{"id":4546,"date":"2017-08-24T18:29:39","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T01:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=4546"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:53","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:53","slug":"188-the-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/188-the-window\/","title":{"rendered":"# 188 The Window"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

(or, “The Three-Point Landing”)<\/p>\n

Written in February, 2017<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sometimes the words get in the way.\u00a0 But Mike Slusher, a former Tailwheel Endorsement seeker and experienced rotary wing pilot, recently helped me get a lot of the words out of the way and distill them down to one.\u00a0 That one is\u00a0\u201cWindow\u201d. \u00a0The window is simply an altitude. It extends from as high as you are willing to drop the airplane during a landing to about 1 mm off the ground. \u00a0Mike very correctly pointed out how simple it can be to land an airplane if you just think of keeping it in the landing window.\u00a0 This is especially true of the three-point landing. \u00a0And he further pointed out how the smaller the window is, the smoother the landing will be.<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n
\"\"
Mike Slusher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m reminded of coming back from Cottage Grove Reservoir in the 182 we were using as a camera plane many years ago.\u00a0 I was flushed with victory, having photographed arguably the greatest shot of my career, that of Bill Warren carving a turn with his Chipmunk.\u00a0 He was close to the water and had placed small wands of steel tubing on his wingtips.\u00a0 Those wands cut the water, leaving tracks you could follow.\u00a0 His smoke was on and the trail stayed on the water[1]<\/a>.<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

I was a cameraman, not a pilot.\u00a0 The camera pilot was perhaps the best I\u2019d ever flown with.\u00a0 George Bernstein had been the main pilot in \u201cDawn Flight\u201d, a film that got my brother and me an Academy Award Nomination.\u00a0 I decided to take advantage of this guy\u2019s talent and asked him if I could land the airplane.\u00a0 He gave me control and simply ran the radios as I, a post solo and REALLY rusty, flier attempted to land the 182.\u00a0 I had forgotten the theory of the window (if I ever knew it) and, as I bounced down the runway, chasing the PIO, George couldn\u2019t help himself.\u00a0 He began to laugh.\u00a0 That laughter was taken by his now-sweating student as rather insulting and I remember being really upset that I wasn\u2019t getting any help from this experienced teacher of flying.\u00a0 As I look back on the experience, I can see George\u2019s point.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t my flight instructor and it was pretty funny, watching my attempts to put that 182 on the ground.\u00a0 Because you see, I didn\u2019t know what I was doing.\u00a0 Had I arranged for some flight instruction with him and had I distilled his advice down to that one word, the result would have been different\u2026. maybe.<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

Remember that article I posted called \u201cWhy does everyone make it so difficult?\u201c\u00a0 Perhaps that article was guilty of using too many words, but it did make one really important point, whether you are flying a tailwheel or a nosewheel airplane.\u00a0 To land smoothly, simply put it in the \u201cwindow\u201d.\u00a0 Because, whether you are conducting a three-point landing in a tailwheel airplane or a fully stalled landing in a nosewheel airplane[2]<\/a>, keeping the airplane from touching the ground with no power is the proper technique and the closer the plane is to the ground when it \u201cpays off\u201d, the smoother the landing will be.<\/h3>\n
\"\"
“Clyde” in the window (photo by Bert Garrison)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oh, and because I haven\u2019t riled the villagers yet, they can get their pitchforks and torches ready because, in my opinion, approach speed has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the landing (hear that sound?\u00a0 That\u2019s the sound of bags of Cheetos being dropped as the trolls leap to their keyboards).\u00a0 Sorry, gang, but the only speed that means anything is the speed at which the airplane is flying when the wheels contact the ground.\u00a0 I better get out of here before they start throwing those pitchforks and singeing my butt with those torches!<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

And now you know what Mike and I know about \u201cThe Window\u201d.<\/h3>\n

[1]<\/a> I think that shot can be seen on the website, \u201cskybilly.com\u201d.<\/h3>\n

[2]<\/a> EVERY landing in a nose wheel airplane should be fully stalled, in my opinion.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

” in my opinion, approach speed has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the landing (hear that sound?\u00a0 That\u2019s the sound of bags of Cheetos being dropped as the trolls leap to their keyboards)”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4554,"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":[35,38,67,165,171,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4546"}],"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=4546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}