[Roger Larson]

This is a great topic, These are my opinions for entertainment only. I always joke with Diane and tell her it is just air.

1. Don’t fight the down drafts, go with them, Don’t fall into the trap of pushing out on the bar to stop your decent.

2. Control the nose of the aircraft and and don’t let it get too high.

3. Don’t over control, Don’t be the cause: that is pilot induced oscillations.

4. On slightly turbulent days that is when you will get your practice and learn to relax. If you always try to get out of turbulence you will never learn to enjoy it, Yes i said that.

5. I hold my elbows in in heavy turbulence. This works better for me than just resting my arms on the bar. The elbows in, kind of work like shock absorbers and dampen the effects of the bar movement and give a smoother ride.

6. Don’t be in a hurry to get the bar back to level. Put pressure on the bar in the way you want it to go and trust that it will come back to where you want it. You will many times end up with a very nice ride like your on rolling hills instead of bumps. (goes with the pilot induced oscillations principal. Some big turbulence you have to be slightly more aggressive.

7. Different kinds of turbulence. Check airspeed compared to groundspeed. If the same, your not in turbulence caused by wind. Your in updrafts and down drafts. (up and down winds i guess). If you watch your groundspeed carefully as you fly, you will be able to determine the wind directions, the thickness of the layers of winds and the speed of the winds. Remember that if you have a wind going in one direction and then another layer of air going in a different direction, where those winds come together is where it is most turbulent. Flying higher or lower you can often get out of the turbulent layer.

8. High wind does not mean necessarily a bumpy ride. I have flown in 35 mile an hour winds and it was totally smooth with the exception of a small layer where it was bumpy. Once your in that wind, if it is not an updraft and downdraft you don’t feel that wind at all.

9. The trike wing is great in winds.

10. Surprisingly Cold air turbulence can be worse than warm air thermals. We have experienced some cold air turbulence to be pretty harsh. I often fly all day long in Arizona and if you get some wind on a warmer day it breaks up the thermals. The thermals have a range of where they are weaker to stronger to weaker depending on altitude. The big ones you can’t climb above so flying lower to the ground is sometimes the key.

11. The air won’t hurt you but the ground will. Have enough altitude when crossing over mountains to be safe from down drafts and rotors.

12. Relax and control your adrenaline. ;). Next time you find yourself in an adrenaline situation, breath deeply and move your eyes around. Don’t fixate.

[Roger Larson]

Here is some further discussion on this topic. Our brains rely on our senses for information. One time when i was hang gliding, i had just landed and the guy behind me was coming in flying with the wind. He was used to seeing his visual approach at a certain speed. His brain was telling him he was going fast enough (looking at the ground) but he stalled right above me, crashed and broke his back. I could tell he wasn’t going fast enough and i predicted the stall. Illusions can trick the mind especially if your not aware of what the difference might be. Large wide runways vs small thin runways can cause illusions to think they are farther or closer than they really are.

One day i landed with about a 10 mile an hour tailwind. It caused me no problem. The friend i was flying with ran off the runway. We landed that direction because a bunch of other planes were using that particular runway and we didn’t want to interrupt flow of traffic. I made the decision prior to landing that it was safe for me to do so landing with the wind is not ideal.

I am not a CFI but here is my thoughts and also it gives the CFI’s to add their thoughts. Next time you get a chance, Practice taxing in wind. When you Taxi, practice controlling the wing as you turn from a headwind, crosswind and tailwind. As you make your turns learn how to best neutralize the effects of the wind hitting the wing. The key here is the word neutralize. Think of it this way. would you have a problem riding around in your trike in a heavy wind with no wing on it? I think the answer is easy and the answer is no. If you had no wing on your trike you could drive around in all kinds of winds. So If you learn to neutralize the effects of the wind on your wing your learning how to control it in the wind. Your trying to make your trike behave as if you had no wing. If you feel the wind on your wing fighting you, or pushing you, your not neutralizing it. I have practiced this in 25 mile an hour winds and it is very interesting to learn to neutralize the wing. I am not saying practice in a 25 MPH wind but maybe start practicing this on a day when it is slightly windy.

