Thread: tail strikes

roger lee,

i see the opposite, a tail strike with neg flaps is the result of trying to do a full stall landing or something approaching a full stall landing. if you try to adopt this high pitch attitude before it is ready you would baloon. i think the tail strike is the result of waiting till it is ready as opposed to allowing it to settle while it still has flying speed.

i agree that a high power setting and negative flaps can produce a high pitch attitude and therefore a tailstrike.

Hi Ed,

No we are saying the same thing just in a different way. I agree with you 100%

With the LS trying to catch a landing where you flared a little to high or ballooned can get you in trouble. Also trying to do soft field landings during training can cause problems. You have to be real easy on power application or the tail will slam down.

Maybe I should have included some background to my first message. It is agreed that the way to land a CT is to come in mostly level with a little extra rpm's and let the speed and height off the runway bleed off - always being ready for a little extra squirt of power to offset any sinks if needed. Our static pitch angle excercise was done to give us confidence that we can avoid tailstrikes while keeping our nose wheel off the turf AFTER touchdown and during the roll out on grass field runways. We do not want to put any type of loads on the front wheel during rough field landings or departures due to the minimal suspension of the front wheel strut.

As a student pilot, I experienced a tail strike while practicing soft field takeoffs. It can be a little hard to control your angle while adding power. Just scraped the paint a bit, but a hard plastic strip would be nice.

Dear SSchifer: A tail strike has never come up and I have 200+ landings and it has never occurred to me to worry about it. i suppose it is possible but it seems to me that it would require a really scary attitude well before the strike and one should be able to avert such an event.

Personnaly, I came fairly close to scraping a wing tip on landing once. 20+ kts, and I was experimenting with different techniques--really dumb no=w that I think about it.

Can't help. Ken and Nancy Nolde N840KN, 145 hours

I did it. During my checkout with a CFI while picking up the aircraft. In all fairness, I had a long cross country to bring the CTLS home (East coast to West coast) with only 3 hours in the aircraft. So I was trying every landing configuration I could. I believe we scraped it on a 35 degree flap, short field landing with winds 7kts gusting to 15. Easy fix, but about $200.

I will bet you were trying to land too slow pulling the nose up or with a lot of power and too slow and pulled the nose up too far. You can do this with or with out power. Pulling the the nose too high on a landing is the only way to scrape the underfin and it is the wrong way to land a CT. The nose wheel should not be that high off the ground when trying to land. Is this CFI mainly trained in GA aircraft that land with a higher nose high attitude than many LSA?

This is one reason when I show people how fly a light aircraft I make them learn to fly down the runway first at only about 12"-24" off the runway. This teaches them different things, one of which is how not to round out too high off the runway and set yourself up for a drop. They control the stick and I control the throttle. When they can fly down the runway then all you have to do is pull back throttle and the pilot lands and doesn't even know. That teaches him not to pull the nose in too high in attitude and to have good control skills at touchdown. This is another reason to control the approach speed better and not try to bleed speed next to the runway by pulling the nose up a lot to do so.
I personally see no really good reason to try and touch the tarmac at 40 knots or right at stall because you give up too much control if something were to happens. The controls are mushy at that speed. I'm not saying you can't do it or in a tight situation it shouldn't be done, but for the every day landings you are looking, one day, to get bit in the butt and not have enough control when something unforseen changes because you made these types of landings your habit.

Yes, definitely too slow. Attempting to touch down at stall speed in gusting conditions was not the best choice, but we did it. I have since become a LSA CFI myself and have found that 15 degrees of flaps is the best choice for 15 knots or less of crosswind, above that 0 degrees. 30 or 35 degrees is rarely needed in the CTLS and one should carry a little power on short final, if possible, to get the best result. Having flown both the SW and LS, I see this as a huge difference between the two.

RAH, I see a large difference between the LS and SW also. I am a new pilot and recently got my certificate after training in a CTSW. My friend purchased a CTLS last month and since he's also a CFI, he's been providing me training to operate his plane. His CTLS is fully loaded with all options and is much heavier than the CTSW. Empty weight of his CTLS is 810 lbs. compared to 650 lbs. for the CTSW I trained in. My usual CTSW final approach in light wind is with 15 degrees flaps and throttle totally backed off. Once in a while I need to add in a squirt of throttle during short final. This prodedure doesn't work with the CTLS. I start my appraoch with some throttle and need to be ready to add more on final due to higher sink rate of the heavier CTLS. It is a beautiful plane to fly.

Dick