A Tutorial on How to Achieve Good Wheel Landings

[DHenriques_]

I get a lot of personal email each week from both real world pilots and our own A2A sim pilots asking about various things. I’ve had several this week asking about wheel landings in tail wheel aircraft so I thought I would get together a small tutorial dealing with this issue in the hope it might help answer some questions a few of you might have. I’m gearing this to the sim community.

To get a good wheel landing you have to start with the approach. If you cross the numbers in transition as far as configuration and airspeed are concerned getting a good wheel landing will be more difficult. Imagine a window about fifty feet over the numbers that you MUST fly through stabilized in landing configuration. This means crosswind corrected if necessary and a little bit faster than you might be used to for a full stall landing. The reason for this is to give you a bit of extra time during your flare to maintain any crosswind correction (there is usually at least SOME correction required and that means a slight cross control situation) and
to give you time to establish a CONTROLLED SINK RATE on down to ground contact on your mains.

It’s right here, just before main gear contact where pilots get in trouble with a wheel landing. The idea is to FLY the aircraft onto the runway in as near to a slightly nose high attitude as possible then as ground contact is made, GENTLY “rock the plane a bit forward on the mains” to maintain runway contact. The main thing to avoid AT ALL COSTS is allowing the plane to drop onto the mains with any nose down pitch in the contact equation. THAT is a sure bounce ! If you DO bounce, and you have the room to correct the bounce, let the plane rise and apply a bit of SMOOTH POWER at the APEX of the bounce, then fly it on down for another try……….OR take it around if remaining runway is an issue.

Ground contact on the mains is the critical point in any wheel landing. At ground contact the stick should be near as possible to neutral or slightly aft of neutral. This means that your last few feet of flare are in a controlled rate of sink playing remaining lift against the sink rate. Your aim is to achieve wheel contact with as little sink rate as possible.

RULE ONE for wheel landings is NEVER to apply forward pressure during the flare to achieve main wheel contact. Understand this and you are well on your way to achieving good consistent wheel landings.

Dudley Henriques

[Buffy Foster]

So jumping out with a parachute when I get over the airport isn't the right way?? Dang.

[ClipperLuna]

If I've got this right, the plane will only be slightly nose high when the mains come on (flaring slightly as needed), so when you "rock it" forward, you shouldn't have to pick the tail up very much? And if this were the T-6, we want it level after the mains are on?

Thanks, Dudley!

[DHenriques_]

If I've got this right, the plane will only be slightly nose high when the mains come on (flaring slightly as needed), so when you "rock it" forward, you shouldn't have to pick the tail up very much? And if this were the T-6, we want it level after the mains are on?

Thanks, Dudley!

Look at it this way. In the flare you are beginning to lose airspeed. As this happens the aircraft wants to settle in toward the runway. You counter that with extremely subtle back pressure that is just enough to keep the nose slightly higher than level flight. This becomes a continuous process inching on down. There will be a point in this process when the aircraft settles onto the mains. The instant you feel ground contact you stabilize the stick letting the weight of the plane settle onto the main struts while you very gently rock the stick forward working the rudder gently to stabilize directional control. If any crosswind you are naturally applying in-wind aileron.
Then you just allow the tail to come down naturally. Never force the tail down. After you feel the plane on all three feet you apply back pressure...........and only then.
DH

[EnDSchultz]

I remember the first time I landed a Cub after spin training. Thought doing a wheel landing wouldn't be a big deal... just pull back a bit and let the plane touch down slightly nose high. I was wrong! All my instinct from tricycle told me to keep pulling back more and more, and not let the plane land, until before I knew it I ended up doing a three-pointer.

[wrkempson]

Many thanks for the tutorial, Dudley. After a few years of flying the A2A P-51 my wheel landings still concern me. I am following your instructions and normally touch the wheels at a VAS of around 100. Usually I get two chirps separated by about a half second or so. On replays I see that there is no shock absorption visible on the strut. Sometimes the wheel does not even leave the ground after the initial touch, but still I get the double chirp. As far as I can tell, the wheels because they are forward of the center of gravity push the nose slightly up. I am landing at just above stall speed (on a good landing). Always this double chirp.

