10, 7:41*am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Heh heh. I used the calculator on my laptop for that and it went on a
bit further, I think! Not very practical to use when you're sliding
down
finals with a x-wind on the limit. With 60 degrees of the nose, i'd
count the entire windspeed as the componenet for several reasons, not
the least of which is the added drama when you're telling your buds
in
the bar about it afterwards.

Bertie

LOL! Now that is the kind of wisdom I look for on this newsgroup.

Thenkew. I have a great deal of experience telling tales in bars.


Bertie

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:41:58 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Roger wrote in
:

On Sun, 9 Mar 2008 20:27:50 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Kai Rode wrote in
:

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:08:55 +0100, Kai Rode wrote:

What kind of aircraft?

An Aero AT-3 VLA. http://www.s2taviation.com/aero.htm

Winds 230@20 on runway 29 was a 17.5 crosswind
componant

Actually it's 15 kts crosswind component.



Actually it's a 17.320508075688772935274463415059 kt crosswind

Guess I'm going to have to retire the old "Versa Trig". I can only
get a fraction of those significant digits. But what can you expect
from bamboo.

Heh heh. I used the calculator on my laptop for that and it went on a
bit further, I think! Not very practical to use when you're sliding down
finals with a x-wind on the limit. With 60 degrees of the nose, i'd
count the entire windspeed as the componenet for several reasons, not
the least of which is the added drama when you're telling your buds in
the bar about it afterwards.

I usually leave out the details when I tell them about taking off from
Marysvill KS when the winds were 30G50 too. Invariably someone asks
about the "dreaded down wind turn":-)) Of course I think they used
the terrain as a template for optically flat glass. Other than the
shack...er terminal building and corn stalks there wasn't anything
sticking up for two miles. That and even the taxi was almost straight
into the wind. I will admit that I had the trim set to neutral and
carried a bit of extra speed before letting it lift off.

As this is also on a student group I'll also add it was not a 150 or
172 which I wouldn't even untie in that kind of wind.:-))

Bertie
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Roger wrote in
:


I usually leave out the details when I tell them about taking off from
Marysvill KS when the winds were 30G50 too. Invariably someone asks
about the "dreaded down wind turn":-)) Of course I think they used
the terrain as a template for optically flat glass. Other than the
shack...er terminal building and corn stalks there wasn't anything
sticking up for two miles. That and even the taxi was almost straight
into the wind. I will admit that I had the trim set to neutral and
carried a bit of extra speed before letting it lift off.

As this is also on a student group I'll also add it was not a 150 or
172 which I wouldn't even untie in that kind of wind.:-))

Well, they'd be on their backs before you got to fly them anyway..



bertie

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
...
TheSmokingGnu wrote in
news:nO4Bj.7418$wM2.2549@trnddc07:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Call it 17.4 to be safe.

Well, now you're assuming runway 29 was actually 290, when it could be
anything from 290 to 294 and still be labeled "29".

Throws your sig figs out a bit.

Yeah, that's right, not to mention the vagaries of wind. That's why it's
wise to consider it to be the full whack when you have 60 degrees or
more. In reality, though, I only use the wind as a planning piece of
info. That is, I mostly just use it as a decision maker as to whether I
will do the approach at all. Once I'm actually doing it, the picture as
it develops will tell me if it's a good idea to continue and this info
loop continues right to the runway. If at any time the airplane starts
telling me that it doesn't like it, I divert. Having said that, I've
been in the situation several times where I had to land where I was in
spite of realising that I was realy beyond the airplanes safe capability
as well as my own. I got down each of these times, but a large degree of
luck was involved in each case. Being a control freak I would rather
have been somewhere else.
Probably the hairiest was in a twin beech in Indiana. The crosswind
component was 44 knots iirc.The actual wind was blowing over 50. This is
somewhat beyond the 18's advertised 20 knot demonstrated limit.
The Beech 18 had some peculiar nuances, one of which was the loss of
rudder due to the roiled air off the wing washing it out as you
approached three point position. So even if you did a satisfactory
touchdown in a crosswind, it tended to turn into wind just before you
got the tailwheel on the ground. We mostly wheel landed Beech 18s.
The remedy for this was to have power on the upwind engine there before
the problem got out of hand. The best way to do this, I found, was to
have the throttles staggered all the way down the approach in order to
provide the yaw to counteract the wing down you neccesarily had to have.
You staggered the throttles to give the total power you needed to make
the approach and at the same time you had enough where no rudder was
necessary. This ensured that the thrust at touchdown on the upwind
engine was enough to keep you straight and had the added benefit of
giving you rudder in reserve in both directions to keep the nose
straight as you rolled out. The rudder became a sort of fine tuning
device, IOW, with the thrust providing the lion's share of directional
control. You'd find a place where the stagger was doing all of this for
you and then just keep the stagger the same as you manipulated the
throttles on the approach for speed and glide. On touchdown, the
throttles would be moved back, the downwind engine reaching it's stop,
and then you'd just leave the upwind engine where it was until the
tailwheel was firmly down. Then the upwind throttle could be smoothly
closed as required. I think I might have tried this in some other light
twins, but it just seemed silly and redundant in them. I don't think I
ever had anything else in quite so much wind though. It didn't work so
well in the DC 3 either.

Bertie

I am surprised it didn't work in the 3, but it sounds like a great idea for
the "twin bitch" :-). The throttles, used properly, really do help keep
twins lined out properly. Especially tail wheel twins! :-)

Highflyer ( most of my multi time is also taildragger time! )