Update on learning to fly a Maule

[Andy Young]

Ernie,

Just noticed your registration number in the photo on page 1 (N31078). N92078 is based here at Talkeetna, and has pretty much the same paint job!
Interesting coincidence.

[maules.com]

I believe you are correct on your last question.
If the cg gets too far forward you just cannot get enough up elevator to stop the nose going down even with no trim application and lots of muscle.

[aero101]

I have found that a proper amount of weight in toolkit or survival kit is great help in moving CG back some. This will allow for more elevator effectiveness as well as not trimming full aft. I have a heavy prop on nose of my MX7, and without some weight in back, with low fuel and just me in aircraft the nose is way too heavy especially on floats where the tips can grab water. Most Cessna's 180's / 185's need same treatment if you're going to land them slow. As someone previously mentioned, the nose or AOA will remain high, but elevator effectiveness will increase considerably and less tendency to ending up on back!! Somewhere around 40-60lbs of weight way back as far as you can put it works best for me, and do the experiment with as little fuel on board as comfortable with as this also moves CG forward. Also I'm pretty limited height myself, and high AOA's used to be a problem, but with practice you can learn to deal with attitude by looking out side of nose instead of over it as needs to be done with many older tail wheeled acft with big radials or flying from back seat. All it takes is some practice and best to start with fairly wide runways!!

[andy]

Andy Y, even with the lighter engine/nose on my MX7-180 I've found 55 mph more comfortable than 50 mph. However, landing roll can be dramatically decreased by applying light braking before touchdown and keeping the yoke back to avoid the tail coming up. That's a bit harder with the 31" tundra tires but still quite do-able.

[Andy Young]

Andy Y, even with the lighter engine/nose on my MX7-180 I've found 55 mph more comfortable than 50 mph. However, landing roll can be dramatically decreased by applying light braking before touchdown and keeping the yoke back to avoid the tail coming up. That's a bit harder with the 31" tundra tires but still quite do-able.

Thanks Andy,
So do you mean that you're trying to keep the tailwheel on the ground throughout your landing roll? You're doing a three-point landing? For the rough surfaces I operate on, I'm always trying to avoid letting the tailwheel touch at all until I'm more or less at a stop. Lots of instances of broken tailwheels up here; fortunately, none of them mine (so far). Also, staying up on the mains increases the braking effectiveness on loose/slippery surfaces.

Seems like light braking prior to touchdown would be less risky with the 31s than with smaller tires, as the brakes are less effective (given the longer torque arm of the larger tires), making an inadvertant lock-up less likely. I might try that next time out; I know plenty of people who do it, but haven't played with it myself.

[Vtaildriver]

Here is a link to Mike Busch's webinar about leaning.

http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=2534345030001

[andy]

Andy Y. I do a 3-pt landing if I'm using brakes before touchdown to make the landing roll as short as possible. Some folks are comfortable applying brakes before touchdown during a wheel landing. I'm not. It doesn't take a lot to raise the tail high enough to give it a life of its own and nose over. That's especially true at lower speeds on the ground when the elevators aren't as effective in preventing a nose over.

When landing on a rough surface, I do a wheel landing and keep the tail up as long as possible but I don't use brakes until the tail comes down.

Light braking before touchdown works better with 31" tundra tires than smaller ones because the larger surface area of the tire in contact with the ground increases friction and makes braking more effective.

I'm still trying to figure out why it seems that the aircraft is more sensitive to pivoting forward on the 31" tires than the smaller ones during a wheel landing. My guess would be that there's more air flow under the elevators in a wheel landing attitude with the larger tires so down-elevator movement produces a larger force pushing the tail up.

[riverbuggy]

My guess for the increased noseover tendency with the 31's is due to the longer lever arm between the aircraft CG, and the point of resistance; the ground. Like adding a cheater bar to a wrench. The event happens quicker, and easier.

[Andy Young]

Interesting. I have not found it to have a more nose-over tendency on 31s than on 8.50s. If anything, it feels like the nose-forward movement happens in a much slower, more controlled manner on the bigger tires. I do wheel landings pretty much exclusively, and use heavy braking. I pull back on the yoke as needed to keep the plane level; as it slows, and the yoke hits the stop, I then modulate braking to whatever degree is needed to prevent a nose-over.

As I've mentioned previously, my technique is far from perfect, as I've only been able to get my landings down to about 300-400 feet, and I know the plane can do much better.