Shortfield Landing

I was wondering what approach angle, rate of descent, speed, flaps, etc others use to set up for short field landings?
Right now I can pretty much grease my wheel landings if I descend 500-700 fpm, keep the speed up (over the fence 80-85 kts) using 20 degrees flaps but end up taking quite abit of runway unless I really get on the brakes (which I don't especially like to do).
Any thoughts, tips, ideas greatly appreciated......

gator said:

I was wondering what approach angle, rate of descent, speed, flaps, etc others use to set up for short field landings?
Right now I can pretty much grease my wheel landings if I descend 500-700 fpm, keep the speed up (over the fence 80-85 kts) using 20 degrees flaps but end up taking quite abit of runway unless I really get on the brakes (which I don't especially like to do).
Any thoughts, tips, ideas greatly appreciated......

Click to expand...

Well my first thought is that 80-85 knots is really really fast for any kind of short field landing, that is just barely below flap speed, and my second thought is that there is no reason to use less than full flaps.

There is more than one short field technique. The more extreme one is to hang on the prop at very low speed. Another one is to experiment and find out the minimum speed at a lower power setting or power off, that allows a flare and use that speed. Using the second method can yield quite a short landing.

Oh, and greasing landings is not normally part of short field technique although I was able to grease a short field landing the other day, power off with a 62 knot approach speed in a fixed pitch RV-6 with a different pitot static system than you have.

Waaay Too Fast

If stall speed in landing configuration is 50 kts, try using 65kts on final for short field. Suggest you first do some practice near MCA to get a better feel for the controls at slower speeds. If you're currently using 80, it suggests you're not comfortable at the lower speeds - it just takes a little practice. Brakes should be used pretty much exclusively for turning anyway.
Terry, CFI
RV-9A N323TP

Not sure what you consider short. My home runway is 1500'. I typically approach at 60 kts. with full flaps (38*) and seldom need brakes.

If you really want to do short field landings............ an AOA gauge is your best friend.
If you have a nose wheel, you can do a deeper flair due to the location of the mains.

I'm with Mel....

...and also used 60 knots (70 MPH) on short final.

That said, it took a while to learn how slow my airplane would fly and still have a little lift left to flare with. Work your speed down incrementally and see how long it floats before you can three-point her.

You should be able to work the speed down and land and stop in under 1000'
solo. My -6A would do that with two aboard and rather heavy braking. It was in a slightly nose-up attitude and I'd drag it in with some power to the threshold.

Best,

70 mph on short final on the RV-7 or 8

It is too slow at 65 mph and the bottom will drop out real quick.


80 to 85 mph is way too fast.


5 mph one way or the other will make alot of difference when you are going short.

Yeeeowwwww!

If you're making 100 mph over the fence you are floating 4000 feet down the runway and then "greasing" the landing when it finally slows down to 55. And then it stops in the appropriate 500 feet.

85 kt approaches are for Lancairs - slow down.

Go to altitude and practice flying for an hour at 60 kts. Put flaps up and flaps down. Do turns, climbs and decents. From 60, pull the nose up to see where the stall is and how it feels going in.

Then go shoot landings using 60 as your speed on final. Nail it and don't go under. You'll be good at it after an hour.

The approach speed will vary from airplane to airplane, and should also be adjusted slightly for gross weight. 80-85 knots is too fast. It may work well with a long runway but will never do with a 2000' runway.

I'd take the machine up and do a stall series to find the best approach speed. If it stalls at 52 knots in your typical landing configuration, use 52 + 30% = 67 knots for a normal approach and landing. (that stall speed is the reference point and is probably less than 52) For a short field landing, make the approach at 52 + 15% = 60 knots, and plan the approach so as to use a little power to maintain that speed. With power off, the bottom may drop out during flare but that can be minimized by leaving just a little power on until the nose comes up in the flare. I have found, doing the stall series, with a little power on the actual stall break comes at less than the power off stall, so with some power on, there's more than enough margin to make it work out.

As always, the key is practice, practice. 80-85 is a bit fast. At the very least, it will wear out the tires quickly.

Oh yea, one other observation, I like using AOA just to confirm the margin above stall. I works great in my airplane.

too fast... (again)

Gator,
Since everyone has already told you what NOT to do. let me share what I'm doing (not the only way, just one way).

