Tailwheel wheel-landing technique

A wheel landing: tailwheel aircraft touches down on the main wheels only, tail held up. Alternative to the full-stall three-point touchdown. TP 1102: can be useful for particular types or landing conditions.

Approach:

• Fly normally, power on or off.
• Where a three-point landing would check the descent for the flare: instead ease airspeed down until aircraft settles, then set power to descend in a level attitude at a slow rate, about 100 to 300 ft/min.
• Small control inputs only, to hold attitude and rate.
• Descent too fast: hard contact, tail rotates down through inertia, aircraft can bounce.

Touchdown:

• Contact smoothly: gentle but firm forward pressure. Holds wheels on ground, reduces angle of attack.
• Hold nearly level on the wheels until slow enough for full control in three-point attitude.

Roll-out:

• Speed keeps dropping to a transition point: rudder no longer gives adequate directional control.
• At that point, get tailwheel firmly on ground (steering now from tailwheel).
• Keep control column well back until clear of runway.

Trap: treating it like the normal landing. Normal tailwheel touchdown: mains and tailwheel down together, at full stall. Wheel landing: mains only, level, higher speed than stall.

Practice