Touch and Goes, how do you do them ?

[Dominique]

Over the years, the 51civ has become one my very top favorite aircraft to fly ! This is an aircraft which teaches you how to behave !

These days I do some short flights in the hot SoCal deserts (30°+C/90°+F) and I'd be interested to have some opinions on how you manage a TnG on an average runway then. Not Edwards, say 5000-odd feet. Maybe Dudley could bring his formidable expertise here.

Do you pump the gas to 55" (or more) as soon as she is horizontal on the ground or wait for a 3-point attitude and then raise the tail again. The idea is then to show off a more spectacular take off but that shortens the runway ! This is what I do when I can and that often makes me quit the ground on the opposite threshold ! What do the guys in airshows do like in Reno ?

What would be the proper flaps retraction schedule if she is full flaps on landing ? Does one raise the flaps flat upon touching the ground or keep two notches to compensate the shorter runway ? I do the later.

Interested to know how you handle that .

[Piper_EEWL]

Hi Dominique,

I've been practicing touch&goes with the civ Mustang recently too. I found that my landings were all to hard so I watched some videos on YouTube of real world Mustang landings. And decided to improve my technique

What I do on touch&goes is the following. I approach with full flaps and try to put her down nice and soft on the mains. Then I retract the flaps up to one notch and wait with adding power till they're almost there. Then I slowly feed the power back in to 55" MAP. The tail usually makes it almost down to the runway by the time the power comes back in but it usually doesn't really touch down. I found that not cutting the throttle completely on touch down helps me to maintain positive control when feeding the power back in.

It is a little t of fun to practice does with the Stang and once you're more comfortable with the procedure you can move to shorter runways.

[Mustang01]

If its touch and go's I typically come in and touch..keeping the power slightly on (I never chop the power for a touch and go) tail stays up and I raise flaps on the ground...power smooth and steady to 55 inches. Lowering the tail for a touch and go just bleeds speed and eats runway...keep your speed up and you wont loose much rudder effectiveness. This is how we did it in the real mustang but I'm sure someone sooner or later will correct me. raising the flaps on the roll just plants more weight on the wheels which can be a good thing given the torque of the merlin. To be honest though that is really irrelevant as you should never get so slow you loose control authority. Sometimes I come in with flaps at 20 for a touch and go which will have you touching down in a slightly tail low attitude if you slow to the normal full flap approach speed. I personally like this method as not as much speed is lost the rollout (airplane cleans up a lot quicker)...down side is you tend to come in a little hot unless your pulling a lot of power off.

[DHenriques_]

Over the years, the 51civ has become one my very top favorite aircraft to fly ! This is an aircraft which teaches you how to behave !

These days I do some short flights in the hot SoCal deserts (30°+C/90°+F) and I'd be interested to have some opinions on how you manage a TnG on an average runway then. Not Edwards, say 5000-odd feet. Maybe Dudley could bring his formidable expertise here.

Do you pump the gas to 55" (or more) as soon as she is horizontal on the ground or wait for a 3-point attitude and then raise the tail again. The idea is then to show off a more spectacular take off but that shortens the runway ! This is what I do when I can and that often makes me quit the ground on the opposite threshold ! What do the guys in airshows do like in Reno ?

What would be the proper flaps retraction schedule if she is full flaps on landing ? Does one raise the flaps flat upon touching the ground or keep two notches to compensate the shorter runway ? I do the later.

Interested to know how you handle that .

"Officially", what is known as a "touch and go" as is practiced in civilian GA isn't really done as a common practice in military aviation. The "official" go around procedure in the military is usually initiated from a point before touchdown.
This being said, and I will add that I have never advocated touch and go's in prop fighters initiated from the roll out to pilots flying this type aircraft in our Warbird Community for various reasons. Doing so places an aircraft like a Mustang in the worst possible of conditions that being potential rotation into a high angle of attack, low airspeed, high drag index, and high torque situation with all these factors imply.

This being said, for the simulation, the same dangers are implied but the penalty for mistakes is naturally greatly reduced
If you want to do a touch and go in the A2A Mustang I would recommend a final approach carrying a 2700RPM prop setting, no more than 20 degrees of flaps and an over the fence speed of around 100mph. Your decision to continue after touchdown should be based on the available runway after main gear contact.
I would initiate the go around from a tail low touchdown but with the tailwheel still off the ground. Leave the flaps at 20 degrees and carefully bring up the power to 46 inches. As you rotate leave the gear DOWN. The fairing doors cycling cause a LOT of drag at just the time you don't need it. Wait until you have good climb airspeed before gear and flap retraction.
That's about it really. Have fun !
Dudley Henriques

[Dominique]

Plenty of food for thought here to improve my TnG, thanks you all ! And as Dudley nicely put it

for the simulation, the same dangers are implied but the penalty for mistakes is naturally greatly reduced

[Piper_EEWL]

Plenty of food for thought here to improve my TnG, thanks you all ! And as Dudley nicely put it

for the simulation, the same dangers are implied but the penalty for mistakes is naturally greatly reduced

Yes I think that's the second nicest feature of the simulator. After not having to spend 3000€/h to operate a P-51