Scared Myself Today

[FlyingMonkey]

Today I made the scariest/worst landing ever in my CT. Keep in mind I'm a low time pilot and completely acknowledge My technique might be wrong.

 

When I first got the weather, it was wind calm, I selected runway 31 (the longest), which is where all the other traffic was anyway. As I taxied winds were bouncing around a lot, 190 at 5 then 020 at 5. Takeoff and pattern were normal, abeam the numbers I selected 30 flaps and 55 knots power off, which is the landing style I'm trying to perfect as my "standard" landing.

 

On final everything looked great, tracked the centerline all the way to touchdown, maintained ~55 knots into the roundout. Once I touched down things went south very fast. The airplane immediately veered right, so I corrected and when I did the airplane got very side loaded the other way and the right main wheel actually came up (not sure if it left the ground, but completely unloaded) and I though the left wing might tip over.

 

At this point I was about ten feet from the left edge of the runway and pointed about fifteen degrees left, in other words going off the runway. There were two taxi signs in imminent fear of death. I was afraid if I used the right pedal too hard I might tip back the other way, so I made a literal split-second decision, and went to full power. I glanced down as I did and saw 38 knots on the airspeed indicator.

 

The nose wheel came up immediately (felt like hours) and I I used a little right rudder to get away from the signs and then climbed out. If I had not been at 30 flaps or there had been another person in the airplane, I don't think I would have got off before leaving the runway and/or hitting a sign.

 

I have a GoPro video of this, but I am hesitant to post it for obvious reasons. I watched in a bunch, and it *looks* like maybe I touched down in a hair bit of right crab and at a pretty flat attitude. Maybe I didn't hold the nose wheel off long enough? The wind after that turned out to be almost a direct cross from the right at 8 knots, so clearly there is a crosswind technique problem here...

[FastEddieB]

No one here, I'd guess, has never been in scary situations like that. Repeatedly. It goes with the territory.

 

The worst are when you never know exactly what went wrong, because you never are quite sure how to avoid it happening again.

 

The video would tell a lot, and I think most here are mature enough to point out the errors, if any, without chastising or piling on.

 

My CFI and medical are both expired, but I do have about 4,500 hours instructing in various makes, though none in the CT. Regardless, I'd be happy to fly along and point out anything I see that I think needs fine tuning.

 

Let me know...

[N751JM]

Andy,

 

I'll give you a couple of comments from a flight instructor's perspective. First is to continue to "fly" the airplane througout the landing roll (I'm sure you've heard this before) but remember when you are "flying" on the runway you are in a different mode then when flying in the air, ie you disconnect (in your head) the rudder and aileron inputs: aileron is used to stop any left or right drift (or to lower the wing if it comes up) while rudder is used to keep you pointed straight down the runway. Sometimes you will need right aileron and left rudder, sometimes right and right, or left and right, basically you use feet and hands as needed to stay aligned with the runway centerline and stop any drift. Takes practice, lots of it.

 

Second is that sometimes if the wind is shifting you may want to use a lower flap setting to anticipate the possiblity of a crosswind on landing. Your plan of 30 deg flaps for normal landings is fine but I would assume you use less if you have a stiff crosswind. In some wind conditions you can be surprised and find that the wind has shifted when you actually get to the flare, these are better handled with the anticipation of a crosswind (worst case scenario) and then if there is no crosswind it is no big deal.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

 

Jim

[Ed Cesnalis]

Andy,

 

Post the video so that we are not shooting in the dark.

 

Without seeing it I would look to alignment which is tricky in a CTSW due to the sight picture and unfooting the rudder.

 

Part of the slow/fast argument used to include the fast guys advising forward stick to get the nosewheel down for control. Perhaps your nosewheel came down turned due to rudder input? I like to keep my nosewheel up for aerodynamic braking and this can delay nosewheel contact until a less dramatic moment. Finish off with some over correction and you begin to pick up a wing.

 

I often have the same problem, I don't think about how my rudder is deflected until my nosewheel settles, then I have to correct.

 

I can think of 3 reasons you went right:

1. you were not aligned
    
   
2. your nose wheel was cocked
    
   
3. you were gusted
   

You can walk from wheel to wheel, the pedal can save your wing.

 

The fact that you still had flying speed when it was all over suggests that you were fast enough for directional control to be challenging if alignment and steering were not in agreement with the runway.

[FlyingMonkey]

Uploading the video now, will link shortly. I think CT might have it in #2...I think I might have had some right rudder in, and did not hold off the nose wheel long enough, so it touched down a little cocked.

