{"id":2379,"date":"2013-10-24T06:00:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=2379"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:57","slug":"lurking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/lurking\/","title":{"rendered":"#85 Lurking"},"content":{"rendered":"

What comes to your mind when you think of the word, \u201cLurking\u201d?\u00a0 Probably a burglar, lurking in the shadows, or someone generally up to no good.\u00a0 Skydivers use the term to describe a freefall relative worker, hanging outside a formation, ready to swoop in and close.\u00a0 From time to time, I\u2019ve had a reason to lurk in a light airplane.\u00a0 Perhaps I needed to land and was number two, so I slowed down and lurked close to the runway.\u00a0 As soon as the runway was clear, I swooped in and landed in as little time as possible.\u00a0 Or maybe I was on a photo flight and waiting for the other plane to take off.\u00a0 I\u2019d keep him in sight, maintaining an altitude advantage, then I\u2019d swoop in and form up on him.\"Lurking<\/a><\/p>\n

In a different article, yet to be posted in the Journal, I wrote about a time when I was on my way back from \u201cDrake\u2019s Cave\u201d in the Super Cub and decided to swoop into Sunriver.\u00a0 Unfortunately, my radio quit and there was a guy taxiing for takeoff.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t know I was there and I didn\u2019t want to take all day to do my little touch and go.\u00a0 So I lurked, waiting until the guy started his takeoff run.\u00a0 Then I swooped in and landed right behind him, using as little time as possible and proving the value of the practice of \u201clurking\u201d.<\/p>\n

Have you noticed that air traffic controllers will sometimes ask you to execute a 360, usually on downwind, in order to provide additional separation from the guy in front of you.\u00a0 The reason they don\u2019t simply ask you to slow down or to \u201clurk\u201d is that it\u2019s assumed that most pilots can\u2019t slow down.\u00a0 They\u2019ll hurtle to the ground out of control if they do anything but keep on blasting along at cruise or approach speed.\u00a0 A three sixty is far safer.\u00a0 Not for MY students.\u00a0 Why should you turn your back on traffic and the airport when you can simply slow down?<\/p>\n

It occurs to me that perhaps \u201clurking\u201d is a skill that more pilots should develop.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve developed a game which we can play in order to practice this operation.\u00a0 We fly the airplane close to the approach end of the runway.\u00a0 We make sure that our altitude will enable us to glide to a safe landing in the event of engine failure and we also keep an eye out for traffic and stay in an area where no conflicting traffic will venture.\u00a0 The pilot may circle, S Turn or perform any other maneuver that will keep him roughly the same distance from the runway.\u00a0 On a cue from the instructor or second pilot, he swoops in for a landing.\u00a0 The objective is to touch down in as little time as possible.\u00a0 Obviously, the guy calling \u201cGo\u201d will wait until the airplane is in its worst position, with its tail to the runway.<\/p>\n

From time to time I wonder if some of the stuff I dream up is just something that occurs only to me.\u00a0 A while back we were working on a Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal shoot at a local airport.\u00a0 It was busy with several airplanes and helicopters in the pattern and my camera crew on the ground to shoot a couple of demonstrations as I flew the Super Cub.\u00a0 I took much of my direction from Bert Garrison, who led the camera crew.\u00a0 I keyed the mic and asked, \u201cCamera, Super Cub.\u00a0 You ready Bert?\u201d<\/p>\n

He came back with \u201cJust lurk and I\u2019ll give you the cue to come in\u201d.\u00a0 It sure hadn\u2019t taken him long to adopt the concept and its usefulness.<\/p>\n

Lurking is a pilot operation on which I\u2019m still working.\u00a0 I\u2019ll gradually start working it into my flight training syllabus and maybe it\u2019ll eventually be perfected.\u00a0 Well, as near to perfection as ANY of my silly maneuvers get!\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019ll get tossed on the trash-heap of those ideas that seemed good at the time.<\/p>\n

In the meantime,<\/p>\n

Happy Lurking!<\/p>\n

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

“it\u2019s assumed that most pilots can\u2019t slow down. They\u2019ll hurtle to the ground out of control if they do anything but keep on blasting along at cruise or approach speed. “<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1327,"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":[35,67,171,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379"}],"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=2379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}