mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

Hey guys, Im a little lost here so I figured I would ask the exsperts.

So I got a Byron F16 that is converted with a P80, Im useing Tams retracts, with a Prolink nose strut up front.

Anyways, she is a little fat a 20 pounds(45in wings I think) with no fuel, I seem to land with around 16-17oz left with my flying timer set at 4min, (this dose not include taxi time)


Im really haveing a hard time getting the landings down.

I have built in flaprons into the wings, with 1/2 flap haveing around 3/4in down and full flap with 1 1/4 down from neutral poshion, with down elevator programed into both.

When flying even aggressive I feel like I have a good amount of elevator travel,

But when I come in for landing, My coach says I keep blooning it, he says Im giving it to much elevator and put it in to much of an high alf and then it drops like a rock the last 1foot or so.

I had one landing yesterday where I tried to say off the elevator completly and flared at the end, and it just barly flared in time, smooth landing but it was scarry.

So could the Flaprons make the elvaotors more sentive?

He thinks I should try landing at a lower elevator rate with is very odd to me.

What do you guys do?

Thanks

jofunk

Elevator effectiveness or lack there of is a very good indicator of airspeed. No telemetry needed. I wouldn't change the rates, but maybe a little expo.

essyou35

My Feedback: (11)

My .02 is that flaperons do wierd things to the elevators on an f-16. I found it would "blank them" meaning that fine adjustements could not be made, I had to really make them move and then the jet would do drastic moves.
Does your f-16 have gear doors?

Usually on an f-16 you come in nose high with power on, if you try to do a nose down it will come in very fast. If you try to flare that it will balloon then stall.

When you make the final approach nose should be high and use the power to control the decent.

Are you cutting power at final and ocming in nose down?

George

My Feedback: (57)

Try landing w/o flaperons.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

No flaperons and drag it in using a high nose attitude to get the speed you want and use the power to control your descent.

mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

Are you cutting power at final and ocming in nose down?

Im going to say yes,

I fly one circit at 1/2 or less power nice and slow, once Im in the middle off my base leg turn, He tells me to kill the power, and then most of my landing are way fast, I would not say nose down, but more level.

I would rather land fast, as I have already had to fix the nose gear mount 2 times as I pulled to much nose up and it got reall slow quick.

One guy is telling me I need to take it up and try to fly as slow and nose up as possable then try to land that way. But Ill be honest, being such a heavy wingloaded jet, that scares the crap out of me.

I defently have a "porpusing dureing landing"

mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

So how much power do you guys have when your bring it in? are we talking 1/4 power or less?

essyou35

My Feedback: (11)

The heavy one I had needed 3/4 power all the away around and nearly 1/2 on the final leg. High alpha all the way down. Too slow and it drops, too fast and it will ballon. The final turn is key, too slow it drops like a rock, too fast and you come in too hot. What I did was started slowing before the final turn, then on the final popped the throttle then lowered it as the turn completed to keep altitude without gaining speed. Was very difficult.

If it is heavy wingloaded, then high alpa is the only choice or land it at 50MPH.

Its not easy for sure, I botched 40% of my landings either by having to go around or bouncing it.

A lightly wing loaded f-16 like the Tam is a great easy jet to land. But once you get an f-16 its quite advanced.

Once you master it stay with it, or you lose it. I had my down pat then I started flying a viper jet and couldnt land the f-16 very well anymore.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

if the nose drops, you pick up speed and the porpousing begins. Look at videos of real jets coming in to land. The nose it high and the power is constantly being adjusted. Pitch controls airspeed and power controls descent rate.

