buzp

I've seen a lot of foam 3d planes flip over on landing and it looks like the landing gear is to blame. Many of these landings result in some damage to the body of the plane. How many of you are actually using landing gear on your foam 3d's? Should I leave the gear off of my first 3d electric (e-flite ultimate) or do they actually have a purpose?

exeter_acres

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I don't use gear...but I fly at a grass field....

and put packing tape along the bottom edge

bdavison

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Actually most of the nose overs are due to a improperly positioned CG. The reason for this is that most people follow the instructions that came with the plane and position the CG where it tells you too. The problem with this is that the "recommended" CG position is usually so conservative that it makes the plane nose heavy at slow speed.

Simply moving the CG back a little normally solves this problem with most of the 3D type electric planes.

Of perticular note is the Tensor4D. The manual recommended CG placement is 2 1/4" to 2 3/4" behind the leading edge of the top wing. With the CG in this position the plane will nose over almost EVERY time on landing. By moving the CG back to about 3", the plane will 3D much better, and wont plant the nose on a slow speed landing.

The other thing is people try to land an electric plane like they would a glow plane. It doesnt work.

In a glow plane, you can pull off all the power and let the plane slowly glide down to the ground.
This doesnt work in most 3D foamy planes because they dont have an airfoiled wing to produce lift, and they dont glide very well. If you pull the power off, the plane goes into a nose heavy dip, you add more elevator to hold the nose up, and it stalls right before it touches down. BANG you plant the nose.

Since most 3D electric planes are tail-draggers, to land an electric 3D plane you should land it like a real tail-dragger aircraft. The tail should touch down first, and then the main gear. If you dont, it will ground loop everytime. Not to mention it puts alot of stress on the landing gear.

As you come in for a landing, pull up elevator and get the nose up, increase or decrease throttle to maintain the nose up attitude. Eventually it will slow down forward flight, and start to settle. When the tail touches down, then slowly decrease throttle until the nose starts to drop. Eventually the main gear will touchdown, chop all the throttle off. If you do this correctly, it wont roll more than 2ft once the main gear touch, and it wont nose over or wack the prop.

AcroJo

My Feedback: (1)

There you go, someone that understands foamies. Join the minority, usually the declaration is, 'its the planes fault'. Here's hopeing that your post helps spread the word so we don't have to wade through anymore 'cheap landing gear' or 'this plane is crap' threads.

buzp, bending the gear forward helps a bit too. Good luck, Joe

triangle

My Feedback: (3)

I'm sorry but on the (*&^%) tensor...... the landing gear does not have enough rake..... thats why its noses over.... loke at the plane from the side and look at the foward inclination of the landing gear foward.....another thing woth mentioning is the position of the landing gear relative to the cg of the plane......... to foward and the plane puts too much weight on the tail, too far back and it noses over easily

bdavison

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Triangle,

I understand what your saying, but I'm being flat out honest with you.

If you move the CG farther back than what the manual says, you CAN land the Tensor smoothly. Cumn thru, had it right. Everyone blames the plane for poor performance. I know that there are good pilots out there that have difficulty flying these planes, but everyone is too quick to place the blame on the plane when it doesnt perform like a trainer.

I by no means am a expert pilot, but I was trained properly. I learned stuff that you just cant "magically" pick up no matter how many times you fly. Ive said it once and I'll say it again. GO find a pattern pilot, and get him to give you lessons on flying. The trick mentioned above is classic pilot teaching. It works in both model airplanes and full scale aircraft. There are plenty of pilots that can fly, but the ones that can REALLY truly take hold of an aircraft and make it become part of them, are the ones that learned the small stuff that makes a big difference. It a finesse that you cant get by trial and error. You have to be taught it.

Have you ever watched a pilot finesse a plane into a spot on perfect landing everytime vs one that makes a good landing every once in a while. Or watched one that just gently places a aircraft down like it was on a track. That finesse comes from knowledge about how that plane reacts and behaves. Not just knowledge about what stick inputs to use, but actual aerodynamic knowledge and how to use it to his/her advantage.