Does this qualify as a bounce? Is there something I am missing here? Again, thank you for the tutorial. It has answered many questions for me.

Wayne

PS: on a crosswind landing when the upwind wheel touches first the airplane rocks down on the other wheel which is not to me the same as the double chirp I describe above. In this case it is one chirp per wheel.

[Paughco]

Thank you very much for the tutorial, Dudley! After purchasing my T-6, I studied everything I could find on landing technique. Ground Loop Prevention - A Cautionary Tale, by Paul M. Redlich really made an impression https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... 0Cn1u3DvfE.

It seemed that the consensus was that while wheel landings looked easier, you really need to make three-pointers to avoid a whole host of troubles on rollout. OK. I had a great seat in the bleachers at the 2018 Reno Air Races, and it seemed that all the Unlimiteds and T-6s made wheel landings, even in that heinous crosswind we had on Saturday afternoon.

I need to practice more with my P-51 to achieve bounceless landings. Seems I almost always get a bounce, but she settles pretty easily after that. I also get two chirps (after the bounce, that is) but the second chirp is the tailwheel touching down. More practice needed.

Seeya
ATB

[DHenriques_]

Many thanks for the tutorial, Dudley. After a few years of flying the A2A P-51 my wheel landings still concern me. I am following your instructions and normally touch the wheels at a VAS of around 100. Usually I get two chirps separated by about a half second or so. On replays I see that there is no shock absorption visible on the strut. Sometimes the wheel does not even leave the ground after the initial touch, but still I get the double chirp. As far as I can tell, the wheels because they are forward of the center of gravity push the nose slightly up. I am landing at just above stall speed (on a good landing). Always this double chirp.

Does this qualify as a bounce? Is there something I am missing here? Again, thank you for the tutorial. It has answered many questions for me.

Wayne

PS: on a crosswind landing when the upwind wheel touches first the airplane rocks down on the other wheel which is not to me the same as the double chirp I describe above. In this case it is one chirp per wheel.

Double chirp is normal for both the sim and the real airplane. It's extremely rare you can consistently put an airplane on both feet at the exact same time due to your "automatic" correction for wind. Even the slightest crosswind will result in the pilot touching down in a slightly cross controlled condition.
We programmed Accusim to reflect this actual condition.
DH

[wrkempson]

Thanks. I'll quit agonizing over this one.

[Hook]

I tried your wheel landing in the DC-3 a few times, finally got it right on my last landing. Wowsers... I wasn't sure the mains had touched. Does P3D add extra ground effect? I was probably a bit slower than recommended.

Hook

[DHenriques_]

I tried your wheel landing in the DC-3 a few times, finally got it right on my last landing. Wowsers... I wasn't sure the mains had touched. Does P3D add extra ground effect? I was probably a bit slower than recommended.

Hook

Not sure about P3D. I'll still in FSX.
Sounds like you have it nailed.
DH

[Hook]

Not sure about P3D. I'll still in FSX.
Sounds like you have it nailed.
DH

It sounds like I got lucky! I'll let you know after a few more landings.

I've gotten pretty good at three point landings but not necessarily consistently. I remember being able to grease most landings in the Stratocruiser in FSX way back when but I don't remember if I was asked if we were on the ground yet.

When I reinstalled P3Dv2.5 I thought it had more ground effect than I was expecting. If so it was added some time during version 2 as last time I had it installed it probably wasn't up to 2.5.

Hook

[MarcE]

I tried your wheel landing in the DC-3 a few times, finally got it right on my last landing. Wowsers... I wasn't sure the mains had touched. Does P3D add extra ground effect? I was probably a bit slower than recommended.

Hook

Not sure about P3D. I'll still in FSX.
Sounds like you have it nailed.
DH

It doesn‘t by default to my knowledge but allows developers to manually tune it. So did PMDG lately with their 747 update and I suppose A2A does that too.

[Hook]

I first noticed the ground effect in a couple of FS9 vintage aircraft that had been updated for FSX and those versions worked fine in P3Dv2 (except for a minor edit to three gauge xml files in one aircraft due to an updated parser in P3D) and I didn't notice it until I installed version 2.5. Obviously not something added by a developer in these cases but the ability to fine tune it by the developers is a good thing.

Hook