I start coming on a upwind over the runway around 1/4-1/3 power, directly overhead drop the gear and start a turn to downwind. Once on downwind, power should come back a bit to help continue to slow down and the nose should start coming up to hold your altitude to help it slow. Once the speed is just a bit faster than your landing speed (at this point you should be turning a base leg and should be in a descent with the nose slightly high) hold the pitch attitude and the power should start coming up (how much depends on the plane) to reduce your descent rate so as to be a continuous descent all the way to the ground. At no time should your pitch attitude change UNLESS you get slow(drop the nose) or fast (raise the nose).
Once your confident you have made the runway, then the power can come to idle (2'or so off the ground) and the residual energy used for the flare. Unless! You are Really slow, then you will need to hold the power in longer, possibly all the way to the ground.

The next time you go flying, take the time in the first flight to Learn the model. Get up high, put the gear down, raise the nose and fly it around in High Alpha using power to hold the same altitude, and do some turns, climbs and descents to get a feel for how the plane at slow high AoA flight. Then get really high and do the same thing, then pull the power to idle and stall it to see exactly how slow it will fly.

Once you get a feel for slow flight, take the time over the next few flights to do nothing but approach's and landings. A full day of all this should get you really comfortable with the landings.

IF at ANY time during the approach to land you feel you are to fast or to slow, GO around

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

On my Bandit(which is alot slippier than the F16), with 40* of flap deflection and 75* of speed brake delfection, i use around 1/4 throttle for the approach and landing. On my eurosport, if i was really working on getting it in a short strip, i would use anywhere from 1/3-3/4 power depending on the runway length.

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

Buddy I have flown a crapload of differente F-16's, but the Byron is another league. It flies completely different, and is more of a floater thant all the other ones. Ive never flown one personally but Ive seen them and they just seem to glide so much better than all the other ones. Perhaps because of the lighter wing loading.

I think you will be ok and will figure it out upon maiden. They just fly slow. This was the "original" jet trainer for many folks! I'd stay away from flaps. Have never used them on F-16's and on the Byron it would just be unnecessary drag.

lookilook

Never used flaperons in any of my f16's and really no need to once you are in the correct approach attitude. It takes some flights to find the ideal for each size of F16 so keep practicing!
Totally agree with what Invertmat said.

bluescoobydoo

is it nose heavy? this might stop the nose coming up at low airspeeds as more elevator will be needed

CARS II

My Feedback: (7)

No my best, somewhat hot approach but the angle at the end was right, oh yeah, mine was flying nose heavy, about one inch to forward.







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXkq4b6L7fY

mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

Humm thanks for the vid

That is exactly what my landings look like

Maybe I need to move the cg back more

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

This vid shows a pretty good high alpha landing..

http://youtu.be/WXwQvwZ9Vj0

mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

So going to high alpha is more towards the end of the landing not all the way down

mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

So going to high alpha is more towards the end of the landing not all the way down

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

You want to hold a higher than average angle of attack the entire way down to keep the speed low. If the nose drops, you will pick up speed. If you pickup this speed on the final leg of the approach you'll come in fast and float down the runway.

The key is you Have to learn what Your airplane can do. You may be able to hold a pretty flat pitch angle to keep the speed in check and fly with very little power, or you may have to put 10* of nose up and fly it in with a Bunch of power "dragging its butt" to keep it from floating. It is all completely dependent on your model.

If you watch a bunch of videos of full scale jets coming in to land you'll notice they all have something in common: 1. Pitch attitude stays constant (this maintains the correct approach spees) and 2. The power is constantly being adjusted (this maintains the proper glide slope/descent angle).

Then the next time you fly, go do what i suggested a few posts back. You'll have a lightbulb click on and realize that you'll be able to keep your speed very low and fly around comfortably and then maintain that same speed while descending and climbing, after that its easy as cake, as you just do the exact same thing all the way to the ground.

essyou35

My Feedback: (11)

Here is my first landing with the f-16, when I was just recovered from a broken leg and finally walking no less. Probably not the best time maiden such a jet. Not a good landing either but you can see the weight in that thing! 54" wing span nearly 30 lbs wet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYG7EyHQ4D4

CARS II

My Feedback: (7)

I think that you get the idea on how you should see your airplane as it comes down on final, do a few approaches to land but go around as soon as you cross the threshold of the runway, up and away and come back for another approach, half downwind pull back on the gas to about a 1/4 then began your high alpha approach ( pull the nose up ) the airplane will start to slow down, whatever you do keep the nose high, throtttle is your best friend here, once you noticed that the jet is slowing down as it completes the down wind leg bring the throttle up to half till the final approach leg, there is where you need to adjust for a more shallow or steepier descend with more or less thrust, then repeat.

