How do STOL Pilots Train for Back Country Flying? Carbon Cub FX-3 - Part 1

to get ready for this bad there's the sake I feel like an elevator yep we're gonna learn how to do super slow steep stable approaches in a more forgiving environment yes that's the profile we want to add a little after not sure I don't need to flip anything just let it land yeah that's awesome so we're out here in Hood River Oregon and I'm gonna learn to do some back country flying with these guys this is kind of the culmination of a bunch of table flying and really getting to learn how to do backcountry flying properly it's a total privilege to be able to share this sort of stuff I'm a guy who can absolutely say table flying has made me better and all aspects of flying and tack I will invited me out to share this training they're not paying me to say this they've even asked me to say it but they are probably one of the best places in the world to do this sort of training Steve welcome to tack arrow appreciate coming out here to play with us this is Brad Brad's one of our experienced flight instructors and today we're you're kind of getting a special treat you get a fly toque crackers latest and greatest which is the carbon cub FX 3 now I'm lucky to be flying the newest hotness in the tablet world for this one but I did start off in a beat-up old Super Cub with my basic tail wheel but for this one obviously we're doing some pretty advanced stuff these landings can be a little bit more of an arrival you know we're not looking for those super sweet soft 3 points to impress each other the fx3 is a very potent machine it has the ability to do things that other aircraft just can't do and Brad is going to work with you and show you the differences with that so the plan today spend some time here in the pattern using our grass strip and take full advantage of what the airplane can do get comfortable in it then after that we're gonna pre-brief and we're gonna actually head out we're gonna go fly in the backcountry there's gonna be the first of several episodes covering this training I probably got about eight hours flying with these guys which culminated in some amazing legit backcountry flying and your previous experience was in an fx so I flew an SS and FX and the X Cub all in the same day I'm gonna do the cub crafters Grand Slam hat-trick thing there's there's three of them and I'm gonna fly them all in one day it's kind of blurry how it all blended together bad you remember the dis distinct differences that I noticed sure but it'll be resting to hear what you think are the things I should look for in this one they're different absolutely we've got a little higher horsepower engine as the cub crafters 363 I so it's advertised as 186 horsepower and it's got the constant speed prop on it so those are two pretty major differences just in terms of the feel the throttle differences and having pitch control there so this will be the initial training where the margins are wider but it's still preparing me for advanced flying so this is not gonna be covering basic table techniques we've got a lot of episodes that already address that for now I got to get ready to handle this stuff in the actual backcountry [Music] the other main thing I kind of want to get you comfortable with today is with that bigger prop spinning up there one of the biggest differences I can put a finger on is a difference in the Flair the feeling of the elevator Authority you have when you're trying to get this plane slow sometimes you need a little bit of power to keep that positive airflow and continued elevator effect now I'm not going to cover the entire walk around here but I will share some cool unique Kidd bits like this my first three concerns are do I have enough fuel is it good fuel and we have oil so with those three things which usually take a lot of time to rectify out of the way then we can kind of start the exterior walk-around that tip resonated with me because my early days renting I had multiple times where I got mostly through a walk-around and then realized I needed fuel or oil and then by the time I got it solved my booking was significantly shorter so some of the air work we're gonna do is gonna go up just like with any plane you're checking it out see how it stalls see how it stalls clean or in the landing configuration get a feel for when that elevator becomes ineffective and an idea of how much energy is left in the wing if we're able to do that the easiest way to shorten our rolling distance is to fly a slower approach speed if we've got less energy in the system we're going to be able to make an ultimately shorter roll without the use of heavily relying on brakes so that's kind of the goal to get you accurate and a nice deep stable approach and come in and have some nice controlled short touchdowns another unique thing about these airplanes are the massive tires that allow them to land almost anywhere we're not really gonna get into the controlling the roll and pail up braking and so on but we do need to talk about how we're gonna handle braking on this flight most of the models I think you've flown included toe brakes the top cab really being the only he'll break in the fleet so these should feel pretty familiar they are powerful brakes so always a part of the briefing is we're only using them to assist pretty much on the taxi or towards the end of the land to help slow down a little more as long as everything's under good