Thread: Landing Tips
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Old 09-24-2009, 08:01 AM
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Voyager Voyager is offline
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Oh, you're braking to much. If the tail starts to lift when you're braking, let off some. The tail-draggers only had brakes on the front wheels, and the CoG tends to be forward of the wings, so there's almost no force on the tail wheel, so its pretty easy to pitch the thing if you're not careful. Think of it like a motorcycle, where you only have the front brake.

Tricycle gear planes, like the P-39, and most modern planes have much less problem with that, though if the nose gear is not well built (Me-262), you can still snap it off with to much brakeforce and turn.

One other handy landing manuver if you've got indendent rudder and roll control is the side slip. You roll in one direction, and aply rudder in the other direction, and instead of turning, you sort of end up going sideways. It increases your drag and helps you slow down if you're coming in to hot, and if you're lined up you can snake back and forth to keep from getting to far off the landing path. Just remember to let up when you're in the final approach. I recall in Il-2 1946 one landing in the Mig-15, where I ended up having to side slip down 3km of altitude, because I just couldn't bleed enough speed off of that thing. I think I was pointing 15 degrees off flight path for most of that landing.

Harry Voyager
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