Oh yes, it floats like a good ‘un, Ken! I have many times compared in
difficulty to landing an F16 because it still wants to fly as you try to land
it.
But I learned (and I teach) to land it like a tail-dragger, shut the throttle
and raise the nose to the landing attitude and hold it there as it slows down
and descends to the landing point. But if you had a short strip (which we
don’t) you would aim short and get the landing attitude setup by the time you
reached the threshold.
I have taught short landings – from a glide approach for a competition, and
that was enormous fun. But our normal runway has an inset threshold so there
is plenty of tarmac underneath you before you get close to the ground.
Chris
> On 17 Dec 2014, at 15:34, Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> It is good, Chuck. Although it takes a bit of learning to land.
>
> To play on a David Letterman bit, "Will it float?"
>
> For some reason, this looks like an aircraft that will settle into a
> float once it hits ground effect.
>
> That's the one thing I really hated about the Cessna 150 and 172 was
> how it would float when you really didn't want it to. Not normally a
> horrible problem, but our airport was SO tight and we always had
> nasty, gusting and swirling crosswinds and a 25-foot wide sidewalk to
> land on. (with the encroching grass, it was about 15 foot). With the
> 75-100 foot trees at the end of the runways, (about 2500 foot long, if
> you are really generous, maybe 1700 if you are honest), floating was
> not what you wanted. Takeoffs and landings at gross weight in the
> summertime was NOT recommended.
>
> The Cherokees, based on our field had other issues, but most of those
> guys would drive the planes down onto the runway, bottoming out those
> oleo struts. Our spring-gear (ours were old enough they didn't have
> the tubular mains) would bounce you back up 20 foot in the air if you
> tried the same thing.
>
> One guy had a Beech Bonanza (V-tail), another had a Beech Buccuneer.
> There used to be a couple of twins there (Aztec, 310), but for the
> most part, it was small Cessnas and old tail-draggers. Everybody moved
> to two neighboring airports when an ownership change of the airport
> spelled a deathnell to it. Not sure I'd want to land ANYTHING there
> now.
>
> The airport was originally built and asphalt paved as a defence
> department project. There was a gunnery training range several miles
> away (Camp Claybanks) along the lake shore. Lots of DC3 type aircraft
> used to fly in there. But the trees were much shorter in those days.
--
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