This is overanalyzing something very simple. If you land hot, you are standing a good chance of the nose gear touching first. Leads to a PIO. In any airplane. Especially in an Ercoupe with limited elevator up travel. Me thinks. Bart In a message dated 8/18/2010 9:02:26 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
On 2010-08-18 6:47 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: I've heard this over and over but if that little cable isn't on the nose gear and your landing speed is a little hot, you will hit the nose gear first, because the nose gear hangs down lower, and enter to what many is called a JC maneuver, as in "J-----s C------t!!!!!!!!!!! It is also called a PIO, or pilot induced oscillation and is the primary reason a lot of Ercoupes have a bent firewall. I say keep the cable and save the Ercoupe. Bart Bart, (long, but useful I think - in four parts) I've been around Coupes - and paying close attention - for most of 32 years, now and I can say I've never heard that one. Please let me elaborate. If you land hot (or slow), even in a crab with no snubber cable and the nose gear hanging way down AS DESIGNED, then the nose gear will touch soon after the mains and before significant weight is on the mains. No huhu! The nose gear can turn. That is, unless you are disregarding the Ercoupe piloting instructions which say you should hold the yoke lightly so the nose wheel is free to turn. So, the side load on the nose wheel is instantly relieved. The mains, being laterally fixed, cannot relieve their side loads except by turning the whole plane, AS DESIGNED. It works. I've done it over and over including in direct crosswinds up to 30 mph with never more than a 10 foot diversion from the runway center line. If and only if you hold the yoke in a tight grip and don't allow it to jerk, then you can get a significant diversion from the runway center line. __________________________________ PIO, Pilot Induced Oscillation, is a term that can probably be applied to several flying situations. The one that applies to landings is when the pilot fails to make a smooth flare from the final glide to the virtually horizontal flight just before touchdown. Sometimes pilots, especially new or out-of-practice pilots will pull too hard on the yoke, flare nose high and getting slower, push too hard to get the nose down and find themselves heading nose down toward the runway and . . . Sometimes they'll hit nose down after a single oscillation, sometimes they'll keep it in the air through a few oscillations but if they don't get it under control they may well hit the ground nose down, folding under the nose gear and bending the firewall. This has nothing to do with the snubber cable - except, if the snubber cable is present then the nose gear has much less of its designed shock absorption capability so an impact that might have been saved by the shock absorber could cause sever damage because the snubber cable is present. ___________________________________ Dave Winters makes an interesting point and I agree with Bill - I hadn't thought of the snubber cable that way, as an advantage on a rudder pedal equipped Coupe. I have flown hundreds of hours in a rudder pedal Coupe with a snubber cable and I did do a LOT of side-slip, wing-low touchdowns, upwind main first, then downwind main then nose. It may well be that the snubber cable helped make that u-main, d-main, nose sequence work out so well. Well explained, Dave! (Side note: At crosswind speeds above 15 mph crosswind component, I leveled the wings and landed like a 2-control Coupe. There was enough rudder effectiveness to exactly counter a 15 mph direct crosswind but not more. However, landing in a crab with wings level, the three control Coupe handles strong crosswinds just a nicely as does a 2-control Coupe. ___________________________________ The real J_____ C_____ maneuver with a Coupe is when you have a drooping tail. In that case, the wings can be at enough of a positive angle of attack on the ground that a strong crosswind can lift a wing after the landing. It can be so bad that the pilot may think he/she will touch the downwind wingtip (but that's extremely unlikely to happen due to the dihedral). And, wheelbarrowing along on the nose and one main with a wing reaching for the sky is highly scary and likely to cause diversion off the runway into any obstacle within a hundred feet or more. Thus, it is VERY valuable to have your main landing gear maintenance up to date and have your on-the-ground attitude very nearly level as measured by the datum, the windowsill. When the Coupe is level in pitch on the ground, the wings have nearly zero angle of attack so they have virtually no lift and on the ground behavior is proper even with strong crosswinds. Ed