I operate out of 2000' of grass and I'm getting very reliable wheel landings in the 8 using about 1000' total, to flair touchdown and stop (with moderate to little braking).

Fly final at 70 KIAS and full flaps. (My plane stall buffets at 50 and breaks at 48-49, yours may vary)

Solo I may bring it down as low as 67 or so (remember I'm trying to do a wheel landing).

At the point of needing to flair, pull power to idle, flair and make a nice soft wheel landing that has the stick coming back slowly until you touch.

If you're a bit slower, it will just turn into a 3 point.

NOTE: if you're not seeing a full stall at somewhere around 50 knots then you may need to revisit your main gear intersection fairings.

gator said:

I was wondering what approach angle, rate of descent, speed, flaps, etc others use to set up for short field landings?
Right now I can pretty much grease my wheel landings if I descend 500-700 fpm, keep the speed up (over the fence 80-85 kts) using 20 degrees flaps but end up taking quite abit of runway unless I really get on the brakes (which I don't especially like to do).
Any thoughts, tips, ideas greatly appreciated......

Click to expand...

Tight Squeeze..

Dick,

I have operated my RV4 and now my HR2 out of my friend's 1100' grass strip and my 1600' strip here in the Green Swamp for many years. I frequent the Idaho and CO backcountry and my technique hasn't wavered. I have flown with an experienced MAF Jungle pilot in my back seat and have refined my technique to mirror what they teach. It works well for me.

I normally fly a 700' AGL overhead pattern to clear for animals, obstructions or tractors mowing. I perform a 2.5 G midfield break simultaneously reducing power and slowly increasing RPM and mixture on downwind. Below 90 knots I lower full flaps and look for a 45 degree angle line between the wing and tail from the landing spot to my eyeball to start my final turn. At the "perch" I am established at 80 knots and begin turning and slowing. I strive to attain a 3 degree glide slope and choose a landing point to avoid any obstacles. (I don't drag it in over trees, dump the nose and then flare as I learned many years ago.)
I establish a healthy rate of sink, I have a Lift reserve indicator which normally shows the "top of the yellow" at 69 knots, my best approach speed in the HR2. As I go below 300 feet I increase pitch angle and add a bit of power to increase the sink and decelerate to 65 Knots normally around 60 knots GS (LRI mid yellow, I have seen as low as 51KTS with a headwind) and fly a power on three point attitude to just above the grass and reduce to idle. At touchdown I ease her up into two-point for better visibility and apply light braking while raising the flaps. This technique has allowed me to land my HR2 at two strips slightly less than 1000' feet long, both above 5000' MSL. The Rocket is heavier and has a shorter wing than RV's but will still land and stop as short as my RV4 with practice!

I recommend you first practice slow flight configured for landing above 3000' AGL then some short field landings on a long runway. Remember, even the missionary pilots who operate loaded C-206's on 400 meter strips overseas have go/no-go points. Always leave yourself an out. When you are committed to land, make it count. Email me off line if you have any questions!

Smokey
HR2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYAMRO6gKKc&feature=related
Nicely flown short field landing by MAF C-185

Home strip 1020'..

I go into 1020', in a -4 not an -8. I ruled the -8 out partly because it needs a few extra mph, so greater KE to destroy.

I look for 60mph and about 1600rpm (I think), I do it by sound, though records from the AFS confirm it is there abouts. If I can stabalise at that, full flap, it works quite well for me. Its pretty flat. I shut the throttle when a wheel starts dragging. C/S prop by the way.

If you go to 'circuits' in my signature there is a link to two video landings. Not the most beautiful!

Thanks for all the response everyone. Have a good idea of what to do, now just need to get out there and do some work.....

How I do it

Hi.

You didn't mention which prop you have, c/s or fixed? That dictates how your plane slows down in the flare and how you want to do the power-reduction.

I use a 3* glidepath, full flaps and I'm aiming for beeing established (flaps down, on speed, on glidepath, power up) at 300' at the latest.

For finalspeed I use stallspeed + 30% and when approaching the flare (around 50') I let the airspeed slowly drop to stallspeed + 15%.
On light and medium weights on my plane, I use 65 on final and 60-55 kts approaching the flare.
These are nice round numbers to look at.
This give me a touchdown at around 50 kts.
For landing at max weight I add 5 kts to these numbers.
For no-flap training, I add 5 kts to these numbers.