You CANNOT learn this stuff from flying, no matter how many flights you make.
You CANNOT learn this stuff from a simulator no matter how many hours you spend in front of it.

When I first started flying I got training from a pattern flyer. He made me do countless THOUSANDS of landings. Each time verbally giving me commands to make the next one better. Now that stuff is permenantly imbedded in my head, and I do those things without thinking about it.

Many pilots dont know that there are differences between flying tricycle gear and tail-dragging airplanes. There are hundreds of different things to finessing those types of aircraft. For instance. In a tricycle gear aircraft, if you hold down elevator once on the deck it will make the nose gear stick to the deck and make taxing easier. With a tail dragger, the opposite is true. Hold up elevator to stick the tail wheel down on the deck. Its these little tricks that some folks never learn.

Think about how many times youve seen a pilot try to steer a plane to the ground for a landing. They will come around on the final turn, and push down elevator to get the plane down lower, and then literally try to fly the plane onto the deck. It usually bounces, rolls for 40ft, or goes whizzing by them and they have to turn it around and taxi back to themselves. It happens all the time. Ive seen countless hundreds of pilots do this.

Heres what the pilot that knows how to land a plane sees.
He sees the pilot enter final turn at too high an altitude.
He knows that if you push down elevator on approach, that airspeed increases due to the dive which results in high landing speeds.
He knows that once he gets down near the deck and has to release that down elevator, that the airspeed combined with ground effect will make the plane float.
He knows that if he forces the plane down onto the deck, that the airspeed translates into poor taxing performance, because steering is more sensitive, and that the forces applied on the landing gear will cause it to flex and make the plane bounce.
He knows that all that built up airspeed will make the plane difficult to stop.

Here's how the pilot should have landed the plane.
Enter final turn at an appropriate altitude.
Pull off the throttle, and start applying UP elevator. This will start to slow the aircraft down, and raise the nose.
Once the plane starts to slow down, it will start to lose altitude.
As it starts to settle downwards, more elevator will be required to maintain nose up attitude.
The pilot may have to increase throttle to maintain proper airspeed.
The pilot may also have to increase throttle to get it closer to him before touchdown.
When the plane is about 30 ft away, and 8" off the deck, the pilot starts pulling off throttle while adding UP elevator.
When the plane touches down, continue adding up elevator, as the airspeed decreases the nose will settle down for a perfect smooth landing. Ideally at touchdown you should have FULL up elevator, and the plane should stall right at touchdown.
The plane probably wont roll 2ft, and will still be downwind of the pilot, at which point he can simply steer the plane towards himself, and use throttle to pull it along the runway at taxi speed.

You can tell some flyers this, and they will sware up and down that you have no idea what your talking about, but this is PRECISELY how to land a plane the correct way, This is also how a full scale aircraft instructor will teach you to land. If you take a pilot that taught himself how to fly, no matter how many flights he makes, he will never learn that. He may get lucky a few times and manage to do it correctly, but he wont know why it worked or how to repeat it again.

I used to work for Delta Airlines. We used to sit on the side of the runway with signs that had points on them, and when a delta aircraft landed, we would hold up a sign to grade the landing. At first the pilots got really p*$$ed off at our antics. Then we started noticing them greasing the landings more often. There was one pilot that came in one day with a heavy plane, and slammed it onto the deck. Tires smoking, and he was at the other end of the runway before he got it slowed down. As he came around on the taxiway we could see what we call "hot brake". The brakes on the main gear were glowing red hot. He came around and parked next to the jetway. About 15 min later we heard this LOUD pow pow pow. Three 1lb lugnuts came shooting off the main gear and went right through a parked luggage car.

Once they serviced the plane. I got pushback.(Pushback is when you use the tug to push the aircraft back out of the gate) During pushback the tug operator has a headset that is plugged into the aircraft, and you can talk to the pilot to give him commands. Well being the sarcastic little &%*$ that I am. I keyed up the mike and said "Ground tug to hot brake...release brakes" to which I recieved a reply of "what brakes"...I was laughing so hard I could hardly contain myself.

