{"id":2052,"date":"2013-07-19T06:10:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T13:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=2052"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:58","slug":"72-in-defense-of-the-landing-in-a-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/72-in-defense-of-the-landing-in-a-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"#72 In Defense of the Landing in a Turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Everyone who takes my Stick and Rudder Master Class gets a chance to do the Landing in a Turn.\u00a0 Virtually all my students love learning this maneuver and have a ball with it.\u00a0 But every once in a while, someone questions my teaching of this advanced maneuver.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat good is this maneuver\u201d, they ask.<\/p>\n

What a great question.<\/p>\n

One day a few years ago, my son, Hooper, and I were making a quick flight in our Cessna 140 from Sunriver down to Bend, Oregon.\u00a0 We were better than halfway there, when Hooper asked, \u201ccan we do zero \u201cG\u201d?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hoop<\/a>
Hooper and me in the 140 back in 2007.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNah,\u201d I answered.\u00a0 I was a bit tired and didn\u2019t feel like putting myself through the maneuvering necessary to make ol\u2019 Hoop weightless.\u00a0 He was a bit persistent.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, c\u2019mon, it\u2019ll just take a second\u2026. C\u2019mon, pleeeeeeze\u201d, that varmint begged.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a sucker for such requests from my kids.\u00a0 Some would say I\u2019m putty in their paws.\u00a0 Okay, I am.\u00a0 Just don\u2019t tell them (I know what you\u2019re thinking, but they never read my articles).<\/p>\n

So I agreed.\u00a0 I lowered the nose to get lots of airspeed.\u00a0 Then I pulled up to get the nose nice and high.\u00a0 Once at that exaggerated high pitch attitude, I reduced the power and began to push while watching the \u201cG\u201d meter and putting the needle at \u201czero\u201d.\u00a0 Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that rascal, Hooper, releasing his seatbelt and shoulder harness.\u00a0 How else could a guy float off his seat?\u00a0 Hooper floated for a bit as I flew the parabola.\u00a0 Then I reached the pitch attitude at which I needed to bring the nose up.\u00a0 I opened the throttle and brought the nose up.\u00a0 All went as normal, other than the fact that the RPM didn\u2019t increase.\u00a0 The engine wouldn\u2019t take power.\u00a0 It would idle but no \u201cnormal climb\u201d power.\u00a0 Oops.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t get the sunavacheesmaker to take power so I told Hooper that we needed to find a place for an emergency landing.\u00a0 He coolly looked around and spotted several fields that would be suitable.\u00a0 But I had something else in mind.\u00a0 I knew that the little underpowered Cessna would need a suitable place to take off from and I had a hunch what it would take to fix it.\u00a0 So I was looking for a different type of landing spot.<\/p>\n

And this is the interesting part of this little story.\u00a0 My son, Hooper, was doing exactly what he should have been doing:\u00a0 He was looking for a spot which would result in a landing that would simply keep HIM in good shape.\u00a0 I was looking for that, plus a place from which I could takeoff.\u00a0 I would not suggest that anyone do what I was doing.<\/p>\n

I found it.\u00a0 Down below was an abandoned subdivision project.\u00a0 A curving road served the lots on which nothing had ever been built.\u00a0 There were no fences or power lines.\u00a0 But the paved road curved a couple of times in an artistic manner.\u00a0 I headed for it.\u00a0 The landing would have to be in a turn.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think about it at the time, but it was only because such a landing was second nature to me that the subsequent arrival was successful.\u00a0 I touched down on one wheel and carved a turn as the Cessna rolled to a stop in front of a fire station.\u00a0 The firemen, unused to seeing an airplane roll up to their place, asked if we needed any help.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Then a police car arrived.\u00a0 The policewoman asked if everything was okay.\u00a0 I told her that it was just fine and that it was a perfectly normal occurrence.\u00a0 Not an emergency at all and no big thing.\u00a0 I told her that absolutely no media needed to show up.\u00a0 Bless her heart.\u00a0 She took me at my word, called the dispatcher to report that all was cool and then she drove off.\u00a0 The carburetor was made to behave with a smack from a Gerber multi-tool and the little Cessna took off a few minutes later after a couple of attempts at negotiating the same turns in the road that it had handled on the landing.<\/p>\n

\"Bert<\/a>
Bert Garrison shoots video of the Landing in a Turn in an irrigation pivot field. The scene will appear in the remake of our “Landing in a Turn” video on The Tailwheeler’s Journal. (photo by Marden Mull)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was years later that the light bulb finally illuminated over the point in my head and I began to realize how important the landing in a turn could be.\u00a0 With irrigation pivots covering the world, a pilot has an almost endless number of emergency landing strips.\u00a0 BUT, he must be able to land in a turn\u2026 if he attempts to cut the corner and land across one of these nice, smooth circles, he runs the risk of crossing a wheel track which may be as much as two feet deep.\u00a0 Ouch!<\/p>\n

The landing in a turn is now a regular part of the Stick and Rudder Master Class, as well as a part of most Tailwheel Endorsement courses which I teach and virtually all primary instruction. Soon we will re-do the original video production about the maneuver so that you can watch a demonstration of this landing in a hay field, courtesy of John and Debbie Volle at their lovely circular pasture with irrigation pivot.\u00a0 And for all this you can thank ol\u2019 Hooper and his fascination for zero \u201cG\u201d.<\/p>\n

Happy Landings (in a turn)<\/p>\n

Brian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that rascal, Hooper, releasing his seatbelt and shoulder harness. How else could a guy float off his seat?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[80,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}