I went into all that because if you land with a tail wind, your wing will act and feel differently.

So in a headwind, crosswind, or tailwind, i neutralize my wing upon landing.

I believe the reason my friend went off the runway the day we landed in the tail wind was because he did not neutralize his wing and he allowed the wind to push him from behind, he didn’t understand what was happening, the feelings were different and he didn’t put his wing where it needed to be. He did what he always does and pulls in on the bar to his belly.

Landing into the wind is always the best, this will give slower ground speeds when landing and less runway will be used. Taxiways can save you if your in a wind over what is safe.. 90 degree crosswinds at my airport are the norm.

Be careful, don’t let a tail wind ever make you think your airspeed is good by watching the faster moving ground. Airspeed is not effected by ground speed. We all know that, but our brains can trick us by what we are seeing. Especially when we are newer pilots. So if you are in a tail wind and your brain is telling you your coming in fast, check your airspeed, you might be surprised. Yes you old salts don’t look at your airspeed, I know. I do and always will.

Just my thoughts. Good question.

[Roger Larson]

John, curious did your experiment work? Any luck repairing the faceshield?

[Roger Larson]

I have used Plexus but it doesn’t do as good as the wax and or the Ceramic Coating that I have been using.

[Roger Larson]

Yesterday i tried another test on the Flycom shield using Ceramic Coating. It really gives a great shine but for the true scratches it had no effect. I also tested NU Finish Scratch doctor which with no effect. Waxes and the Ceramic Coating have all had a nice cleaning effect and has added some clarity to the shield so far.

[Roger Larson]

Thanks Paul, i am going to refer people to Trikeaction when i get future questions. It might be nice for someone to start a list of CFI’s across the States and whatever countries out there at access this site. Each CFI could add their contact information. Maybe that is already on here and I missed it.

[Roger Larson]

i sent a copy of the invoice to your phone Larry.

[Roger Larson]

Two great replies!!!

[Roger Larson]

I have not seen a back country landing strip (not yet anyways) that i could not land on. Here are some thoughts. I have seen some dirt roads that were too risky, Different set ups for different trikes can make a big difference. The best that you could do in a trike for landing in very short distances would be a larger single surface wing, Large tires with lower tire pressure, and as light of a load as possible and a very low density altitude and a headwind. Give me a 45 mile an hour headwind and i will land on a single rock.

I have a double surface wing so it flies faster than a single surface wing, I do have larger tires than most but I am almost always pretty heavy because of myself and my passenger, lots of fuel, cameras, safety equipment, extra water etc. My biggest concern for myself is if I am landing out in the middle of nowhere will i pick up a rock in my prop? Being a pusher setup there is more possibility of that happening. Not hitting your brakes when landing would possibly not kick up rocks as much and protect the prop. There is one location i land and it is pretty rocky, bumpy ground and kind of short. So Ido have to use my brakes landing there. so the second i know it is a good landing and there will be no issues, i Turn XXX my motor. :). Then i hit my brakes pretty hard. i would not advise anyone to do that.

When landing on a new remote location for the first time, i first check the area for power lines, fences and other possible obstacles. Then i fly low (1 foot or less above the runway) and look at the surface. Any higher than that you can’t really see what your landing on. I also notice if there is an uphill or downhill. in many of the areas in the backcountry around here there just happen to be a sand wash cutting through the landing area. So flying low you can see that, notice how deep it is and if it is possible to land. The final thing i do is determine the winds i am landing in. i use gps to determine which direction to land, i am looking for the lowest ground speed. If you’r wondering if the landing area is long enough you can use a count method to determine approximate feet. At 60 miles an hour, every second is 88 feet. Just remember there are lots of factors that determine how quickly you can get off the ground when taking off , and also when landing how quickly you can stop. If you know your are cutting it close (risky) it is better to fly away and enjoy the flight rather than taking a chance on something too risky.

Watch some of those Trent Palmer type videos and you will see some crashes. They can be amazing pilots (skills) and have amazing planes but still, they find themselves with a damaged plane in the middle of nowhere.