Two days later, here he comes again with another heavy load. He had that nose jacked up so high on approach that I thought the tail was going to scrape on touchdown. The main gear touched down, without a chirp. And the nose settled down slowly. He turned off onto the first taxiway. (for those of you that dont know, the first taxiway is usually only used by small aircraft like cessna's because they are the only ones that can stop in time to use it). That plane couldnt have rolled more than 200ft before it stopped. Needless to say he got all 10's on that landing. That was when I realized landing any aircraft correctly can be done, you just have to know how to do it, and then apply that knowledge and .....grease that sucker.

viperdude

i have to disagree with bdavison, being a student pilot, and having many friends who are pilots, taild draggers do have a tennancy to roll forward during landing, however, landing on the tail first is probably the orst thing to do, on full scale aircraft, the plane toutches down with the front two wheels, then the tail slowly drops, if they landed tail first, the nose would be forced down, and the plane would snap like a twig, if not, the plane which will always be at a slight bank, no matter how little, will hit the tail, and the plane will spin to one side, and trash your wings, and anything else that gets in the way, for foamies, the best laning posible is a three point landing, which is where all three wheels toutch at the same time, that way, the plane wont flip. Another thing to consider, is that full scale aircraft weigh 1000+ lbls, and the front wheels do not stop as as easily, and caust the plane to nose down, where as the foamies have very little weight, and the smallest bump in the pavement, can cause them to roll. If you have a smooth landing area, make sure your wheels spin freely, and dont catch, taxi the plane witht the tail up, (without taking off) and make sure that the plane doestn bump around to much. Then you can make landings on the front two wheels, however, even then, i would have the plane land, where the tail is just cenimeters abouve the runway.

bdavison

My Feedback: (1)

Im not saying drag the tail on a tail dragger for 20 yards down the runway, and then let the main gear touch. The tail should touch first though.

Take a full-scale piper cub for example. Standard tail-dragger. If you touchdown main gear first, then as airspeed decreases, the tail drops down and the rear wheel hits pavement. It bounces up, nose goes down. Depending on airspeed, it might bounce a few times. Not to mention during the short time the tail is still airborne, you've got NO steering capability (assuming you dont have independant brakes)
Think about when you do this...when that tail finally touches down, it pulls a little to one side, and your kicking the pedals to get it straight aren't you.

If you bring it in just shy of a stall, let the tail wheel touch during the flare, then let the nose settle and main gear touchdown a split second later, it WONT roll very long, and no tail bounce. Plus you wont have to stomp rudder to get it to roll straight. Try it if you dont believe me.

Try that main first landing on a short grass runway, you'll probably be in the trees at the other end before you get it stopped. Not to mention if you have the tail up, and hit a rock or rut, your going to ground loop it.

Im not saying pull it up into a hover, set the tail down, and then drop the nose. Thats insane.
What happens is most people relax elevator when the tail touches, and they drop the nose onto the runway. Then...yes, it will bounce, flip, scrape...etc. Keep holding up and let it "settle". I've done it countless thousands of times. Even in a full scale cub.

Tricycle gear of course is a little different. Main gear should obviously touch first, and then let the nose gear settle down onto the runway.

WhtBronco

Wow I have to pipe I on this thread. I have the Eflite Ultimate and mostly fly it off pavement, but do fly it at the local grass flying field occasionally. I have taken off and landed from both surfaces with my Eflite Ultimate. Since the tail skid was wearing out I started hand launching the plane rather than taking off. All my landings are harrier landings these days. It’s much easier on the plane I have found. I also changed the junk wheels out for some MPI light weight wheels, that IMO look better also and were only $3 at the LHS. On pavement the stock wheels were so slick they let the gear spread out even while sitting still.

I considered taking the landing gear off my plane to save some weight, but have since decided not to. I do not like the rubber band mount for the props and with a solid prop mount it’s likely to break the prop on landing without the gear. The bottom of the plane will take a real beating without the gear as well unless you put tape, carbon fiber etc on the bottom of the fuse to protect it.

I have 26+ hours of flight time on the plane and it is starting to show this, but still flies well.