 

Jim, I agree with your comments, I should have used a lower flap setting, but because the wind had shifted from takeoff to landing, I used flaps for the takeoff conditions instead of the landing conditions. In the future I will check winds again before making the base turn when conditions are changing rapidly. That said, I maintained centerline without much effort so it didn't *seem* like the extra flaps were causing me grief.

[Ed Cesnalis]

http://ctflier.com/index.php?/topic/2210-my-hell-light-and-variable-winds/

[opticsguy]

If you have the runway to use, avoid 30 degree flap landings with more than a 5 kt crosswind component. Many times I dial in flap on final depending on how the plane has to crab to stay on runway heading.

 

When you have a couple hundred landings, you should have the aileron/rudder "feel" that should keep that upwind wing down even with full flaps.

[FlyingMonkey]

Enjoy the carnage...

 

[Ed Cesnalis]

Wow, aint technology great?

 

I think I saw you correct to the right then the nose-wheel settled and you went hard left because it was pointed that way.

 

You were thinking right with the wheel pointed left and your earlier rudder correction no longer counted you were still going left.

 

Another [nose wheel] correction to the right if done early enough would have probably fixed it. Without it you failed to maintain directional control but did execute a successful go-around.

 

At least that's what I see from the video, lets see what other's think.

 

Promise yourself you will execute go-arounds for a while, the CTSW is good at them and it will allow you to learn some lessons incrementally.

 

Spend some time with Eddie!

[Jim]

Looks like a gust hit you and you got your legs crossed up and pressed the wrong rudder pedal. It used to happen to me.

[josjonkers]

My 2 cents:

 

Personally at your early stage I would fly a much longer final to get things better established for a more smooth and coordinated approach prior to touch down.

Unless I am mistaken, at the touch down point you had slightly cross controls. Right wing down with slight left rudder. I could be wrong, but that is what it appears like.

 

Do yourself a fovour and fly a final approach of about 2 times as long and see how that works for you.

[FastEddieB]

Looked like a near perfect touchdown.

 

It's subtle, but it looked like a bit of a right crosswind.

 

Watch your stick after touchdown. If you landed with a bit of right aileron for the crosswind, which you did nicely, you should have then smoothly increased right aileron as the plane slowed down, all the while keeping the stick coming back to keep the nose off as long as possible. By the time you got to taxi speed, you should have had full right aileron and the stick should have been approaching the right rear corner with the nose gently coming down.

 

Instead, you "relaxed" somewhat after landing - the stick came back to neutral and you let the nose drop. I think there would have been no drama if you had followed the above technique.

 

I also don't see you selection of 30º flaps playing a large role here.

 

Then again, CT pilots will have to continue to opine on how a cocked nose wheel could have caused the initial swerve. No properly adjusted free castering nosewheel should do that, in my experience.

 

edited to add (after seeing the above post): I disagree with the need for a longer final - your pattern and the actual landing were just fine. It was only the post-landing roll that was allowed to go downhill - IMHO, of course.

[FlyingMonkey]

Eddie, I wondered about that...I know when on the ground stick should go into the wind, but how much and when? As soon as the mains touch, start increasing stick into the wind? I had some trouble on subsequent landings drifting ff to the left, I wonder if this could be the cure?

 

Crosswind was from the right, BTW.

 

The video does not really convey how strong the side forces were, I really felt like I was getting pushed around the cockpit with each direction change.

[FlyingMonkey]

Thanks Jos, I will try a longer final. I started making it shorter when I switched to 30 flaps, so I would not have to add power on the approach. At 15 flaps I fly out farther as the glide slope is shallower.

[Ed Cesnalis]

I agree with Eddie and Josh, my first post mentioned the cross control on approach right wing low and left rudder to counter but I was a little unsure so I deleted that part but I think it set it up.

 

Our nose wheel's are not free catering so the cocking is a big issue, but if you had your controls positioned back and into the wind the impact would have been less.

 

In many ways the touchdown looked perfect and the go-around timely.

[FlyingMonkey]

Jim, there could have been a gust component, but I was really busy and obviously didn't really know what was happening, so I have no way to tell.

[josjonkers]

Looked like a near perfect touchdown.

 

It's subtle, but it looked like a bit of a right crosswind.

 

Watch your stick after touchdown. If you landed with a bit of right aileron for the crosswind, which you did nicely, you should have then smoothly increased right aileron as the plane slowed down, all the while keeping the stick coming back to keep the nose off as long as possible. By the time you got to taxi speed, you should have had full right aileron and the stick should have been approaching the right rear corner with the nose gently coming down.

 

Instead, you "relaxed" somewhat after landing - the stick came back to neutral and you let the nose drop. I think there would have been no drama if you had followed the above technique.

 

I also don't see you selection of 30º flaps playing a large role here.

