Clearly with a focus on US backcountry airstrips, but much of it is relevant also
to European grass runway and “strip” operations:
Excellent videos. I include the “approach” video as well.
I’ve been into a Scottish “back country” strip today. Glendoe, near to Loch Ness.
Landed here too today. I agree with everything said in those videos. My C182 has Canards so you can go really slow in a flat attitude. They keep the weight off the nose too protecting the firewall from damage.
There’s a lot of good advice in Patrick’s STOL-tips series, especially for the take-off which he emphasises as the limiting skill when hot, high and heavy.
Patrick’s “mush down” technique certainly works for landing over obstacles in suitable airplanes and relatively benign wind conditions (and for STOL competitions), but there are good reasons why European mountain pilots are required to master the “aim short at 1.2*Vso” method. I think it’s worth practising both, as well as Jim Dulin’s constant apparent rate of closure, which is arguably the easiest.
I used to operate a Bonanza from time to time off a rough field (Soaring Club of Houston – it was basically graded cow pasture, none of this fancy smooth places many European gliding clubs have!). It didn’t have the “shortness” of back country but you still had to take care of the roughness and it was a good idea to make the touchdown at minimum energy. But many nosewheel aircraft, even retracts, are just fine on these kinds of airfields, and in the case of Bonanzas at least many people flew them far too fast on final – at the proper speed they were just fine.
Jacko wrote:
Patrick’s “mush down” technique certainly works for landing over obstacles in suitable airplanes and relatively benign wind conditions (and for STOL competitions), but there are good reasons why European mountain pilots are required to master the “aim short at 1.2*Vso” method. I think it’s worth practising both, as well as Jim Dulin’s constant apparent rate of closure, which is arguably the easiest.
I have taken a “short field course” some years ago. There were never any clear cut procedures as I remember it, but the techniques were essentially the same as those videos. The exception was perhaps this wing AoA visual thing, which I have not seen before. I had to try that yesterday. The old Army Super Cab is flapless, so be able to not get totally ridiculously high AoA (far above the horizon), the speed had to be about 45-50 kts, which is about 5-10 knots higher than the indicated stall speed on the ASI. This will be almost precisely 1.2*Vso. I didn’t try landing when mushing down at or below Vso, because I was afraid hitting the ground tail first. 45-50 kts will gives a three pointer. You can of course side slip with the Cub, but this will also require some X*Vso, where X is around 1.2. Even the flapless Cub can be landed in very short fields, but I guess it is not without reason that later versions were equipped with flaps. This means, the AoA thing works also for the flapless Cub, it’s just that the speed will be 1.2* higher than with flaps.
Anyway, what exactly is the “aim short at 1.2*Vso method” and Jim Dulins method ?
The “aim short” or “Megève” method, for want of a better name, is to make a normal steep full flap and/or side-slip approach at 1.2 to1.3 x Vso, adjusting pitch for glide path and power for speed (opposite of what is required when the approach is flown at or less than Vso). The pilot flies the approach glideslope to an aiming point which is some distance short of his intended touchdown point. The pilot must estimate that distance which will be required to reduce speed from say, 1.3 to 0.9 x Vso in order to hit his touchdown point at minimum speed in ground effect taking into account all the usual factors like wind and runway slope. In that respect it’s not as easy as Patrick’s or Langeweische’s “stall down” method, but there’s better control authority on the approach in case of turbulence, and plenty of kinetic energy to round out onto a steep runway. On the other hand, the stall down technique requires good timing to arrest quite a rapid descent.
Jim Dulin’s constant apparent rate of closure is just that. He describes it thus:
The Apparent Brisk Walk Rate of Closure Approach
Where did the 1.3 Vso approach speed come from? How much different is 1.2 Vso for short field landings? What happened to the “stall down” approach used, according to Wolfgang Langewiesche, by experienced pilots? Why do we takeoff so slow and land so fast these days? Since the round out, flair, and hold off following the 1.3 Vso approach, are the most difficult landing techniques, why not manage the descent with power, the airspeed with elevator, and decelerate prior to the intended touchdown point? Or, we can get down into low ground effect, prior to the desired touchdown point, where no obstructions prevent this hover taxi to the desired touchdown point. Both are useful on very short fields.
The Army teaches helicopter pilots of all American services and many foreign services an apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach that puts every landing, 100% of them, on the numbers every time. That is 100%, every, every time. We in airplanes don’t have to come to a stop on the numbers to softly and safely put it on the numbers every time. We just have to get it decelerated to or very nearly to Vso at the numbers, rather than one thousand feet down the runway.
While cruising at 500’ AGL, the speed at which objects appear to be moving toward us is a brisk walk. On final approach, we need to keep that apparent brisk walk rate of closure with the numbers constant. This will cause a constant deceleration from five hundred feet AGL and 1⁄4 mile out until arriving at the numbers very near stall speed. The apparent rate is constant, the actual rate or speed is decreasing
I don’t think any one of these is the “best” for all short-ish fields, and I certainly don’t pretend to have mastered them, but they’re all fun to try.
Thanks, sounds interesting. Pitch for glide and power for speed sounds way too “counter intuitive” for me though.
Yes, for me too. But that’s also what I was taught for IF – others here may comment on that, but it obviously doesn’t work near Vso.