In windy conditions, it 's useful to add alittle speed. As a start, you might want to try this: add half the headwind component and the whole gust factor.
This rule will give you a little too much add-on speed for the RV, but it's a safe place to start.

I use the throttle to hold the glideslope and stick to control the speed. In other words, you hold the same pitch-attitude on final.
When you roll out on final, you just set the pitch-attitude you want and keep that attitude.

It's also useful to make every landing a shortfield one. That way you're landing your plane the same way every time.

As the others have said: go up to a safe altiude and practice slowflight and stalls, both turning and straight ahead.
Find the stallspeed for YOUR plane, both at light, medium and maxweight.
THOSE are the numbers you want to use.
Maybe you can take along another RV-pilot or IP?

Good luck and have fun!

Thanks for that input. For the record I do have a C/S prop......

Induced drag and windshear.

There are some excellent posts here with great descriptions on how to land an RV in a short field.
However, a couple of factors have not been mentioned.
Short wing/induced drag and windshear.
Induced drag.
Induced drag (That produced by vortices of the wing tips) is only really an issue at low speed and high angles of attack. This is why Vans went for a short wing, as he was designing the RV series for high speed and so induced drag was not such an issue. However when Vans comes gliding in Australia you can be sure he is flying a glider with long thin wings, as in gliding much time is spent just above the stall- at the best glide speed or minimum sink speed- as long wings have much lower induced drag than short ones.
So when back at 1.3Vs (Stall speed plus 30%) an RV wing is producing a lot of induced drag. This is alluded to by Smokey when he says he pitches up and increases power to increase the sink rate. Pitching up (to a higher angle of attack) will dramatically increase the drag in a short wing aircraft at low speed and the added power is to prevent the airspeed decaying any further.

The significance of the high induced drag, is that if on approach, you end up right where you want to be for the flare, but pull fairly hard, the induced drag can remove 10kts of airspeed in the flare without you even realising it. Next time you do a power off flare, have a look at the airspeed loss.

Now this in its itself is not a problem, but if it coincides with 10kt windshear you may end up being a little embarrassed.

Windshear.
We all have seen windshear on gusty days, but the windshear that will bite you is that which can occur on a benign day. If the wind is only 5kts or so on the windsock, then it is possible that a faster moving airmass above (at 30' or so) is not mixing the air near the ground. There can be an 10-20' boundary layer of air near the ground, moving much slower than the 30' wind due to the friction of the air over the ground.
Fortunately RVs have such a reserve of power (but not lift at 65kt) that if you firewall the throttle the aircraft will not only fly but is capable of going straight into the climb.
So on ALL short-filed landings the ASI should be monitored with an eagle-eye and a go-around be executed if a significant airspeed loss occurs near the ground.

And do not be drawn in to the unprofessional game of sticking it on the piano keys. If it's only practice and not in anger, choose an aiming point such as the 500' marks and score yourself how close to the chosen touchdown point you can land. Dragging it in for a practice short field on the piano keys is another way to be bitten.


Pete.

Piano keys?

Never heard that before. Would that be called a Minor diminished or something?

Musical licence

Minor disaster more like.

we only have 6 landings so far, with a constant speed prop, RV-7A out of a 2000ft paved field.

having transitioned with jan bussell, he teaches approaches at about 70kts, full flaps in his 6A. we also have an advanced flight systems aoa that we have calibrated in the meantime.
if we approach with the AOA as primary (which works great), it gives us more like 64-65kts as approach speed. what i find amazing is how different the airplane feels with just the 5kts difference.
can't really say what i like better so far / what we will end up using.
with the 70kts, you can start the flare a little earlier and go to idle without "dropping through". with the 65kts you have to keep power on for quite a bit longer and the flare is noticeably more quick&firm. everything just happens in a bit shorter timespan.
right now, i'm trending towards the 70kts, as the airplane feels more crisp on finals, slightly better visibility and not as much a feeling of being on the "backside of the power curve" although you technically are. of course the speed over threshold is already lower as flare has started by then. but 70 being the target final speed. lengthwise i do not have enough landings to make a qualified comment yet.

rgds, bernie