control so you're not gonna see us doing that crazy advanced braking where you keep the tail up and it sort of slams down when you come to a full stop it's just too much risk of a prop strike we're not gonna get into that right now okay we're clear here we go headed for traffic orange cub taxi southeast residential cross both active for the North taxiway with transfer of controls will use the three-way exchange my controls your controls my control with that exchange if I'm taking the controls from you to fix something my expectation is that hands come off throttle and stick and feet come away from the pedals the most common unintentional error is the foot on a break and that's what I'm trying to kind of groom into the responses that's the one thing I can't hide again I can't pull the brake so we'll just taxi down to kind of the mid field there get a feel for how a handle see if the steering feels any different - yeah yep I mean it feels like a nice it's a lot easier taxing a chipmunk oh good airflow Nietzsche book hello I'd never have I thought you've been flying some T sixes lately - yeah that's my latest personal achieving a cool milestone yeah you got it done it we're gonna set power smoothly stick will come forward a little bit as we're doing that get the tail up they're gonna rotate when we feel like it's ready to fly I'm at a 5150 757 so it's 57 at 71 correct Roger Roger okay all right I'm good to go if you're good to go I'm ready to go if you don't throw good perfect it gets off the ground awfully quick I like a normal takeoff to look like smooth application of power up to full stick transitioning from back to slightly forward to neutral to get the tail up and then by the time the powers come in you're through most of the role in this thing so just as long as we can get the tail up a little bit and then a little back pressure to ask it come off when it's ready it'll be ready awfully fast wow I could really get a lot more pitch up if I had 50 cent but that's pretty crazy if I was ridiculous I think you'll have some pretty good grins as we climb out here okay well then we get rid of the flaps to go to 70 or so yeah somebody wants a pretty specific payment around 70s that would be okay we're gonna do a left pattern yeah so having been more than a year since I've done this type of flying at all this first one was just a normal pattern and landing before we did some air work to get warmed up for flying this airplane really slow to get working on those steep stable approaches wow it's a lot of power back again 19 okay yeah and you want 2300 IVM for now on down with bed of work the next step is gonna be pulling the power back anyways to the point where controls are begin coming in to land once the power is back to the point where the RPMs are coming down with it I can come too full for it on the problem with the grass that we're already here and we're hi hey okay so powers back up I was like oh uh full fine now yep yeah don't get some flap in there and watch why dark yep good how many what we want three notches or so two notches will be fine for here that's what I just did yeah all right just show me a normal three point approach for your perspective okay I'm a little tight here you want it to be at v3 55 and 60 yeah so we're high right check is more flaps in there yeah a little bit more 500 okay problems Bo 5 mixture rich or they where ever had it that's considered rich for two tops we'd say set yep okay five things on final the are my primary concerns are we all in airspeed are we on glide path because our nose straight are we drifting and our feet off the brakes if we can nail those five things we can come in and make a touchdown and tail dragger if we're touching down side loaded it's gonna want to ground lip instantly if we're touching down with some drift it'll set up that same momentum as you're aware from flying tail aircraft keep holding it off a little oh good not a few six to be there but I'm blessed I flew the t6 so I guess we're doing a pass on that yeah the sight picture is gonna be a little lower yeah you cannot hit early in the t6 it's a bad day to do that cool man yeah things happen faster than I expected on that climb oh good lord yeah on this one let's just run out for a second go do a teeny bit air work and then we'll come back in finish up but I can tell you had a pretty good feel for it pretty quickly there quick transition probably helps doing all those different types yeah we'll take off out of here head to the south and start working on some air work while we're climbing we'll leave it on that engine monitoring page to make sure our cylinders aren't getting too hot nobody this headache but you want to be yeah just keep pointing at Mount Hood will continue the clamp and we'll start off with some Dutch rules is that a term you're familiar with yeah we keep the head in one place and you yeah yeah just a quick way to feel out the harmony of the ailerons in the rudder and go ahead and feel out sub Dutch rolls that eat a lot more rudder than that eh there we go yeah so it's eating more right rudder because of the climb correct yeah there we go okay dialed in about there feeling good excellent now let's go ahead and just start pulling the throttle back a little bit and bring the power back start feeling some slow fly it out just see what the plane tells you as you're getting slow how the controls get a little mushy er and start to identify some of those slow flight