T6 Texan Landing Pattern- Curved Final Turn

[@blancolirio]

+1 for the curved final!

[@blancolirio]

@Michael Robinson YOU are part of the problem in the warbird community. If you think for a minute there was nothing wrong with the engines on ‘909’ you’re dead wrong. No wonder I booted you from the channel!

[@TankBuilders]

Great video, thanks. “The Navy probably invented the curved final turn...”. It may well have been around earlier than 1942 but perhaps it became standardized in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm as a consequence of taking the F4U Corsair afloat. Capt Eric Brown devised the curving approach to overcome the limitations of the “Hose Nose” when approaching the deck straight in. The RN successfully introduced the F4U to carrier operations, adding a stall strip to ensure both wings stalled at the same AoA and modified the undercarriage to reduce the tendency to bounce. The curved final turn then became standard in the RN Fleet Air Arm.

[@williammcbane2599]

Hey Scott! Let’s go do this in the Baron! I’m tired of right angles!!

[@pawelwolski1316]

Nice presentation. I spent 5 years in the back seat of the T6 giving rides. I came from gliders and my own Pitts Special. A well flown, power off overhead approach is a thing of beauty and in the Pitts and back seat of the T6 is the only way you can see where you are going. With 10 or so landings a day, 5 days week I got a good relationship with the T6. Any addition of power was failed approach in my book. Also landing from the back seat is so much better since you are way behind cg and main gear. All yaw is amplified and much easier to detect. When doing ferry flights from the front seat I just hated landing the T6 as everything was moving behind my butt. I really concentrated on those landings and could not wait to get back to my rear seat. Really miss the T6...........

[@mamulcahy]

Gosh I miss flying!

[@lakerenegadepilot6211]

I started in GA and got used to the rectangular pattern, I now prefer the circular pattern, as you said, much easier to judge how you are in relation to the runway.

[@michaelbailey1578]

I sure wish I could have had this man for my CFI when I was getting primary training. My first CFI was fired by the FBO because, while transporting a shackled prisoner about 100 miles to a Supermax facility, he ran out of fuel and landed in a corn field. My second CFI was killed doing stunts in a Citabria. I never got a third CFI or a license, but I'm willing to bet I've been to more Oshkosh air shows than most folks. I didn't learn to fly, but I did learn to use a camera with some considerable skill. I always got to the four o'clock show early and set up as close to the runway as possible; it did get a bit noisy, like when the Concord took off. Hats off to you old flyboys and flygirls. Thanks again Cap'n Perdue.

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Never too late to finish what you started! Thanks, Michael.

[@michaelbailey1578]

@@FlyWirescottperdue I've been trying to guess how many hours you have logged, so I'm guessing your pushing 30,000. I once met a guy who said he logged 10,000 in just a Citation. If that's true then you'd have to use scientific notation to express your hours. Thanks much.

[@gregmaggielipscomb9246]

T/Y for explaining this, have done over 100 T o's and landings in a SNJ-5 w/my adopted Granddad and he used the curved pattern exclusively. Well Done.

[@louisadamo2510]

I totally agree with a curved traffic pattern. I learned to fly a curved pattern while doing my tail wheel training years ago in a Citabria 7ECA and have continued for the most part to this day. My son,who is an AF pilot never flies a rectangular pattern. I also feel it helps to eliminate the tendency to overfly the base to final turn which lessons the chance of the deadly stall/spin hazard from over banking.

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Louis- I think you're exactly right!

[@ericgirardet1848]

Nice presentation! I also prefer curved approach instead of square app. Greetings from a Swiss T6 driver!

[@giuliogambardella2482]

Thanks for the videos Scott! Keep em coming👍

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Thanks, Giulio! Are there any topics you'd like to see?

[@giuliogambardella2482]

Hi Scott! Your videos would be much better(from a teaching standpoint) with a camera angle including the instruments and control stick inputs. I put mine on R/H sliding canopy and works great.

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Giulio- Thanks I'll try adding that perspective!

[@stevespra1]

Looks a little like my last pre-oil change warm up / practice session. I'm based at a Class C towered field but the tower controllers are very accommodating. Actually I think they like the show. Anyway, practicing this stuff really gets you back in tune with the airplane.

[@johngrantham8024]

When I started flying, the airfield ATC insisted on rectangular and it was a real pain because I was flying a very slow aircraft. Circuits for practice landings took forever. In the UK, curved approaches were started by Spitfire and Hurricane pilots as a way of keeping the runway in sight for as long as possible before losing pretty much the whole field behind their enormous engines.

[@haroldtanner9600]

Visit with Juan Browne about an overhead with a C-130 formation!