In a trike i know one thing, I had more fun flying there. Diane just put her flight suit on so i got to go. Ha, true.

[Roger Larson]

The airport i fly at mostly is KBXK. A non towered airport. Generally the winds there are in the 10 knot direct crosswind plus or minus range. This airport has numerous student training touch and Goes coming from other airports. Sometimes the language of some of the other pilots (from other countries) is not that understandable. Both by the normally non english speaking pilot and the english speaking pilot. In other words, the person that normally doesn’t speak english coming in says something on the radio and he doesn’t necessarily fully understand what he is saying and does not understand what others are doing. We end up with pilots that come into the pattern like nobody else is there. We also get very fast aircraft coming in at all speeds. Cirrus aircraft lately are our most common. xxxxxxxx. That being said, i would say if you are coming into our airport, especially in a slow trike, you might not live very long unless you have a good plan on how to deal with this kind of thing. So the only way for sure to not get hit is to take it upon yourself to not get hit. Being where nobody can hit you. So far this discussion is doing great. A 45 entry is the most dangerous in my opinion for the very reason your crossing all the aircraft at various speeds, distances and altitudes. I do the cross over midfield technique that was mentioned here and that is very safe for me at some other airports i fly to. However I can not do that at KBXK because the skydiving jump school is very active. So they have no flyover and no flying East of the field requirements. Please keep your comments coming on this topic. We are all going to find strong opinions on this topic exist. What some feel is unsafe, others will feel is safe. Understanding what others think about this topic is valuable information to us all.

[Roger Larson]

Excellent you made numerous points we can all take and use.

[Roger Larson]

Thanks for the reply . I think the blue stuff that is put on the Revolt has a kevlar cover. the outer cover then has like a cording and then a tube on the inside. Not sure if all the “blue stuff” is the same. One thing i found while researching fuel line is that they have different allowable bend radiuses, temp ratings, positive pressure ratings and vacuum ratings. Some of them are listed also as fire resistant. Some hoses are designed for certain connectors.

[Roger Larson]

I believe what happened to my friend was that he was so used to landing a headwind, on that particular it was a tail wind but not a perfect tail wind. So the wind caught him from behind which i don’t think he had experienced that before. the wing caught the wind and it took him off of the runway. That or for some other reason he ran off the runway. I just know that we landed in a tail wind and he did not know why he ran off the runway that day. That day was not a perfect tail wind, meaning it came from one side slightly more, and yes we had faster landing speed overall, plus gusts from behind. I a gust hit me from behind but i can’t know his gust at the moment he landed. Upon my landing i could feel a need to hold the wing in a very precise attitude to limit the effects of the rearward wind. Prior to that i had practiced in some heavy winds just practicing on the ground so i did not experience anything i had not experienced before. These are good things for pilots and new pilots to think about so I appreciate this forum. A good point you bring out is that the effects of the wind actually increase in a tail wind as you slow down. Correct me on this but the wing is not aerodynamically correct if the wind is flowing from front to back. So at least it is something to think about. That is the huge advantage to having a forum like this to think this stuff through with other pilots. Thanks again for this forum.

[Roger Larson]

Hey Stewart. Its always good to hear from down under. Quick question off the top for you. Whatever happened to the two guys that filmed Motorkite Dreaming. That was fun watching. Do you know if they are still flying trikes?

[Roger Larson]

Could i fly with a Revo? Larry has the science down.

I can fly with a Revo if they didn’t mind me arriving slightly later than they do, just like when i fly with slower trikes. I love to fly with slower trikes because it gives me more time to zoom around and have fun. If all my buddies had a Revo I might buy a Revo and fly the type of flying they do. If all my buddies had a single surface wing and was landing in every sand wash they could find, i might buy a single surface wing and join them. Maybe even change my tires.

I do plan on flying with a REVO in the near future to film some documentary footage in southern Arizona. The pilot of the REVO will have to look in his rear view mirror for me at times, but will also have to look down as i am flying slowly around the historical sites i want to film.

I am going to post a new discussion under “questions i get asked”. You might find some other info there that might be useful.