characteristics and we'll continue to hold altitude advanced field out slow flight I do wanna go full fine with the rpm is low are we the manifold pressure is low just continue pulling back if you start to control rpm with the power then you can go full fine there you go you hear kind of transitioning through that's your indication all right and then we'll just maintain altitude and then add power to once I feel like I've made the sulphite just add power to keep you there yeah we'll be looking to just kind of flirt with the horn initially and then take it back a little deeper into the horn and see kind of how close we can get to the stall I don't notice in Cubs a big verbal like a Cessna there's not that big vibration on the tail it's subtle and it is there but it's not nearly as much I feel much more like they give you everything they got right until they quit yeah and in these unless you have a little bit of power in it'll give you everything it's got and then it just won't have enough tail downforce what kind of mush if we're mushed we can kind of explore what that feels like for a little bit and then recover that's crazy huh so there's the beginning of the horn there and the AOA is the beat behind it yeah I feel feel like I have Authority though I don't over there yet yeah we're cool the controls see how mushy they are yeah it's not that bad though it's still flying pretty controllable right yeah so I'm losing a bit altitude so that's a power great if you hear the progressive nature of the AOA indicator there yep get more freaking beeps that's right forty-three shrimp is uh doing anything oh my god Oh we bought the priority try now there we go so what's that so right here if we are messing with courts it's pretty easy to bump that brother and that will just turn trip off completely at the center okay trouble shot that oh yeah so she's uh pretty happily flying it forty five forty indicated good and then let's go ahead and just continue this will do a 180 turn just feel how slow flight into turn fields we use that as a clearing opportunity and from here on out go ahead and recover from that and we'll start doing some power off stalls so he's seen a fly as low as about forty three or so yeah feel that kind of that was the prop get actually pull forward alright so we'll bring her back to twenty three squared yeah paranormal cruise okay so power off stalls will do flaps up initially and full power idle what we're really looking for is to see when does that tail quit buoyant what do I lose the ability to arrest my descent okay so power come back yep go full rich on the mixture I leave it set the way we have it we'll leave it set it said appropriate for the altitude okay so prom full flying so I was controlling it powers all the way to idle I'll recover when it stalls good there it is and you feel there's no aggressive break or anything oh there was just a brush that's good till I lost the authority yeah let's all this one set up about a stable 60 mile an hour descent and then we'll pick an altitude that's coming up something like 2,900 feet and use that as a fake runway altitude we're going to hold it off the ground there and that will simulate the flare a little better they promise going full fine yeah and we're gonna fly the approach at sixty yep we're just gonna pretend we're coming down in at 2,900 feet we're gonna flare for the touchdown Roger length no factor just to get a feel for what this player is gonna feel like when does that elevator quit and we have no flaps we want it that way everyone flaps yeah next one will do full flaps Roger okay so here we have up on 2100 oh good just use all the energy available to arrest the dissent there's a little grow through oh yeah so don't ever yeah decided that would have been the touch yeah okay all right cool uh you can go ahead from here just lower your nose continue to fly 60 we'll go to full flaps and see how it feels there just forget it all of it though that's all of it good term it out to be comfortable gliding at 60 at this time you will use a twenty four hundred for the fake runway and same deal no power adjustment just let it let it drop out yep right there yeah that was it and it gives up quick on you at 50 there right yeah all right same thing but we're gonna use about 14 or 1500 rpm while we hold 50 okay keep sending and just do it again yep so sorry say again for the power 1500 yeah about 1500 rpm cuz we're full fine so that hours yeah 50 knots and our ground is gonna be we're sorry mm mm Erica about 50 and our power set a little high yeah you got a lot more Authority with that much power right yeah there it is and a little more of a clean break yeah so using a little bit of power on these approaches towards the bottom can't really help you have enough energy to play and now we'll do one let's use 45 miles an hour for an approach and still 1500 rpm and see how much energy is left to arrest the descent rate so now that we're warmed up we're finally gonna get into some actual stole flying now you want 45 45 yep and 1500 rpm somewhere right around there we'll use 1500 as a benchmark and adjust from there and I'll fake the ground at 2500 we're almost there that'll work great so 1500 rpm 2500 there's the ground well you can really get the nose up with that much power helps a lot that Nick yeah I guess that's the kind of it we've washed out so let's set one more up we'll back it down to 1300 rpm see if we still have that extra effectiveness