[@benc1103]

Overhead, Numbers Break, configure, off the Perch. Piece of Cake. The only way to fly. Ask tower for the overhead. They'll often give it to you. They will usually ask you to call Short Initial so they can evaluate the traffic situation is it's busy. If it's busy, they might call your break point: over the numbers, midfield or departure end (and sometimes change the direction of the break). Sometimes they'll deny you. Then you have to fly a 172 pattern. Some call it a B-52 pattern, but that would be wrong. A B-52 pattern would easily fit inside your typical student pilot C-172 pattern (why? I think they can log X/C time. What happened to staying within gliding range?).

[@GennaroAvolio]

I agree for low wing airplanes. Hard to keep runway in sight in high wing. The damed wing in the way.

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

I guess for some. I’ve got a Stearman and a Husky. Works for me.

[@mannypuerta5086]

I’m an advocate of the curved final turn. I used it at the airline during a visual approach, with or without navaids and in my 185 when pattern traffic allows it or the backcountry airport demands it. Birds have been using the curved final technique before the Wright brothers took to the sky and engineered human flight. Listen to and emulate experience is what I say. Flying can be like making music, so improvise and make jazz. Chopsticks on the keyboard is not the goal. Forget the metronome and fly the airplane. If anyone recalls Hong Kong’s Kai Tak IGS13 approach, it resulted in a visual 47 degree turn begun at about 600’ AGL at the completion of an ILS into a hill with a checkerboard. There is some very interesting and entertaining video available showcasing the correct and incorrect way of accomplishing that approach and landing. Doing a circling approach at the termination of an IFR approach to an airport often requires a curved turn to final. Even with today’s heavy iron limitations on 1000-3 for a circling approach, one can easily do a curved final and the weather may require it. Regardless of whether a pilot is IFR rated or not, a pilot should be proficient in the technique as a rectangular pattern may not always be possible (see Idaho backcountry as an example). A great technique for making curved approaches to final, or even the base to final turn in a rectangular pattern, is to look at the far end of the runway, as in sighting down a long barrel of a gun vs a short barrel. Sight (runway) alignment becomes more accurate. After successfully and accurately lining up on final, look at your aim point for profile control and crab on final if there is a crosswind. Slipping instead of crabbing adds complications, possibly including low wing, low fuel feed. This aiming technique was the key to a successful Hong Kong IGS13 final turn to landing, BTW. Every new FO I flew with understood the concept after flying it.

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Excellent points Manny!!

[@jameslathrop2783]

Hey Scott, I enjoy your videos. Could you speak up bit more on the voice overs? I don't want to miss anything!

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

That was an earlier video, audio is much better now. thanks for watching!

[@SmozzZy]

Probably the nicest T-6 I've ever seen! How'd you get it?

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Not mine, some friends in Montana.

[@TheAirplaneDriver]

Great video! I don’t have a lot of T6 time but really enjoyed the few hours that I have. I too prefer a curved approach. Especially in high drag biplanes. However, I have not taught the curved approach technique to students because that would never be acceptable on a checkride. Since I haven’t taught that way, I’m not sure how a student would do. I’ve though about this dilemma often and, in the end, suspect that a rectangular pattern is probably easier to assimilate than a curved pattern for students and low time pilots....but, again, I’m not sure. The Airplane Flying Handbook makes no provisions for a curved approach under normal conditions. It does state that in an emergency, descend in a spiral to the “base key position” followed by a “normal power off approach” from that point....though it does kind of show a more gentle curved turn to the threshold. At least that is what I am seeing. More FAA ambiguity and confusion....just like the refusal to acknowledge upwind or crosswind pattern entry procedures.

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

TAD- I generally don't teach folks for checkrides and when I do I talk about the differences explicitly. I'd rather teach folks to actually fly the airplane... not to minimum standards.

[@emergencylowmaneuvering7350]

Many or most stalls on base to final are due the pilot stopped the needed turn "to square the pattern", overshot final due that, and started making other errors trying to correct for the overshooting and stalled it. Specially if a tailwind on base leg, better keep the circle approach. You dont have to be so square when keeping the turn is needed....

[@stankakol5195]

Scott (or other knowledgable guys): My dad got his Navy wings in November 1947. Would he have made his initial carrier landing in an SNJ?

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Most likely yes.

[@billruttan117]

A curved flight path to the Final Approach Leg, when used in conjunction with an overhead approach, helps to control at least one variable (distance of the Downwind Leg from the runway) when flying a traffic pattern.

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

I do curved patterns in everything;)

[@F84Thunderjet]

Fighter pilots like curves.

[@hey3184]

I need to know the Landing speed?

[@FlyWirescottperdue]

Why? Planning on flying one? Final turn at 100 knots works out best.

[@engineerutube1]

All Spitefires we landed using a curved. pattern so they can see the runway.

[@davidpearn5925]

A PA24-400 carrier approach at last light into Kerang. Wings never level until after the inside wheel measured the gravel. 50 years later I remember it well.