{"id":3944,"date":"2016-07-29T20:34:26","date_gmt":"2016-07-30T03:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=3944"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","slug":"160-why-landings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/160-why-landings\/","title":{"rendered":"#160 Why Landings?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"beginWhy do we place so much importance on landings?\u00a0 I\u2019ve long pondered this question.\u00a0 It seems that we always end up in the pattern with our primary students and with Tailwheel Endorsements, we seem to feel that all we have to teach (according to those expert arbiters of pilot ability, the Friendly Flying Fuzz) are landings: the three point and the wheelie, as well as the crosswind landing and the landing to the full stop.
\nBut I think I may have finally figgered it out.\u00a0 Remember that I\u2019m not too bright and that other instructors and the heads of multiple flying schools have probably beat me to it.<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

The reason is that the earth is hard.\u00a0 If you make a mistake and bust an altitude, you will simply collide with air.\u00a0 Lots of the mistakes you make at altitude will result in simply colliding with air.\u00a0 But as the statisticians will be happy to agree on, it\u2019s landing the airplane, when we come in contact with the hard, hurting ground, that we so often come to grief.<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

So what can we do to avoid that painful occurrence, without landing?\u00a0 Well, I happen to have come up with some possible answers.\u00a0 First of all, let\u2019s remember what we\u2019re trying to accomplish.\u00a0 We\u2019re trying to create competence where a lack of it currently exists.\u00a0 So, the way I see it, we need to both practice and create maneuvers which will increase that competence.\u00a0 We also have to admit that cost is a very real limiting factor and we\u2019ve got to do what we can to keep it down.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I\u2019ve come to be so dependent on a couple of maneuvers. They are Multiples and Slaloms.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve pointed out in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, a flyer is already more efficient by simply using the Tailwheel Town pattern.\u00a0 It is less than half the size of the pattern which most schools use, so it alone will double the frequency of landings.\u00a0 But if we really want to up the number of landings, let\u2019s do multiples.\u00a0 Multiples are simply a series of landings and takeoffs during one approach.\u00a0 By transitioning from landing to takeoff in such a short amount of time, it really builds competence.\u00a0 On a five-thousand-foot runway, a flier can get in five landings.\u00a0 By including the advantage of the tiny pattern, the flier is getting nearly ten times the number of landings as the \u201cAcme\u201d flier!<\/h3>\n
\"IMG00078-20101006-1618\"
The Big Yellow Glider in an unusual approach to landing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/h3>\n

The other maneuver which can really increase competence is the Slalom, usually combined with the landing in a turn.\u00a0 I\u2019m always amazed at the\u00a0 trepidation with which most fliers approach this maneuver.\u00a0 Perhaps the reason I\u2019m amazed is that these two maneuvers teach competence when the elements put the airplane in an unusual attitude during landing or takeoff.\u00a0 And you know something?\u00a0 That\u2019s when most wrecks occur!<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both of the above maneuvers are featured in videos on www.tailwheelersjournal.com. \u00a0Take a look at them and see what you think.\u00a0 Both of these maneuvers can be self-taught by working at them gradually, or you can schedule some time at Tailwheel Town and I\u2019ll introduce you to them myself.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As I\u2019ve pointed out in \u201cBrian\u2019s Flying Book\u201d, a flyer is already more efficient by simply using the Tailwheel Town pattern.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3901,"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":[35,38,67,165,171,174,178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944"}],"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=3944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}