Reading the landing discussions here and in the flaps discussion, its obvious I perform landings with a much different procedure than most. For fighters, my procedure is listed below.
Benefits:
*I generally need no side slip rudder input for speed control.
*All of my landings on the tail draggers are soft three pointers with very little bounce.
*I never lose sight of the runway.
Procedure:
*Fly runway heading 300-800 feet over the runway at 250-300 mph.
*At midfield, chop throttle to idle perform a tight left 180 degree turn to downwind, leveling at 800-1200 feet above field elevation.
*Elevator trim full up. Aileron and rudder trim as needed.
*As speed drops thru 150, gear down and one notch of flaps.
*Look for runway threshold to appear behind wing and start a 30-40 degree banked left turn.
*Turn with a 1500 ft/min intitial descent rate.
*Throttle and flaps to manage airspeed at 110-120 for all but F4 which I fly at 125.
Descent rate to put you at 500 feet above runway elevation at the 90 degree base leg.
*Continuous left turn until the runway appears in the left windscreen.
*Decrease descent steadily to 200 ft/min.
*Shallow bank angle to keep left edge runway in sight.
*Throttle and pitch to control descent and airspeed.
*Throttle to idle over threshold and level wings once at runway heading.
*Flare with stall horn sounding to a 100 mph touch down in all but the F4U which requires 110-115 to prevent a left wing stall.
*Braking as needed.
For Tricycle geared P-38:
*Fly one airfield's distance past end of runway while on a 1000' downwind alt.
*Adjust throttle and flaps to give half the normal rate of descent since the airplane is twice as far from the end of the runway.
*Roll out on final with the bottom of the gunsight in the middle of the runway and maintain 120 mph.
*Chop throttle and flare gently to a full stall landing at 100 mph on the mains.
Keep in mind this all happens very fast with very smooth turns, throttle adjustments and descent rate changes. There is not time to read these instructions and perform the landing properly. Practice each segment until mastered, then go on to the next. This is basicly adapted from the method British carrier pilots used to land their Corsair II's in all but the airspeeds. Since we dont' appear to have any lift from flaps, landing speeds are about 30 mph too fast in AH to keep the airplane from stalling. This approach uses the continuous turn from downwind to landing as a means controlling airspeed without needing rudder.
MiG
[This message has been edited by MiG Eater (edited 03-04-2000).]
[This message has been edited by MiG Eater (edited 03-04-2000).]
