A Very Good Video On Landings

FoamyDM

Building Fool-Flying Noob
Moderator
I had an "old guy" talk my FT Simple Cub in for a landing... It taught me much. More throttle that I expected, and the cub is SLOW!
 

Bricks

Master member
I know I get where I start to struggle with my landings as I fly 3D a lot and I am not really landing. More like full up elevator let the plane elevator down add a little throttle before it touches down. No downwind leg or set up to hit the runway.
 

Bricks

Master member
Here is a very good saying to remember when landing.

Throttle primarily controls descent-rate & elevator primarily controls airspeed on approach.
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JennyC6

Elite member
Here is a very good saying to remember when landing.

Throttle primarily controls descent-rate & elevator primarily controls airspeed on approach.
cool.gif
Mmm. For what its worth I have little trouble landing a NexSTAR in RF8. Dunno how well that will translate to a tricycle geared Spear, but its somethin'.
 

Tench745

Master member
I'm watching through it now and felt the need to comment as I go.

First off, "Tip stalling" is not the way to refer to the behavior he's referencing. What he's talking about is just a stall. Most aircraft will drop a wingtip in a stall, it's just called a stall. (See EarthSciTeach for a full rant on tip-stalls)
He says that the trick to avoid getting too slow and stalling is a nice long approach. Long isn't necessarily better, it just gives you more time to ensure a stable approach where you have a steady, controlled decent rate and airspeed. The other tip to avoiding a stall on landing which I haven't heard him mention yet is to get up high and set up for a landing to see how slow the plane can get before a stall in landing configuration. Make sure you have enough altitude to recover when it finally does stall. If you can see what a good approach looks like speed-wise at altitude, you'll be able to duplicate it that much easier when you do it for real.

As already mentioned, elevator controls your angle of attack which controls speed. Power controls your rate of descent. You have to play with both of these to get what you need out of the airplane. Our aircraft are usually so over-powered that full throttle can pull you out of what should have been a stall and a crash. As planes get bigger or power-to-weight decreases, full throttle won't always save you. Good flying technique using elevator and throttle to set up a stable approach will do far more in the long run.
 

Bricks

Master member
When a wing stalls the complete wing stalls and the plane stays straight, usually what happens on landing and a tip stalls it usually is caused by adding aileron correction, where one wing tip will drop and quits flying. At least that is my understanding using rudder for corrections in slow flight landings is the better option and keep the wings flat..
 

Tench745

Master member
When a wing stalls the complete wing stalls and the plane stays straight, usually what happens on landing and a tip stalls it usually is caused by adding aileron correction, where one wing tip will drop and quits flying.
Not entirely true.
A well designed wing will start to stall at the root. The stall will propagate along the wing until one of the following: 1) The whole wing stalls. 2) there is not enough elevator authority to hold the aircraft in the stall attitude and the nose drops, beginning stall recovery 3) There is not enough lift generated by the un-stalled wing sections to keep the nose up and the aircraft begins recovery.
So when an aircraft drops a wingtip in a stall it means one of two things. Either, A) the wing was designed in a way that let the wingtip stall early; not good, and is the actual meaning of a tip-stall. Or, B) that the stall has propagated along the entire wing, killing lift and letting the wing drop.
Unless the design is flawed or unfounded, what is happening in most of our aircraft when they drop a wingtip, it's just a stall that has gone far enough to kill the lift along the whole wing.

There are factors that can affect when a wing stalls. Aileron movements change the camber of the wing, effectively altering the angle of attack and stalling of the outer wing panels sooner. P-factor and other prop related turning tendencies can increase wing loading on one side a little more than the other, causing that wing to stall first. (This is one reason full throttle can hurt you in certain aircraft. A big prop spinning up to full speed while the wing is close to stall can change the loading on the wing enough to cause a sudden stall. Most people call this a "tip stall" but in reality it is just one wing stalling first.)

I'm sure there's something I've forgotten to mention.

Edit: I remembered the point I forgot.
If a plane stalls straight ahead it means it's in category 3 above. The wing is no longer generating enough lift to keep the plane in the air, but the entire wing has not stalled yet, the wingtips are still flying and providing stability to the aircraft, allowing to stall straight ahead.
 
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Tench745

Master member
Anyway, the takeaway about tip stalls is that they occur when the wingtip stalls first before most of the wing; a properly designed wing won't do it.
On an aircraft with a properly designed wing if a wingtip drops suddenly, it means you've stalled the wing.

Tip-stalling is prevented when designing of the aircraft in many different ways. On many FT planes they use under-cambered wingtips which have a later stall and keep the wingtips generating lift until some point after the main wing has stalled. Changes in the wing's plan-form, wing twist (washout), camber, choice of airfoil, etc are all used to keep the wingtips from stalling early. On some production aircraft the wing stalled to evenly so a piece of metal was added to the leading edge at the wing root to make that portion stall earlier rather changing the tips to make them stall later.
 

buzzbomb

I know nothing!
I liked the vid, and I thank you for it, Bricks. I also personally appreciate the comments and debate from our Family. As always, some really good info!

My method of landing is much more brutal and simple and generally involves digging dirt out of my motor. I'll get there eventually, but as Hai-Lee says:

Works for me! :LOL: