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Thread: Perfect landing

  1. #11

    Join Date
    May 2013
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    This past Saturday, I did my first solo x-country. I had flown this one before with my instructor. Starting at about 20 miles from my destination I had one of those "where the heck am I" moments. Sky conditions were less than perfect with a fair amount of haze and broken clouds at my planned altitude. I kept to my planned heading and, after a few minutes, spotted my next checkpoint. I was west of my course flying into a towered airport (KRDG, Reading PA). ATIS had 31 as the active runway. 10 Miles out, I called the tower (with the field still not in sight) and was told to expect a clearance for 31. When I had the field in sight, it took a bit of checking and re-checking to visually identify 31 and differentiate it from 36. The tower cleared me to land on 31 using a right base turn. I was actually in a better position for 36, so I made a left turn to fly a very short downwind and then made a continuous turn to final. That approach is over part of Reading itself which is just east of a prominent ridge, so everything had to be done smartly. By the time I was lined up on 31, I was a bit high and feeling the weight of all the responsibility of flying solo. I checked my airspeed (which was right on the money), set power to idle and set 40 degrees of flaps. What followed was the single nicest landing I have ever done. I was right on centerline, I rounded out at just the right height and I smoothly pulled back on the yoke as the 150 settled smoothly onto the runway. It was a thing of beauty.

    I can't say if the tower was watching, so I'm not sure if anyone saw it. My instructor had to take my word for it. I was there, though, so it's real to me!

  2. #12
    crusty old aviator's Avatar
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    Jun 2012
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    I was on short final into Laramie, WY with a 20 degree crosswind from the left at 25, gusting to 36, according to the AWOS. A few hundred feet from the numbers, the left wing dropped about 50 degrees. No problem, just yank the stick over full right, add a bit of rudder to keep her centered, and I'm level again. I wheel landed without bouncing her, and as the tail started to drop, I was airborne again...with the left wing down about 30 degrees. No big deal, just push the stick forward a bit and over to full right, a bit of rudder, and I'm still above stall speed and we wheel land again. Then it happened again, and I corrected again without much concern. The taxiway departs the runway at such an acute angle, it would have put my tail directly into the wind: something to avoid on pavement with heel brakes, so I rolled off onto the taxiway, staying parallel to the runway and informed the unicom crowd that I had departed the active. Then another gust hit me and dropped my left wing to the pavement. There I was in a 3 point attitude, but not the kind she was designed for. Full right aileron didn't do anything until the gust passed and the right main slowly dropped back to the ground. I shut the engine down, sprang out of the cockpit, grabbed the tail, and starting walking her toward the parking area, with her prop into the wind. Two local college students, working at the FBO, saw it all and came running out to give me a hand, which I was appreciative of. The tape on the left wingtip was scraped, but easily patched with 100mph tape to get us home, no big deal.
    I realize that many pilots without the muscle memory from decades of flying in all kinds of weather in all kinds of aircraft probably would have rolled the plane into a ball well before the numbers, but I was coming from Medicine Bow, which is an all but abandoned dirt strip, where you have to keep your head out the window to watch the runway for varmint holes that have been dug out by hungry coyotes, with a density altitude of about 11,000 feet. After Medicine Bow, Laramie really did seem like no big deal! I wouldn't even begin to try to rate that landing on a scale of 1 to 10: it was strictly pass/no pass, and that 73 year old dame and I passed! What did I learn? Gusts happen...and we're all in God's hands.

  3. #13
    Cary's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Fort Collins, CO
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    255
    Quote Originally Posted by crusty old aviator View Post
    I was on short final into Laramie, WY with a 20 degree crosswind from the left at 25, gusting to 36, according to the AWOS. A few hundred feet from the numbers, the left wing dropped about 50 degrees. No problem, just yank the stick over full right, add a bit of rudder to keep her centered, and I'm level again. I wheel landed without bouncing her, and as the tail started to drop, I was airborne again...with the left wing down about 30 degrees. No big deal, just push the stick forward a bit and over to full right, a bit of rudder, and I'm still above stall speed and we wheel land again. Then it happened again, and I corrected again without much concern. The taxiway departs the runway at such an acute angle, it would have put my tail directly into the wind: something to avoid on pavement with heel brakes, so I rolled off onto the taxiway, staying parallel to the runway and informed the unicom crowd that I had departed the active. Then another gust hit me and dropped my left wing to the pavement. There I was in a 3 point attitude, but not the kind she was designed for. Full right aileron didn't do anything until the gust passed and the right main slowly dropped back to the ground. I shut the engine down, sprang out of the cockpit, grabbed the tail, and starting walking her toward the parking area, with her prop into the wind. Two local college students, working at the FBO, saw it all and came running out to give me a hand, which I was appreciative of. The tape on the left wingtip was scraped, but easily patched with 100mph tape to get us home, no big deal.
    I realize that many pilots without the muscle memory from decades of flying in all kinds of weather in all kinds of aircraft probably would have rolled the plane into a ball well before the numbers, but I was coming from Medicine Bow, which is an all but abandoned dirt strip, where you have to keep your head out the window to watch the runway for varmint holes that have been dug out by hungry coyotes, with a density altitude of about 11,000 feet. After Medicine Bow, Laramie really did seem like no big deal! I wouldn't even begin to try to rate that landing on a scale of 1 to 10: it was strictly pass/no pass, and that 73 year old dame and I passed! What did I learn? Gusts happen...and we're all in God's hands.
    I instructed for a time at Laramie, back in the late 70s through the mid 80s. You weren't the first one to have those difficulties! One of the most dramatic was a "landing" (better an "arrival") by a Rocky Mountain Airways twin Otter, which left a series of semi-circles of tire marks from just after the numbers almost to where 30-12 crosses. More than one aircraft left the runway due to more crosswinds than that pilot could handle.

    Cary
    "I have slipped the surly bonds of earth...,
    put out my hand and touched the face of God." J.G. Magee

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