I also found that my Ultimate is actually flyable with the CG forward of the recommended location. At the stock location the plane would drop the tail into a hover with every turn and was a bear to fly as a result. Moving the CG forward of recommended location by 1/8” fixed this for me and it still hovers and harriers very nicely.

viperdude

on full scale tail draggers, the last wheel to toutch is the rear wheel, because when the pilot toutches down, hes doing about 60 or so, then as speed decreases, the tail gently settles down, if the planes tail hit so hard, that it bounced, the wings would have been missing, because at the speed need to acheive this, if the tail dropped, the plane would lift off. I understand your idea, but it would be like landing a plane wiith tricycle landing gear on the front wheel!, it just doesnt work! take it form student pilot, who has flow with some of the most experianced pilots in the world, tail draggers always land front two wheels first, this is because if they land on one wheel, and roll down the runway, they have no stability, where as two wheels, at least gives them the stability they need, also another problem wiht this, is once the tail on the oplane is dropping, it doesnt matter how hard it drops, it wont flip the plane forward, the only way to flip the plane is to push forward on the stick, or slam the brakes, while ridingon the front two wheels. The FAA hand book, has one section on this, when you take off and land, you do it exactly the same way, but backwards, because both ways are the smoothest, and safest way to land, when a tail dragger takes off, it throttles up, the tail leaves the ground, and the plane goes another 300 fet or so, then the front two wheels lift off, on landing, they do exactly the opposite, the plane throttles back, and settles the front two wheels down, then as the plane slows, the pilot pulls back on the stick, to keep the tail up for as long as possible, then once the plane reaches about 20mph, the tail slowly settles down, and the pilot eases on the brakes if you think im kidding, most airports have flying schools, and some even have aerobatic flight schools, go and pay about 100$, and have a pilot take you up in a decathalon, do some stunts, then pay careful attention to landing. when you can get 15 pilots o tell me to land a tail dragger on the rear wheel, then ill beleive you, but for now, im going with my many many friends, nost of which have every known license, and can fly just about any thing that flys.

AcroJo

My Feedback: (1)

viperdude, thanks for sharing real world experiences with full scale. Interesting stuff. Now lets get back to the subject at hand. Landing 4 to 5 oz. of foam with a 10 oz. payload. Non wheeled craft, float it in and land slightly tail first. Wheeled craft, float it in and land slightly tail first. There is no reason why, with practice, that you can't float it in like a falling leaf and touch down with close to zero roll out. Weather it is a three point touchdown or tail first. The idea is to keep it soft and short for minimal damage or resulting flip on its nose. These do not land like trainers, sport or full scale. There is considerable strain on the gear in run out or scale like landings on smooth surfaces. Grass fields are torture on this gear. Land soft and save your gear for take offs. Did someone mention taxiing on to the runway? I've never seen it done with a foamy. For the most part its a hand launch or set it down at you feet and take off. With practice you will be landing from where you took off from, at your feet. Take a little time to fly your plane as slow as it will go, test it for stall speed. Once familiarized with these aspects you will be landing like a pro and taking your foamy home in one piece. Joe

bdavison

My Feedback: (1)

I taxi mine around.
If your flying a Ikarus shocky...dump the stock plastic button wheels they give you. They dont roll worth a flip, sound god aweful when they touch down on a gym floor(like scraping nails on a chalkboard)

Look for Maxx ultralight wheels. These things are the bomb. You can get a 1 1/2" wheel that's almost as light as the stock wheels. They have nice plastic molded "mag" rims, with nice firm but light foam "tires". You have to drill out the center to get them onto the shocky's mount, but once on there, they perform GREAT!

Fred Dings II

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cumn thru

Thanks for the addendum to super dude Well stated and accurate.

Regards, FRED

bdavison

My Feedback: (1)

I think the reason alot of people dont do it that way is because they arent used to using the throttle to maintain a high angle of attack. When flying a foamy, think of the throttle just like you would any other "control surface" You have to use throttle, aileron, elevator, and rudder to fly. Lots of people concentrate so much on flying aileron, rudder, and elevator and dont pay the throttle any attention. Shame cause the throttle can be your best friend (or worst enemy).

Till next time.....fly it like you stole it.