Whenever I try to land this plane, I always crash where the plane tubmles forward upon itself. Same thing happens with these type of planes.
Any tips on how to land this? I tried pulling back on the stick as I land but even with little speed I tip over the front.
Tailwheel planes can be hard to get the hang of for landing.
I suggest doing a 3 point landing where all your wheels touch down at the same time.
To achieve that you should take note of the nose attitude when you are on the ground before takeoff (basically look at where the horizon intersects with the panel). That is the same attitude you want when you are landing.
To land, slow down to get to your landing attitude, and reduce power so you have a slow descent while maintaining that landing attitude.
Do not hit the brakes when you land or you will tip forward - instead once you are firmly on the ground reduce power to idle and pull back on the stick. Use your rudder to maintain directional control (this can be tricky in a tailwheel plane compared to nose wheel and you might find you have to “dance” on the rudder pedals) and SLOWLY introduce the brakes to come to a stop.
Taildraggers are sensitive to brakes and tip forward easily if you are too aggressive on the brakes.
It doesn’t help that if you’re using a button you can’t modulate the brakes, it’s akin to slamming them on 100%, so you’re aggressive on the brakes by default without realising it.
Instead, tap the brake button in short bursts to slow it down progressively, don’t hold it down.
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To land, slow down to get to your landing attitude, and reduce power so you have a slow descent while maintaining that landing attitude.
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Do that and you’ll have a terrible view on final and be at risk of stalling. the 3 point attitude is not reached till in the flare
I fly the XC (Bush League Legends not Asobo!!) a lot and I think that, in addition to the sound advice offered above, approach speed is the key. You should be flying at quite close to stall speed and definitely no use of the brakes until you have all three wheels firmly planted and your speed is low enough that you will not get airborne again when you pull back on the stick. I recommend not using the brakes at all unless you absolutely have to.
Can I suggest that you have a look at the You Tube channel by FlightChops, a Canadian guy who, essentially, takes you through his flying career with discussions and in cockpit video with his various instructors. He starts with Chipmunk, moves on to T6 Texan (Harvard) and XCub, so mostly tail draggers. His journey includes flying and landing the XCub. There is an excellent video on steep approaches to bush strips with obstacles on the approach path. He also covers float planes.
Yeah speed and nose attitude are related so if you have the speed right your attitude will also be right and if your attitude is right your speed will be right. Speed should be probably 5-10 knots above stall I’d say.
It is true that this will give you a terrible view but it is easier to get established early IMO. As you progress you can slip while on final to be able to see the runway out of a side window then get your attitude right in the flare but as a beginner I think trying to get everything right at the last moment before touching down would be challenging
Moved to Community Support- Aviation, Navigation, Communication for community support. Also added tag CubCrafters X Cub.
Make sure your parking brake is not engaged!
At slow speeds, the elevators don’t have enough authority to control pitching over. The only alternative is to maintain a little throttle to have enough airflow over the tail. The drawback to this is that you have to use more brakes, but that’s cheaper than a new prop - by far!
This is also a good way to maintain rudder authority at the same time, which can help with ground loops.
If you get really good at it, you can pull off stunts like this:
Wow… I’ll admit that’s cool but that pilot is just asking for a gust of wind or a rock under a wheel to push the nose down and destroy their prop!