poppy2

I am learnign how to fly with an instructor. I can keep the plane up in the air with no trouble. Have not taken off yet. My problem is this: When I try to land, I try to glide in about ten feet above the end of the runway, round out about three feet above the runway and flair at about one foot. That is what I try to do and have been pretty good at that. My problem is that more offten than not the planes nose goes into the ground or just enough to shut the engine off and still be upright. I get it down but having a hard time getting to taxi it back to me because the prop hits the grass and stops. What I am trying to do is hold the up elevator until the rear wheels are on the ground and than release the up elvator to nutural. I guess my questuon is this: do you release up elevator as soon as the rear wheels are on the ground and let the nose drop , or do you continue to hold up elevator until the plane stops? I might add that the plane is properly balanced. Thanks for any help you can give me here.

Poppy2

ptmac3

My Feedback: (3)

It sounds like you are stalling the aircraft. I'm guessing that you are getting the plane slowed down too much and/or are giving it too much up elevator to flare it properly. What does your instructor say? What plane are you learning with?

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

Ditto ptmac's comment and question. Hard to give an educated opinion without knowing the plane you're flying; however, it does sound like a stall. When you get within a wingspan of the ground, the plane goes into 'ground effect', it essentially has more lift due to the 'cushion' of air it's riding on, so it will actually fly at slightly less than its normal stall speed, until it slows to the point that the ground effect doesn't hold it up, and then it suddenly drops because it is much less than stall speed.

Try to come in a little faster, fly it all the way to the ground, rather than gliding the last few feet of altitude. I generally have one or two clicks of throttle when I touch down, even on my trainer (Superstar .40). It isn't enough to keep it flying, the plane settles and as soon as the wheels touch, you can go to idle, or leave a touch of throttle. Grass is a great 'brake', you'll stop rolling pretty quick, but a little higher rpm might allow you to 'mow' some grass instead of letting it kill the engine. I wouldn't worry too much about planting the mains before the nose wheel, just keep the plane level on approach, and control altitude with the throttle instead of the elevator. You'll eventually get to where you know how much throttle to be at on final, to let it settle, without cutting power completely.

Remember: ATTITUDE with Elevator, ALTITUDE with Throttle

Geistware

My Feedback: (16)

Fly the plane to the ground using throttle to adjust decent instead of the elevator

poppy2

Thank you all for you input. I am really trying to lick this problem. Once I can land, I think take off will be easier and I can get my wings and break the cord I have now with an instructor. I am retired and the club field is only four miles up the road and I am ready. What more could you ask for.

I also have a Superstar 40 and really like it. I started out with an OS 40 LA and now have a OS 46AX on the plane. The plane glides in on idle and I shoot for an imaginary spot about ten feet above the end of the run way. I use no up elevator on the glide, but when the plane is about three feet above the runway I put in a little up elevator to level the plane, then at about one foot above the runway I put in a little more up elevator to flair. Everything look good up till the time the main wheels touch and then it touches down on the front wheel, but some how the prop hits the grass and off the engine goes.

I think that what I might be doing is when I release the up elevator stick with my finger, I keep my finger on the stick and push it to nutural and maybe push a little to far in my excitment and actually put in some down elevator. Is that possible and have people ever had a problem doing that?

Thanks again guys. I really appreciate your input.

Poppy2

scalebldr

My Feedback: (7)

how much ground clearance dio you have between the prop and the grass with the plane just sitting?what size wire is the nose gear,should be 5/32.I have seen some arf that use about 1/8 wire and some that have minamal ground clearance for grass fields.what size wheels are you using on the mains and the nose?

scalebldr

My Feedback: (7)

the reason for the above questions is there are grass fields the there are GRASS FIELDS.when i flew off grass in massachusetts at club fields the grass was fairly smooth as they rolled the fieldin the spring and kept it mowed to about 2".when i moved to new hampshire is the grass field is now part of a sod farm and the grass is twice as thick and mowed to about 3" to keep burn spots out in the summer.I found larger wheels were needed otherwise the takeoff run was extened a bit due to a slower acceleration rate.good ground clearnce should be 2-3"depending on the model.my sport air .40 has alot of ground clearance as designed but the wm t-34 uses very small wheels which will br replaced with 3' and will measure clearnce when that is done.

kdheath

Go to about 1/4 throttle on your turn onto final approach and reduce the power slowly and smoothly to let the model settle toward the ground.