Doing this exercise is much easer with todays turbines because the fast accelerations, try that with a slower accel turbine like mine, your mind had to be thinking about five seconds ahead of the jet ( five secons is a life time for a jet with a slow accel engine )

sjhanc

My Feedback: (3)

These guys are right, pitch up for airspeed and throttle for descent rate. If it gets numb on the elevators when slow it's too nose heavy. The recommended cg is way too far forward. move it back an 1/8" at a time until it begins to porpoise a little in level flt then go forward 1/4 inch will make it groove and still have excellent elevator authority. You need a lot of up elevator at low speeds. I found that aileron control diminished at landing speeds and that's when you'll miss the rudder if you don't have it installed. I had 3 of these planes, still have 1 that i'm converting to electric. I flew mine with and without ailerons installed and ended with tailerons and no movable surfaces in the wings. Tailerons made the ailerons hyper sensitive so I fixed them solid. The real plane flies with tailerons (and a little aileron and 25 degrees down flaps for landing and leading edge droops which I never tried). The Byron location for the main gear is in the scale location which is too far aft for easy rotation on take off. I threw a lot of tires until I moved the main axles forward 3/4 inch by shimming the retract mounts to put the struts at a forward slant down. After that I could face it into the wind and lift the nose gear easily at 10 to 15 feet into the roll at part throttle then a little more speed, steer with the rudder and lift off when ever I wanted to by adding throttle. Slowly increase power as you get the gear up and you can avoid insane charges into the air at high speed. I few my plane at 18 lbs. with the stock tank plus two more ten oz tanks for duration. I have seen videos of a Byron f 16 flying at 30 lbs. but he was nose heavy and when he cut power it glided like a brick nose down with no elevator power to lift the nose for lndg. Didn't go well. I flew mine on glow fuel and properly balanced brought it back many times for good slow ldgs when the glow plugs blew. If I couldn't make the runway I just dove at speed for a safe belly lndg on the grass. Just get low and hold it off at 1-3 feet until the tail pipe is almost dragging then let it go level. It never slid more than 4-10 ft on the grass. I did try using the ailerons as flaperons but as they come down you'll get adverse yaw from the down aileron. The flaps only lowered the lndg speed a little, not worth the trouble as it is perfectly controllable at high alpha with a lot of power, tailerons and rudder. Stock rudder will flutter so put the servo in the base of the fin with 4-40 hdwr. and clevises, no ball links (flutter). At 20 lbs your touch down speed will be 18-22 hold the nose off and you won't need much brake. My rollouts were about 60-70 ft and I kept power on to extend the nose high run because I could. I though doing a scale takeoff and lndg was the best part of the flt. Good luck with it.

Steve.

sjhanc

My Feedback: (3)

Check out Billy Dean's you tube videos "Beefing up a Byron F16"
Steve.

sjhanc

My Feedback: (3)

Oh, and I always went high alpha towards the 3/4 end of the downwind and flew it a little nose high though the turns with rudder and tailerons at low bank angles, no bank and yank.

icepilot

I have flown the F-16 for hundreds of flights - I immediately dropped flaps, flaperons or any other control surfaces on the main wing after just one test.
Now I fly with full flying stabs only, and 50% expo. I hardly ever raise the nose on landing, as a degree or two will start a change in attitude and the nose
will start pointing more and more up and the plane will simply stop in the air... If you watch this video from about 1 min 15 sec, you can see that I am almost
parallell to the ground, and only start flaring when I am a foot or two above the ground. Looks good and works every time! Good luck!
Tor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxLlcY6Qus4