{"id":5005,"date":"2018-10-19T12:13:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T19:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=5005"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:52","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:52","slug":"216-the-dutch-touch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/216-the-dutch-touch\/","title":{"rendered":"#216 The Dutch Touch"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first of several articles on really difficult maneuvers, \u00a0a fact you’d know if you subscribed to the Tailwheeler’s Journal Newsletter. \u00a0Send me an email if you’d like to be on it. \u00a0It’s free and won’t result in any pitches!<\/p>\n

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

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Sometimes we aren\u2019t really aware of what the airplane is doing until we can see it\u2019s movement relative to something else.\u00a0Think about formation flying.\u00a0 We don\u2019t realize that the airplane is doing all that moving until we see it next to another one in flight.<\/h3>\n

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The same lightbulb went off over the top of my head a while back when I invented the \u201cDutch Touch\u201d, then found that it was a bit more complicated than I had originally thought!<\/h3>\n

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Here\u2019s the concept:\u00a0 When we\u2019re at altitude and we have lots of practice under our belt, the Dutch Roll seems pretty simple (The \u201cDutch Roll\u201d is considered by many to be mis-named.\u00a0 What follows is a description of the maneuver as it\u2019s usually taught, right name or not):\u00a0\u00a0The Dutch roll is simply a series of alternating banks done relatively quick and perfectly coordinated so that the heading never changes, and your upper body stays in one position (that pesky ball of the turn coordinator stays centered as well.)<\/h3>\n

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The Tailwheel Town PA12 executing the Dutch Touch.\u00a0 It\u2019s about to roll the opposite direction to put its other tire on the runway.\u00a0Note how its \u201cdroop tip\u201d is close to the ground. (photo by Walt Lasecki)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just a quick word to those who will be called upon to do this maneuver in one of my courses:\u00a0 Don\u2019t be a pansy.\u00a0 Put in ALL of the aileron in order to roll with ALACRITY!\u00a0 The reason I say this is that most of my applicants start this roll really slow.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, but I\u2019m not taking a nap and would really prefer to judge a roll that that is done quickly and not with timidity.<\/h3>\n

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\u00a0So, doesn\u2019t it stand to reason that all we have to do is take this coordination maneuver, move it to a foot or so off the ground and start banking back and forth in order to perform \u201cThe Dutch Touch\u201d?\u00a0 As the airplane banks, the wheel closest to the ground will touch and then we\u2019ll bank the other direction and touch with the other wheel.\u00a0 But there are a couple of reasons that this is not as simple when we\u2019re in the cockpit as it seems when we first dream it up.\u00a0 One is the wind.\u00a0 It conspires to move us to the side if it\u2019s a crosswind (and it\u2019s ALWAYS a crosswind). That\u2019s why you\u2019ll sometimes hear me refer to \u201cthe DEFAULT crab angle\u201d.\u00a0 If there is any crosswind (and there usually is) we will have a \u201cwind correction angle\u201d or \u201cCrab\u201d in that moment when the wings are level.<\/h3>\n

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The other is the fact that we didn\u2019t realize that the lift changes as the bank changes.\u00a0 In order to keep the airplane that silly foot off the ground, we have to be constantly changing the angle of attack so that the vertical component of lift remains constant.\u00a0 Well, shucks, that\u2019s no problem for us cool aviators.\u00a0 Right!<\/h3>\n

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And here\u2019s the part that I didn\u2019t want to write:\u00a0 If I never suggest the Dutch Touch to you it\u2019s because I don\u2019t want to burden you with an incredibly difficult maneuver.\u00a0If I DO suggest that you try it, it\u2019s because I think you\u2019re a pretty damned good stick.\u00a0 There!\u00a0 I just insulted well over half of my students.\u00a0 Oh, well, I was gonna quit teaching anyway!<\/h3>\n

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Happy Swooping (and Dutch-Touching)<\/h3>\n

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Brian<\/h3>\n

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“If I DO suggest that you try it, it\u2019s because I think you\u2019re a pretty damned good stick.\u00a0 There!\u00a0 I just insulted well over half of my students.\u00a0 Oh, well, I was gonna quit teaching anyway!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5008,"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":[35,165,173,174],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005"}],"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=5005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}