One of the things I see students doing on approaches is getting impatient. Once you have a nice, ever-so-slightly-nose-down glide going, wait, wait, wait for the speed to decay, then squeeze the elevator back ever so gently to touch down. You want the thing to stall and touch the mains down at the same instant. Then you can release the back pressure on the elevator stick. Too fast and you run the risk of bouncing back up and resuming flying, leading to the hippity-hop. Too slow too soon, and you get the stall-fall-in-nose-first routine.

Remember, Elevator controls speed, and Throttle controls altitude. Slow the plane down with the elevator, and control how high your approach is with throttle.

Hope that is some help. It's not real intuitive.

Kelvin

feihu-RCU

poppy2

You've got to hold up elevator after landing.

feihu

bassfisher

My Feedback: (21)

The best fix for your problem is to convert your plane to a taildragger. Not trying to be a smart***, but you'll avoid the the nosewheel flexing backward (a problem with most nosewheel set-ups that I've seen). It will help you out later as you progress into other planes (the majority of which are taildraggers). Yes, holding up elevator is a great idea, but you have to be below take-off speed to do it, or you'll balloon up back into the air. Larger wheels are another way to fix your problem, or readjusting the nose gear to raise the nose a little higher. In response to another post, on a trainer you want to always try to land on the mains first and then let the nosewheel touchdown. Trying to threepoint a trainer is tough enough when you've gotten landings down, but not as a beginner. Conversion from a trike to a taildragger is not very difficult, someone in your club should be able to show you - basically some lit-ply, a good solid landing gear (personally I would not use the wire gear), some good 30 minute epoxy, a tail wheel bracket and two nylon wing bolts to hold the gear on. Just make sure you put the axles under the the leading edge of the wing, this will prevent that majority of nose-overs.

poppy2

Thank you all for your help. Last Friday I went to the field and it was just the instructor and myself. I got to land five times and three were the same thing that I have been taling about, the plane is uprigth, but the prop hits the grass and stops running. Two landing were decent and one of the two was super.

What ever I am doing is causing the nose wheel to really bend back some what. We had to bend the wire forward several times. In fact, I went to the hobby shop and have replace the front wire (5/32 inch). I also put 3 inch wheels on the main ( they were 21/2 in) but kept a 21/2 on the front to maintain the 21/2 inch space from prop to ground.

I do not want to go to a taildragger. I see the people at the field land the tricycle wheel planes with no trouble and that is what I prefer.

I will try to give all the information I can here. Scalebldr said the there is grass and than there is GRASS. I know what he is talking about. I have flown on fescue grass and centipede. The field I am on now is centipede and it will slow you down much more the fescue. Anyway, I am on centipede grass now. I don't think that I an stalling the plane, but that is just what I think and I am far from knowing what is going on here. One thing that I do have is an 11 inch prop, but the should not matter since I have 21/2 inch clearance from prop to ground.

The groud effect is somethng that I am aware of but really know little of how it effects the plane. I do have a book and it gets into ground effects. I will be reading up on it. As far as the speed it comes in, I think it is fast but again that is just my observation.

I am aware that ATTITUDE is with elevator and ALTITUDE is with throttle.

After last Friday I wish I could tell you what I did and did't do different in all all of the five landings that I did, but it still seems all so fuzzy. I really think my problem is that I release the elevator to soon and when I go back next time I am going to pay close attention to that.

Again I want to say thanks for all the help.

Poppy2

FenceMagnet

My Feedback: (2)

"Just make sure you put the axles under the the leading edge of the wing, this will prevent that majority of nose-overs."

.... but will result in porpoising instead..... BAD idea !!!!!!! .... half-way between leading edge and CG is more like it.....

[:-]

ptmac3

My Feedback: (3)

I used to do the exact same thing when I was learning. I can remember bending the nose wheel so far back it would leave a black scuff mark on the fuselage. LOL! I believe that proper throttle management cured me of it, but I'm also certain I slowly transitioned away from it. That is, I started to make more and more proper landings, like 1 out of 5 was good, then 2 out of 5 and so forth. Took me quite a while as I recall. Don't be afraid to work the throttle. Just before actual touchdown, give it a momentary burst of throttle, like about 3/4 clicks. The same thing applies if you find the airplane bouncing after touchdown. A short burst of throttle will smooth it out and take the bounce out of it. What you don't want to do is give it so much throttle that the airplane increases altitude. The proper amount will come with practice.

scalebldr

My Feedback: (7)

My thought here is what is the instructor saying or doing,he should have some idea.I am an instructor and teach landings the way i was taught,at any time during the flight i will chop the throttle to idle and make the student land on the one approach,good dead stick practice but it is hard at first but after awhile my students can land from any point on the first pass.wait till you have to do cross wind landings with cross coupled airleron and rudder and have to straighten the plane and flair all at the same time.stay with it as practice makes perfect and do not be afraid of adding a 2 3/4 inch whell to the nose since you went to 3 on the mains.

