Landing a warbird?

[sperrier]

Have a question for the warbird pilots out there. I have a small P-51 electric, 25-size hyperion mustang, that I just cannot land smoothly. I make a nice long approach, pretty fast because she likes to stall, I start reducing throttle and she starts to lose altitude so I add up elevator....still sinking nicely.....a little more up.....still sinking......a little more up.....the plane is slowing..... then zoom up she goes about 20-25 feet...then stalls and I add power and go around and do it again. Sorry for the long run-on sentence.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if it's me or if the plane is not setup properly. Is this the "ballooning" that I've heard about. I checked CG and it's on with the manufacturer's location but could it be tail heavy? I'm not the most experienced pilot but landings haven't been a problem for me so far, I can land my brio 10 and my Funtana X 100 quite nicely but I know these are very different types of planes. Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Biff]

Good question dude! Warbirds for the most part are more about scale outline than user friendly flying. Obviously airfoils and incidence are tweaked for optimum flying. Don't get me wrong, I've flown some great flying warbirds, but they have a style all to their own.

Some examples of quirks are Texans are some awesome flying birds. Landing one requires setting the bird down with full flaps and once the bird touches down, let go of the elevator completely or it will try to fly again. All of the Ziroli P-51's I've flown are real sweet hearts. Full flaps, touch of throttle and they land them selves. P-51's simply love to nose over, so keeping the tail as low as possible really helps.

A warbird without flaps can be a hand full. Honestly most of the smaller airplanes (especially the .25 size) seem to be pretty heavy as far as wing loading. That's what it sounds like is biting you. YOu might try a wheel landing as opposed to trying to 3 point. If you have no flaps, that's probably your best option. Another big thing with warbirds (especially if you have retracts) is to NEVER side load the plane. When you touch down, let the plane keep rolling in a straight line until it stops rolling, then turn and taxi. Main gear mounted on your wing won't take too many jokes.


Sorry to be long winded on a simple question ! I would give wheel landings a try. Full scale boys do this as well for good reason. Flying a full scale warbird is an art. Landing a ful scale is an exact science! After the mains touch down you still have airspeed for rudder control. As the speed drops (and you're at idle) you have very little yaw control until the tail wheel touches down. This is called the "dead zone". The dead zone is something you want to get through as fast as possible.

Try landing the bird on the mains with slightly tail down attitude. I hope you're flying off asphalt as grass and a haul assin' mustang are going to give you a grass colored spinner!

[Ion01]

I think biff has it totally right. no 3 point landings on warbirds, especially without flaps! Warbirds take a totally different kind of discipline to fly. Aerobatic aircraft have any and all bad tendancies removed and they really have no limits where as warbirds fly just like thier full scale counterparts and have definite limits that a pilot must stay within. Infact, it is very helpful to read about the actual full scale aircrafts charactoristics. For example, almost any warbird will snap into a spin if to much elevator is applied. This killed a beautiful p-51 miss america of my friends. He wanted tighter loops and turning radius so he increased the elevator throw. On the next flight it went into a spin after the first turn. If I had know he made that change I would have told him not to but it was to late after it came back in pieces.

Ever seen a p-51 land? I, personally, have never seen one make a 3 point.

[Ion01]

Apparantly the full scale aircraft actually touched down at 120mph and if one were to add power too quickly when pulling out of a bad or too slow situation the torque of the great rolls-royce engine would cause it to wing over and crash which would have just made you another statistic.

[sperrier]

Thanks for the suggestions, unfortunately I'm going to have to wait to try it. While working on the mustangs retracts I noticed that both the actuator rods were bent so I'm going to have to order new retracts. I may lock them down just so I can fly it and fiddle with the CG and my landing technique.
Thanks again for all the help!!!!!!

[youngflyer]

when landing a high wingloading plane, i like to come in faily hot adding a hair of down. sometimes you can get scared thinking its going to crash but if not, you could have the tip stall or ballooning issue. i used to see warbird pilots come in and im thinking, wow they cannot fly but after flying one, its harder than it looks!

[Chris Puckett]

One tip i picked up recently from a seasoned warbird pilot was to alway see the top of the wing on final. Don't try to drag and float it in. I have started looking for this on my warbird landings and really helps. One thing to remember is to flair at the end LOL.

[Colonel Klank]

Vic Kester flew his P51 at the DOGS show this year and greased every single landing.
Main wheels first, plenty of speed. Make sure it is pointing in the right direction when the wheels touch down so you don't have to input much rudder.

[jack01]

The deal with the full scale P-51 wasn't so much of a wingover thing as it was you would run out of rudder. The bigger full scale warbirds don't use full power for takeoff since they run out of rudder before they hit full power. Plus, on modern fuel the engine will grenade. P-51's and such were running on something like 120-130 octane during the war. Occasionally you'll see one do a 3 point too. They just do wheel landings so they can see over the nose.

[Jaybird]

I thought you just flew them into the ground, let them crow hop about 4 times then flip over on the canopy. That's how most of the old men do it around here!!lol

[Hitec625]

LOL....Thats so true Jaybird. Around here its the same thing or they try going vertical at about 5mph over taxi speed and just stall and smash to pieces.

[1bwana1]

The key is not to use elevator to control your rate of decent. This will cause the balloon then stall problem you are having. Line up your approach, make sure your wings are level. Control your speed with the elevator, bring the nose up a little to slow down, lower it a little to increase speed. You control your rate of descent with the throttle, add throttle to slow the decent, decrease throttle to increase the rate of descent. You should arrive at the flare point (last 2 to 3 feet of altitude) with the throttle off and the nose slightly down. Then lightly flare to stall (you should not have to go beyond nose level) and the plane will settle right in. Just remember, airspeed adjustments through pitch, rate of descent adjustments through throttle. It is a little counter intuitive but one you have mastered this your landings will become easier.

-STEVE-

[66stang]

I would try a longer approach and let it stall on to the gear. Also check the CG.

[jack01]

Yup! Pitch for airspeed and power for altitude. No matter how much power you give an airplane, your speed won't change untill your angle of attack changes.

[Hello82]

Hello

I've been just getting back to flying after being out of it for 25 years and now I'm flying warbirds.

I've been working on my landings and using flaps and it's getting a lot better, sort of... The issue though of "flying it in" at 45 degree angle of descent and then flairing , is not as slow for me as flairing with a longer approach. It keeps coming in to hot and the flair ends up being way to long...running out of runway.

When I started flying intially again, I just took really long approaches which seems to work better for me? But I felt I was not really flying it in and doing the 45 degree thing etc?

thoughts?

thanks for your help
M