 

Then again, CT pilots will have to continue to opine on how a cocked nose wheel could have caused the initial swerve. No properly adjusted free castering nosewheel should do that, in my experience.

 

edited to add (after seeing the above post): I disagree with the need for a longer final - your pattern and the actual landing were just fine. It was only the post-landing roll that was allowed to go downhill - IMHO, of course.

 

I disagree with Eddie. Time from completing for turn to final to your flare is less that 20 seconds. There are too many things happening in these last 20 seconds to properly get a feel for the landing. Maybe someone with Eddies experience is good to go with this, but for low time pilots I would definitely recommend taking longer to set up.

 

Why rush things?

[sandpiper]

Go around was the correct decision.

[Doug G.]

Yes, you made a good decision when you needed to. I had a similar situation that did not turn out as well because I did not quickly make the decision to go around. It is the mark of a good pilot. (I make those decisions much more quickly now.)

Take the info posted here and analyze what you felt and did. (Maybe even write it out, I did.) You'll be a better pilot for it.

[Adam]

I'm sure that experience was a little unnerving for you. Very good decision to go around while you still could. Too many folks wait too long to abort and the obligatory NTSB conclusion of "pilot failed to maintain directional control" follows shortly thereafter in the accident report.

 

There are a lot of CFI's and experts on this forum who know far more than I so the debate will rage on for long after my post I'm sure about what went wrong here. As a fellow relatively low hour pilot who has flown both a CTSW and a CTLS I happen to agree that any low hour pilot should fly a longer approach to allow more time to set up the landing (at least a half mile to a mile final) and I for one would recommend less than 30 degrees of flaps in any cross wind or stiff wind condition until you get much more consistent under various types of conditions.

 

Neither one of these (longer final, or 30 degrees flaps) may have caused the issue you faced in the video, I just think for a low hour pilot in a CTSW those 2 items will add some additional margin of safety as you learn to master the plane in varying conditions across your first few hundred solo landings.

[FastEddieB]

Eddie, I wondered about that...I know when on the ground stick should go into the wind, but how much and when?

 

It's one of those ambiguous things: "Whatever it takes".

 

I know that's not much help, but when touching down you'll have a certain amount of aileron in and it should gradually increase so that by the time you're at what you consider taxiing speed, it's full into the wind.

 

Once on the ground, the rudder is less of an issue. However, with a steerable nose wheel (sorry, I thought the CT was free castering) you will want it straight as the nose comes down - you've see what happens if you let it touch down with rudder in, which I suspect you did.

 

And we'll have to disagree on a longer final - I think yours was fine and had nothing, NOTHING to do with your problem - your approach and touchdown was near perfect and the only issue was that cocked nose wheel. If you DO decide to fly longer finals, just try to keep enough altitude that you can glide to the runway if the engine sputters.

[josjonkers]

It's one of those ambiguous things: "Whatever it takes".

 

I know that's not much help, but when touching down you'll have a certain amount of aileron in and it should gradually increase so that by the time you're at what you consider taxiing speed, it's full into the wind.

 

Once on the ground, the rudder is less of an issue. However, with a steerable nose wheel (sorry, I thought the CT was free castering) you will want it straight as the nose comes down - you've see what happens if you let it touch down with rudder in, which I suspect you did.

 

And we'll have to disagree on a longer final - I think yours was fine and had nothing, NOTHING to do with your problem - your touchdown was near perfect and the only issue was that cocked nose wheel.

 

About 16 seconds from rolling out from turn to final to flare. A longer final would have allowed the pilot to get a feel of the conditions, line up and drift and how much to correct for cross wind, gust conditions and anticipate this better for when flaring. Something that was not possible in this short timeframe. So YES , I think it may have been a factor.

[FlyingMonkey]

Thanks for all the great feedback guys. I'm taking it all to heart. It really is starting to look like the problem in this instance started with a cocked nosewheel. I'm sure I will be overly conscious of the nosewheel position on touchdown for quite a while.

[FastEddieB]

I just also was reminded that the CT does not have differential braking.

 

That's something I have grown accustomed to. In a case like this a stab of the right brake could have stopped the swerve in its tracks.

 

Not criticizing FD for the design choice - it should work out in the majority of cases. I just know how helpless I felt landing that Aeroprakt I flew when after landing it began a slow turn to the left and I had no brake to stop it. The owner had warned me to be patient and that the tailwheel steering would become useful shortly, and it did, but it still felt weird.

[paul m]

Andy, I appreciate your posting this for group dissection. I think it will help all us low time pilots get better. My question for the group is how quickly should one reach for the flap switch and go from 30 to 15 on a go around?