and we'll still try to hold 45 all right over 10 the ground is that like 2300 good so you want 1300 rpm yes there it is there I feel it my shin yeah so that's a big difference yeah that's a full five so the nose up attitude is significantly less you've got Authority for absolutely all right so the magic number is 1,500 rpm they're prisoners or maybe just slightly below and we can always use a cushion of power at the bottom to help get that nose up right but let's come in and try a few all right so we're gonna look at hold 45 the whole way down yep and hold that pitch with your airspeed and then use your power to adjust whether or not you're gonna make the point you need or to adjust your descent rate in other words go so visually a man will aim about an airplane length to past the midfield taxiway there yep and our flare distance should be pretty short between our any points there's no point head up port to have the face of a grass whatever the idea is to kind of get it at your stable speed kind of hanging on the prop a little bit just so you could drop it all right we meet here right yeah I tend to avoid the words hanging on the prop that would remind me of a flat low descent rate drug in approach Roger but we do try to get it on the kind of backside of the induced drag curve okay I get that drag working for us to help give us a descent rate the good news from there is we fly a steep stable approach then we can lower the nose in the event of an engine failure get better glide back right so 1300 rpm is what we're looking for out there 500 yeah better traffic alert cup final photograph cetera well I feel hi what do you think yeah back out just a little more on the power and hold that knows about right where it's at and then we'll just County elevator going down yep yeah there it is give it a sense yeah sure coming down bring it a little more power out and lower the nose just a teeny bit there you go feel that there yeah we're still a bit long yeah from there let's just shoot the go around [Music] nice establish the climb looking good obstacles clear we could go flats up fine at 71 that's good practice go around anyway right yeah okay so anything else want to brief on that I think I know I need to do this time I'm gonna get it high set up in that attitude earlier yep yeah oh yeah you feel it yeah you know what it kicks in you don't it starts to be on the back side of the curve yeah before that we're just glide a little too well yeah but it's kind of a fine balancing act between having the airflow over the tail to get the energy for the flare you need and just being too low to begin with if we add too much power though then we're just flat so it's kind of tightened in that little zone crusher let's go uh 1,400 rpm in about 45 miles an hour on final here porco final photograph etre there's the initial indication should start to settle in here cards that do Strack don't bring the power at war just kind of leave it there feel it starting to blush got it there it is that's cool that will use power at the bottom to help arrest if we lose energy to arrest the dissent yes that's the profile we want to add a little after not sure and I'm gonna just let it settle in the stall yep I don't need to flip anything just let it land yeah that's awesome it's firm but that's what you're doing right you're trying a little bit more of an arrival if anything did you feel a run-out elevator right at the bottom so I could have blip it yeah just a teeny bullet yeah okay it's easy to overdo it yeah I didn't want to overdo it so I was thinking I'm gonna just let it settle I know I don't have too much descent yep but that's the steep stable approach right in there Roger and from there you know you can manipulate a little more power to make the runway if you're short or a little less power if you want to come down sweep when we're dealing with this little energy we can't flare very high yeah so it's got to be kind of time for the bottom yeah I'm really liking what we're seeing on finals oh right you're settling in and feeling that kind of high drag slow approach maybe it was nice and steep yeah and I'm getting that I just need to get the clear right yes those were just the highlights from what was about a 90 minute lesson getting ready to do a real trip I'll be easy to get a full truck in here then what kind of breed head on out so I hope you enjoyed that one we've got a lot more great content coming from this trip it was some awesome training I'm really happy to share it the team from Takara really went all out taking us out to the field so huge thanks to them as well as thanks to cub crafters providing the airplane and course thanks to all the patreon supporters and sponsors for the ongoing support to create this content and until next time keep your plate chop sharp hot in there man I should wear a t-shirt Wow yeah there's some pretty bouncy wanted a I never didn't have it it just wasn't pretty I'll get directions control us over and we achieve the goal of finding that steep stable approach there sure dude

Channel: FlightChops

Views: 1,087,864

Rating: 4.8735914 out of 5

Keywords: flight training, VFR, flying, landing, aviation, STOL, back country, stall, slow flight, flight chops, Flight VLOG, VLOG, pilot career, pilot life, bush plane, tail wheel, off airport, cross wind, cubcrafters, carboncub, carbon cub

Id: eDUfr-EQqEM

Length: 22min 4sec (1324 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 30 2018