Good Morning All.

Just wondered how much space it usually takes you to do a wheel landing with a T28 Trojan. I have before now been hand launching and belly landing the plane but have recently put the wheels back on to get some experiance with landings. Now the the strip is hindered by overgrown edges which make the landing strip only about 3 metres in width but thats another story.

So I circle the plane a good few hundred yards away to allow me to get straight and high on the strip a good distance away. Once level I begin to lower the trottle so that the nose begins to dip and the plane comes down at a nice speed but doing it this way seems to take ages. The Trojan just floats on and on and I would say its taking me a hundred metres to finally get the wheels down. This seems like alot to me. Any tips?


Also, im felling a bit hard done by this morning after my first accident. Had some side wind on my last landing and over corrected. Unfortunatly when i tried to pull up the plane was too low and too slow to do anything but dive. Bent the prop, took some foam off the underside of the wing tip and scratched the bottom of the cowl. It was a bit like when the back wheels of a car slip out, you naturally try and correct it by steering in the opposite direction but that just makes the car whip around further in that direction. What would you have done if you were about to touch and side wind pushed you off the side of the runway?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Adam_Fozz

Hey man
The Trojan does seem to float for a while, which is not a bad thing if you're just learning and getting used to landing... k so about your landing techniques... you don't want to come in on a dive like you said you are doing for landings, not sure how steep your coming in but all that's doing is building up your airspeed and is just gonna make your landing that much longer... instead just throttle back and come in almost level and the plane will drop itself from the reduced power.... should come in for a smooth landing just flair right before touch down... about your crash don't worry about that, if it's still in one piece your okay!

Some good points.  I think what you are saying is that I shouldnt worry about dropping the nose to get the plane down but instead drop throttle and let the plane drop down level by using some elevator.  Does that sound right?

Thanks about the crash.  Hopefully I can take something from it and not repeat.  It was messy and full of big control movements which is a big no-no.  I guess thats what I will take from the experiance!

Adam

Yah man just watch out for the stall don't use too much elevator... keep it in a slight down angle but don't do a DIVE to lose altitude instead make a steady approach down... with the trojan you need to start a LONG approach and it'll come down eventually! haha remember also to land INTO the wind... which will also help with keeping the plane from stalling and will shorten up the approach and let you land at a lower groundspeed.

Heres a couple of videos of me flying a couple of my planes and landing at the end.. just trying to show what I mean about kind of letting the plane let itself come down..
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3bIq4qhQAQ&feature=channel_page[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HRzw8Jm7aQ&feature=channel[/youtube]

yeah, from my experience with the trojan, it likes to come in nice and level..that way air speed is nice and slow they land bueatiful that way..steep nose down landings are pretty fast and furious with me have resulted in some very sketchy landings lol but you know what they say....any landing is a good landing!!

With som practice, you can land just about any plane on a very short field. It is very funny to perfect your landings Gliders without airbrakes can be hard to get down, but with practice you can spot land without problems.</p>

Hey man you like the Cub video!?haha you ever get those pictures for me of the spitfire?

yeah im gonna take some, just got up..im gonna maiden my decathlon today =)

you might wanna try landing training on sims.. you know... just to make sure..

Adam_Fozz -

<u>A good landing starts with a good approach</u> and all indicators are telling me that you are going about it the proper way. A common problem in r/c are pilots turning and banking into their landings. All that is going to do is build up speed (causing the problems your having) and give you a horrible approach.

For my part I practice a pattern in the sky (a large oval) and used that pattern as my mock landing strip. I practice coming into my final turn (landing into the wind), getting level, and then start reducing the throttle while keeping my wings level. All this is done 50+ feet up so I have room for error. And when I've "landed", I throttle back up and do the pattern again.

By setting up a pattern you'll be able to anticipate where your airplane will go (Left to Right, RIght to Left) and start thinking "in front" of the airplane and being in total control. A good thing to have.

Another thing to remember is you shouldn't be using rudder on landings (only in cross winds do you, but just before touching down) and by the time you touch down your engine should be on idle (or off) and your elevator should be completely down - essentially your stalling the aircraft as you've touched down (i.e the "flare" before touching ground) Ttrust me, talk to any real pilot and they'll tell you it's how they do it. Besides, I'm learning how to fly with lessons from my girlfriend who is a true pilot. It's amazing how much more fun it is when you understand the "why", practice the why, and then reap the rewards after. I get "Sweet landing!" all the time now that I've done the above for months. It's hard work, takes patience, but pays huge dividends.

Oh, and about the "side winds"(i.e. cross-winds):Cross-wind landings are tough and how to achive good landings is to practice. You might want to look up how an airplane "crabs" in strong winds as this is what you're encountering. It's odd but you actually approach the strip 'crooked' and just as you are aobut to touch down use your rudder to straighten out the tail and land straight. But, foamies are light and get tossed around a lot - so a part of that is also that the plane is just prone to winds.

Hope this helps on the landings mate!

Cheers!

The Trojan was my low wing trainer. I found that trying to dive and then level/put the nose up a little for a landing was not a space problem but was definitely an experience problem for me. I cured this by flying down the runway (asphalt) at about 5 feet with as little power asI could hold it in the air with again and again. If I have to come down from treetops for a landing I do still dive but make it far enough out that I'm slowed down by the time I get to the edge of the runway. A little flair about a foot or two off and I'm usually good to go.