By: Shawn Bagley
Mike was back for another session of flying the Legacy Flight Museum’s North American AT-6. He was building time to get on the insurance, as well as earn his complex endorsement. The last time we flew, a few months before, we had covered aircraft systems, speeds, slow flight, and stalls. This time we were going to recap on the previous flight then start working on landings. After running through the stalls, Mike and I flew to Idaho Falls, where there was a longer, wider runway, to practice landings in the big taildragger.
During the Second World War, pilots were trained to always land the T-6 in a three-point attitude. This kept the plane slow, and students would have greater directional control, because a rogue cross wind would be less likely to weather-vane with a locked tailwheel planted firmly on the ground. This worked quite well for young WWII pilots, who were flying the same planes, day in and day out, in highly intensive training.
These days, the government doesn’t often pay for pilots to fly, so the cost of operation falls to the pilots. Due to the cost barrier, pilots typically can’t afford to fly these antiques with any great degree of regularity. Owing to this infrequency, many pilots who fly these antiques decline to three-point in favor of wheel landing. Wheel landing a taildragger enables a pilot to fly down the runway until they touch down smoothly on the ground. Once on the ground the power is reduced so the plane will slow down lowering the tail to the ground. Once the tail is on the ground, directional control is transferred from the aerodynamics of the rudder to the friction of the tailwheel. The pilot’s feet begin their furious dance to keep the tail behind the plane.
To start our lesson on landings, Mike and I started with touch and go’s. I took the first touch and go, showing him the delicate balance between holding the plane off the ground, with just enough throttle to keep the plane in a slight descent over the runway, and a touch of back pressure to keep the plane from coming in contact with the ground. Just as I felt the wheels kiss the asphalt I relaxed the back pressure on the stick, to roll the plane up on its main wheels. This reduces the wings angle of attack, simultaneously reducing lift, keeping the plane on the ground, even if a heavy gust of wind comes trying to lift it back into the air.
I poured the fuel back in, and proceeded to go around. I turned the controls over to Mike. After two or three really nice touch and go’s, I started briefing Mike on a full stop landing. He made his approach, and made a wonderful touchdown, Mike gently lifted the tail to stick the landing.
“Nice work, now chop the throttle,” I coached, “and just keep your stick right where it is until the tail meets the ground.” Mike pulled the throttle back, and a sickening sound occurred.
Pilots who fly planes with retractable landing gear are familiar with the sound of reducing the throttle with the gear still up. The warning horn works well to annoy pilots trying to slow their plane to gear extension speed while still in descent, as well as mortify passengers thinking that a wing just fell off. In very few circumstances does the gear warning horn ever sound with the plane actually on the ground, especially when that plane is rolling down the runway at 80 miles per hour on two wheels.
Mike pulled back the throttle and the monotone wine of the gear warning horn began blaring, signaling that the legs of the plane were not fully locked in the down position.
“Go around! Go around! Full throttle, go around!” I shouted at Mike, pushing the throttle forward.
You can’t just jam a Pratt & Whitney R-1340’s engine forward without thinking about it beforehand. If a pilot pushes the power up too quickly the carburetor becomes flooded with fuel before the engine can take it in. The engine quits until the throttle is brought back, and the engine can begin to turn fuel into noise again. The power has to be brought up slow and even, making sure that the engine never becomes so flooded that it can’t run.
With the landing gear threatening to fold up on me, I couldn’t help but think about how a sputtering engine wouldn’t help us keep from scratching up the gray paint on the bottom of this beautiful antique.
Mike already had a few landings behind him, and knew just how quickly he could get away with bringing the throttle up. We waited with anxiety while he summoned all 600 horse power out of the engine, and we gained the needed speed to muscle the old T-6 back off the ground.
With the tail low, and full throttle, we broke ground, raised the landing gear then flaps (the recommended procedure for the T-6) and climbed away. I began running what happened through my mind.
“Mike, did you see both pins locked?” I asked.
“I thought I did,” Mike came back.
“We’re going to climb out and cycle the gear again. Make sure you get a good clear look at it.”
Back in the early 1940’s, North American Aircraft was pumping out aircraft as fast as they could to meet the demands of the United States various military departments. The plane Mike and I were flying was originally purchased by the Navy, not the Army, which called the plane a SNJ-3. “SN” was the Navy designation for a “Scout Trainer” aircraft. “J” was their identification for North American Aircraft, who manufactured the plane. The SNJ-3 is the equivalent to the Army’s AT-6A. This early model T-6 has an indicator for each landing gear that indicates whether the gear is up, down, or somewhere in-between. This indicator does nothing to show whether the gear is locked or not. To find that information the pilot in the front seat must look out at each wing, and through a small three inch by three inch window on the top of the wing, at the top of the landing gear, the pilot can see the actual pin that locks the gear in the down position. It can be difficult to see if the sun reflects poorly on that little Plexiglas window. It isn’t uncommon to see a T-6 rock its wings after lowering the gear. This is the pilot trying to get a clear view, to see whether or not the pins are fully extended or not.