2slow2matter

My Feedback: (1)

Put the 3 inch wheels on the mains--more than 2 1/2 inch prop clearance isn't a problem. Also, the larger wheels will allow the tires to better roll OVER the grass, instead of trying to plow THROUGH the grass--leading to the wire bending. Also, as soon as the mains touch down, release the elevator and the nose will settle in. I've never held up elevator after main gear touchdown, and my landings are very nice! Having said that, if you are stalling (as suggested above), then the nose gear will hit the ground very harshly. When this happens, it is very hard on the landing wire, and the wheel bends backwards, and prop clearance nears zero. Keep your speed up. Don't try and flair too much. Remember, you're not landing a 767 here. It only takes an inch or so of flair to settle a trainer in real nicely.
Since you are obviously going to stay with the trike setup (which is probably a good decision for now), then look into some of the dual strut front wire setups. They are stiffer, and better for flying off of grass. Not too expensive, either. I think I paid about 14 bucks for the last set I bought--60 sized.
Having said all of that, I must follow with this: so far, ALL of your landings have resulted in a plane that is once again flyable. This is the desired end result. Remember, not every landing will result in a plane that is "taxiable." If your plane comes down in the same amount of pieces it went up, count it successful--especially for now!!!

plane_freek

My first few landings were like that too. After i did them more i got a feel for leaving a bit of throttle on until a few feet from the runway then let the nose drop and glide in, flare and touch on the mains and just let the nose settle, I have about 1 3/4" clearance from prop to ground on my LT40 w/ MDS. 40 and a 10 x 6 prop

poppy2

Thanks again for all the help. I did not expect all this input but I am digesting every bit of it.

When I replaced the front landing gear, the new one was about 1/2 longer than the old one and I could not seem to alter that length. That is why I put the bigger 3 inch wheels on the back and kept the 21/2 inch wheel on the front. The plane I have is a Superstar 40. There has been one or two times early on that it received some good damage, but to my surprise I have repaired it to good condition. Two things have helped me do that. The first time it was damaged, the the instructor I had at that time gatherd up every last piece of plane and I was able to reconstruct it back home. The other thing I have going for me now is that I now have another super 40 I built and have not flown yet. I can use the new one kind of as a template when I make any changes or repairs on my old one, which brings me to what I really wanted to say, which is this. The reason I kept the 21/2 wheel on the front was that it maintained the exact attitude as the new one. The 3 inch wheel would have lifted the front up 1/2 inch highrer than the new plane I have. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but that just seemed to make sense to me.

My instructor says I am letting go of the up elevator to soon. Since the idea of stalling has come up again, I am going to have to pay attention to that.

I do have to keep in mind when I tend to get disappointed, that 2 out of 5 landing isn't bad and most of all, to lift my spirits, what 2slow2matter said, "If the plane came down with the same number of pieces that it went up with, count it successful". I like that. I toyed with this hobby for several years. This is only the first year that I have put my mind to it and said to myself that I will master this thing. I thank God that I have gotten as far as I have. Thanks again for all the help. Every little bit is appreciated.

Poppy2

RCVFR

My Feedback: (7)

I think that is the key to your landing problem. You need to keep flying the plane all the way to fully on the ground. Think of it as flying the plane to 6", then 3", then continuing to hold the elevator, let it fully settle in on all wheels before releasing the elevator. Good luck, you will get it!

poppy2

Well last night I went to the field. I got to go up about eight times and made eight decent landings. I am trying to look back and see what I did. First I said a little prayer. The heart was beating a little fast, the hands were damp and the upper lip was stuck to my teeth. What I did was glide in to about eight feet up at the end of the runway (it seemed fast to me) and then when it was about two feet above the runway put in a little up elevator, leveled out, and then just before the wheels touched ground, gave some more up elevator and let the main wheels touch down and held on to the up elevator until the plane stoped. I really felt good. Again I want to thank everyone that put in their input here.

Poppy2