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VSTOL?

By lex, on July 7th, 2008

Ain’t no thang.

I reckon that landing at 5 knots or less reduces the amount of damage that a ground loop might cause.

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July 7th, 2008 | Tags: | Category: Flying

18 comments to VSTOL?

  • Mongo
    July 7, 2008 at 10:05 pm

    When he made that pullup to a 100′ or so, I half expected him to perform a cobra maneuver and let the wind blow him back a ways.

    Wow. That was sweet!

  • Joe Allen
    July 7, 2008 at 10:17 pm

    Aw geez… I been doin’ it wrong. I thought you was supposed to use the long skinny part of the runway!

    Joe

  • thebronze
    July 7, 2008 at 10:59 pm

    Holy crap!

    Mad skillz!

  • curtis
    July 7, 2008 at 11:35 pm

    True VSTOL:
    1. Arrange hurricane force winds.
    2. Take off
    3 Land.

    Now if we could just get those winds…..oooooohhhh I know!!!!!!

    Let’s get a moving airfield and push it up to near hurricane speed! OTOH, we could start sacrificing something or other to the watchamacallits in the hope that would work…..you know nordengrumman or boweing.

  • OldRetiredChief
    July 7, 2008 at 11:46 pm

    The old AW in me brought two things to mind immediately – 1.) First time I ever saw a fixed wing autorotation. 2.) I bet they must use about 53 different tie down points on that puppy. Transient line probably hates to see him coming!

  • XBradTC
    July 7, 2008 at 11:50 pm

    Now, I don’t have a link, but I’ve heard tales of a carrier backing down to bring the “winds over the deck” within limits. For jets.

  • Nose
    July 8, 2008 at 2:33 am

    Brad,

    I’m not telling you that you didn’t hear it, but I doubt that ever happened. Two factors:

    1. There is no maximum WOD for fixed wing. Only minimum headwind and maximum crosswind limitations.

    2. Shoes don’t like to back down (see Kennedy vs. Beltknap or TR vs. ???). Usually what you see is “Min Steerage” i.e. fast enough to make the rudder work effectively.

    We just crank up the glideslope, put the Hornets at 1/2 flaps (do Rhinos need that in high winds?) and press on.

  • Guy
    July 8, 2008 at 2:56 am

    Hmmm…lends a whole new meaning to touch and go landings.

  • Fast Nav
    July 8, 2008 at 3:04 am

    thought he was going to lose it about 1:10. Crazy.

  • Tailspin
    July 8, 2008 at 4:39 am

    XbradTC, Nose:

    Yup, they did recover aircraft backing down.

    Pix at http://tinyurl.com/yvkfsn.

  • XBradTC
    July 8, 2008 at 6:50 am

    I’ll go with the LSO and bow to the expert.
    Tommy, Freidman’s design history of carriers goes into what a total pain it was to give them enough astern power for that. I’m sure that was almost as much fun as the hangar deck cat shots.

  • Nose
    July 8, 2008 at 7:28 am

    Tailspin – cool pictures. Thanks for edumakiting me.

    Nose

  • John V.
    July 8, 2008 at 8:23 am

    Reminds me of the old joke about the Polish pilots who land their plane with a LOT of brakes… the one looks at the other and says “Man that is one short runway!” The second one says back: “Yeah… but look how WIDE it is!”

  • AW1 Tim
    July 8, 2008 at 9:21 am

    Heh,

    One of the happiest periods of my life, pre-Navy, was tooling around southern Utah with a friend who owned a J-3 Cub.

    From Saint George and over to Minument Valley, flying over around and by those huge formations was a wonderful experience for a young man. Whet my apetite for flying, it did.

    Great video.

  • Mongo
    July 8, 2008 at 4:14 pm

    Try that in a helo sometime , Tim. A former skipper of mine decided that his last hurrah would be up that way. The purpose of the trip was an ops brief with Army at Gila Bend, but that part never seemed to materialize. Pt. Mugu –>China Lake–Las Vegas via Death Valley (not to Nellis)–>into the Grand Canyon (down to about mid-level)–> Grand Canyon airport to feed the critter more bug juice. Going across the rim at weed whacker height has to be experienced; words won’t do.
    Then we did the reverse.

    The funny part was that the TACAN dropped dead enroute 1st leg, so we DR’d the entire trip; cow tracks & water tanks. BTW, Sectionals make for lousy TERF Nav. We must’ve turned the map a bit sideways on the return because we popped out somewhere near Mormon Mesa.
    From there it was IFR (I Follow Roads) south. We went down a bit and waved to the nice RV’ers, who got a kick out of a Navy Huey slowing down to their speed. Granny driving and Grandpa with a highball.

    All in all, a really delightful trip.

  • AW1 Tim
    July 8, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    Monfo,

    Musta been grand. I was raised in northern Utah, up in Cache Valley, but most of my clting was down i the xouthern part, and over to Nevada, outta WEndover.

    There was also a retired Commander yp the street from me who owned a Navionb, the poor man’s Mustang. I got a lot of time with him as well, earned by listening to his sea stories and washing and cleaning his plane.

    If you rake off out of Saint George, headed north, you’ll see a large cinder cone up ahead. It’s got a number of black spots along it’s southern face made by folks who were too busy foing other stiff than looking out their windscreen… :)

    You ever get up to Maine, give me a shout. We can swap stories over drinks on my tab.

    Respects,

  • Bruce Jones
    July 9, 2008 at 2:20 am

    John V.,

    Both the video and your comment reminded me of an old Bob Stevens cartoon where the tower controller dealing with heavy traffic wanted the next guy to land beyond the crossing runway:

    “Aircraft on final, runway 17, land across runway 8.”

    So the aircraft drifted off 17 to land across runway 8, grinning to himself “I’ll bet that’s the last time he says that to a STOL.”

  • John V.
    July 9, 2008 at 3:44 am

    Beautiful!
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