We leveled off, Mike depressed the small lever, that activates the hydraulics, then moved the landing gear handle forward. The gear swung down, and we could feel the thunk thunk of the extended gear.
“Can you see the pins, Mike?” I asked over the intercom.
“I have the one on the left side, but I’m having a hard time seeing anything on the right.” Mike responded with consternation in his voice.
“OK. Raise the gear again. This time we’ll try lowering it again with the hydraulic hand pump.” I said.
We had gone through this procedure, before, on the ground. Mike twisted the knob on the top of the hydraulic hand pump a quarter turn to the left, to unlock it. It telescoped up, and he turned it a quarter to the right. Now with an almost two foot long lever, he selected the gear down, and began to pump the hydraulics forward and back, until the gear was fully extended.
“I still don’t have a pin on the right.” Mike said, disappointed.
The third time we didn’t use any hydraulics, and just let the gear free-fall. Still no pin on the right. I told Mike to put the plane into a hard slip, to see if that would force the gear out enough to let the pin lock into place. Still no luck.
I pulled out the pilot’s handbook to see if I had missed something. I read through the list of procedures, and found that I had missed nothing. With no further options inside the plane I decided to phone a friend. Todd has been a close friend of my family since I was a little kid. He volunteers his spare time to keeping the Legacy Flight Museum’s planes in top flying order. If there is something I can do to get the gear down and locked, Todd will know what to do.
I was soon listening to Todd’s voice mail message.
Not good. On to plan B: Call Dad.
“Hello.”
“Dad, I’ve got a problem. The gear isn’t locking all the way, on the T-6, and I’ve done everything in the manual to try to get it locked.”
“Have you used the hand pump?”
“Yes.”
“Have you tried to yaw the plane to make the airflow lock the gear?”
“Yes, we’ve tried that one too.”
“Let me call Todd, I’ll call you back.”
A few minutes later he called back with the idea to lower the gear while looping the airplane. Put four g’s on a landing gear and it’s sure to lock into place, right? Still didn’t work.
At this point I began working out how I could land this one-legged bird in a way that would minimize damage to the airplane . . . . and keep the plane from flipping, trapping us inside, then having the whole thing go up in a blazing inferno. The first step to minimizing the inferno scenario was to burn off fuel. We had about 90 gallons of 100 Low-Lead in my gas tanks which would take about two hours to burn off most of my fuel, leaving enough for a Power-ON landing, but with a much smaller boom. We weren’t totally sure if we were going to try landing with the gear down, or up. If we landed with the gear down, and the right gear folded up, it would put the right wing into the ground. Mike and I could make sure that the right fuel tank was completely empty, leaving the remaining fuel in the left tank, away from any sparks. If we landed with the gear up, we might be able to keep the plane from flipping, but I really didn’t like the prospect of knowingly landing a plane on its belly. At least with the gear down landing there was a chance that the gear would stay extended.
Mike and I spent the next two hours flying around Southeastern Idaho, talking about how we would land, to minimize damage to the airplane. I remembered reading or hearing about R.A. Bob Hoover making a landing in a P-51 with similar gear troubles. He landed on the good wheel, and kept the bad gear in the air as he lowered the tail. The unlocked wheel was the last to come in contact with the ground, and the gear folded, but the plane was going slow enough it just ground looped at a safe slow speed. (I have tried to verify this story, and have failed to find documentation of it. I did find a description of this kind of landing in a Sabreliner Jet, but that plane had a tricycle landing gear.)
Finally, it was game time. We had ceased our efforts to try cycling the gear after the left gear became stubborn and refused to come down. When it finally returned to its landing position we determined that it was best to have the option to raise it, and flew the remaining time with the gear extended. Mike made a few low passes over the Rexburg airport, where Todd and my dad stood inspecting my gear.
They determined that the gear was fully extended, meaning there was a chance it would stay down if I didn’t turn into the landing gear. I was relieved to hear there was a chance I might get away with this fiasco without damaging the airplane. As heroic as a wheels-up landing may seem, I’d just as soon land with the wheels on the runway.
Mike and I made one last attempt to push the gear out far enough that the pin might extend into its proper place. Typically, in a crosswind, a plane will land in a slight slip on one wheel. It works well to put a wheel on the runway while aligning it with the runway so the plane tracks straight, even when fighting strong gusting winds. Todd advised me to make a landing skidding (the opposite of a slip) the plane, so when I hit the ground the tires wouldn’t be aligned with the runway and it might pull the gear out enough to let the pin lock. I tried this on two passes, contacting the ground two or three times on each pass. This maneuver was so contrary to anything I had ever done, with a plane coming into contact with the ground, that I can openly admit that I failed the maneuver. My contact with the ground was timid and so brief that only two of the touchdowns were made with the intended result. The remaining attepts were just light landings. So light, in fact, that I couldn’t even determine the stability of the landing gear in question.
