----[Please read http://ercoupers.com/disclaimer.htm before following any advice in this forum.]---- At 12:47 PM 9/12/02 -0800, Pete Thomson wrote:
Hi Greg, this is Pete in Alaska. I thought the idea was to get the nose wheel on the ground as soon as possible during a cross wind landing because it is the only means of steering, without rudder pedals, my book even says to use the brake if necessary to get the nose wheel down as soon as possible. Do I have it all wrong? You're close... you put the nose down once the airplane's nose is pointing in the same direction that it's going over the ground. Otherwise you can get a mighty swerve. Obviously, if you're headed for the boondocks, do what you have to do, but you don't want to use the nose wheel to knock the crab out...that's what the mains are for. You may make a little excursion off centerline. When you need nosewheel steering, put it down. It's easier in the doing than in the telling, I think. Also, pushing forward on the yoke gets the thing to stop flying and can arrest the Ercoupe tendency to raise the upwind wing as the crab straightens out. Though this is usually exacerbated by trying to land too fast, or just by being a 415D with only 9 degrees of up-elevator. It actually feels a lot more alarming than it is harmful. To me it's kind of like a taildragger, in the sense that you aren't done flying until you are going fairly slow on the roll-out. In 1946, this made perfect sense to pilots. To modern nosedragger pilots, the 'Coupe sometimes seems a bit squirrely, I think, especially as it sorts itself out in a crabbed X-wind landing. You have to keep saying 'It'll be okay...it'll be okay...' Also, like a taildragger, I find it useful to be really intolerant of deviation from the centerline during the last stages of landing. While the 'Coupe is a tricycle gear plane, it is not quite as mundane as a 172 or Cherokee, especially pedal-less. Funny as it might sound, it has done my tailwheel flying a world of good. Greg Greg ================================================================== TO UNSUBSCRIBE go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
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