Please do not say there are NO differences between landing 3 point and wheel landing. THAT is just not true!
In your experience you may not have had any difference show itself, but do not lead some pilots who are looking to this list for guidance to believe that landing 3 point is as easy and should be done regardless of wind conditions. If it was not different, it would not be taught that way! Fact: whan it is windy, and landing a TAILWHEEL airplane, due to the length of the gear (mains to tailwheel) there is additional leverage gained by the wind to cause the tailwheel airplane to try to ground loop vs. the tri-gear. The landing attitude of any airplane taildown puts the plane closer to the backside of the power curve, which is an area of LESS positive control. Since crosswinds tend to cause more control issues, worsened if they are variable, this is not the place to be during a landing. By wheel landing, the pilot sees much more of the runway allowing for subtle changes in alignment to be seen sooner, and smooth corrections made. If the nose is in the way, only your peripheral vision can help you and you must judge from the distance seen to the edge. That kind of logic is out there, but I have always disagreed with it: you can do a short field landing two ways; nose high behind the power curve like a bush pilot, or nose down, with full flaps early and good power control and technique. Difference: the nose high will NOT make the runway if he has a power failure; the nose down pilot will. Same with nose high 3 point when it would be best to wheel land and roll out alittle longer: if all goes well, great; if a sudden gust comes up, and the pilot does not have the experience to correct, off the runway he goes or ground loop. If you don't have to land at minimums why do so? Build in all the fudge factor that you can. That is where the phrase came from, "the last notch of flaps comes in once you have made the fence". I HAVE landed a KR2 in 20 knot 45 degree crosswinds gusting to 35 knots and variable. I wheel landed at 90 mph approach, 85 short final, and was safe all the way, with full control. I would NEVER have considered a 3 point landing in that wind.... (and I did 10 circuits that day). Colin Rainey Independent Loan Officer Branch 2375 Apex Mortgage Company 386.615.3388 Office 407.739.0834 Cell 407.557.3260 Fax brokerpi...@bellsouth.net