We went up again and circled for a few more minutes, burning off a little more fuel, and waited for the fire department to get ready. A couple of fire engines, and a support truck were all at the ready.
My dad radioed me again, “How proficient are you at three-pointing that plane?”
I had my fair share of three-point landings in the T-6. I had instructed several students in the method, as part of their check-out, and when giving rides I preferred the slower landing speed, and shorter ground roll. The thing I didn’t like was that it had been a month or two since the last time I had flown the T-6, and I preferred to do a few wheel landings before working my way into a three-point. The other part that I was uneasy about was performing a three-point on my first landing back at the smaller runway. Remember, I had been making landings with Mike in Idaho Falls, which had a 150 foot wide runway. Now I was back in Rexburg with a 75 foot wide runway.
Earlier I described the advantages of the wheel landing. They allow pilots to fly their taildragger onto the ground gently and smoothly. A three-point landing, on the other hand, is done by flying the plane just above the ground, then pulling the throttle back to idle so there is almost no forward thrust being produced. The pilot then pulls back on the stick, raising the nose above the horizon, which completely cuts off the pilots view in front of them. At this point the pilot maintains directional control by staring straight ahead and using their peripheral vision to stay in the middle of the runway. All this time they have continued to pull further and further back on the stick until the plane stalls, just above 60 miles per hour, preferably at the same moment the wheels touch the ground. When executed properly this is a beautifully smooth maneuver that the pilot can be proud of.
If the three-point is executed poorly, the pilot may inadvertently stall too high over the runway. When the T-6 stalls, it tends to drop a wing, and the pilot slams into the ground with no control over how the aircraft is oriented with the ground. All taildragger pilots know how critical it is to keep a plane under control and properly aligned with the runway. A sideways landing can end up in a major catastrophe. Worse still is when the plane survives the initial impact, but plane acts like a basketball, bouncing back into the air without enough airspeed to salvage the landing, making the second and third encounters with the ground even more violent than the first.
Nevertheless, the three-point was our best option.
I made my approach as slowly and methodically as I could. I kept a wide turning carrier-type final so I could keep the runway in sight from the back seat. As I crossed the threshold of the runway I pulled the power back to idle. Though the gear warning horn was now constantly blaring through the cockpit, I stayed completely focused straight at the end of the runway. The tail sunk, and I could clearly see the sides of the runway in my peripheral vision. I worked the rudders to keep myself tracking straight down the runway. The stick came to a stop in the full aft position, just as it should right at touchdown. Out of the sides of my eyes I saw just what I feared: the ground suddenly came closer as the plane stalled and dropped to the ground. I had flared too high, and I was left riding the roller coaster to the ground.
The plane hit, firmly, skidding to the left, and right wheel hitting the ground first.
“That’s just what I need,” I thought to myself, already critiquing my landing, “a bounce when I’m already nervous about folding the landing gear.”
Yet as the plane went back into the air I was pleased that I wasn’t completely out of airspeed. I still had excellent response from the rudders, and even though I had the stick full aft, the plane seemed to float softly back to the ground. This went from a bad landing to an OK landing.
“This feels just like the Cub right now,” I pondered, recalling the hours I had spent with students in the back seat of a 100 hp Cub, as they benignly bounced their landings.
As we came in contact with the ground again, the plane was straight, the landing was smooth. Over the first hurtle.
As we rolled out, Mike cut the mixture, killing the engine, so as we came to a stop all we had to do was bail out of the plane.
After it was clear that the plane wasn’t going to topple over and burst into flame, I ran over to the right wing to see just how far the pin was actually sticking out. It was clearly not fully extended but it was well over two thirds extended! I couldn’t believe we caused this much fuss over a partially extended pin. Mike couldn’t believe it either. He professed that it had not been sitting out that far, and that it would have been obvious that it was at least partially extended.
We pulled the plane into the hangar, and quickly placed it on jacks to do a gear test. When we swung the gear down Mike and I felt vindicated. The gear pin only extended about a quarter of an inch, keeping the gear straight, but it was completely invisible to the front seat occupant. Grease had built up in the pin and it refused to extend in the tests we ran on it. A little cleaning of the pin and that problem was quickly solved.
Apparently, my embarrassing bounce ensured that the gear stayed locked in place. It was just hard enough, and uncoordinated enough, that it allowed the pin to come out, just as we had been trying to earlier.
After reviewing the requirements for a complex endorsement, I couldn’t think of anything more Mike could learn about complex aircraft, and I promptly endorsed his logbook.
In the end the worst part of the whole fiasco was when Dad said, “You did a good job today, but why did you have to bounce your landing?”
*Pictures courtesy of Kirk Lindholm