The Murphy Builders Site

An intentional ground loop can work. But you better be good. And you have
to make that decision split second. If you are facing a fence and bad stuff
beyond you can decide to try the ground loop if you want. The speed which
you enter the ground loop will determine whether there will be damage or
not. I've got one ground loop under my belt, unintentional. I made a bunch
of bad decisions and the ground loop did a lot of damage to the plane. I
think it's 6 of one, half a dozen another. I think Ted did just great doing
what he did. Straight ahead and do the best you can. That's so much better
than the turn back to the runway at low level to try and save the plane that
kills people. Ted chose people over metal. Perfect.

Mike
044SR


-----Original Message-----
From: mike.davis@dcsol.com [mailto:mike.davis@dcsol.com] On Behalf Of
bransom@dcsol.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 9:44 PM
To: rebel-builders@dcsol.com
Subject: [rebel-builders] how to stop real quick

I've wondered about the idea of intentionally ground looping if in a
situation
such as Ted's or other where you are running out of room. I'm sure the
instinct is to jump on both pedals, but what about just one and let the dirt

fly? Any reason to keep this out of one's taildragger bag of 'oh *&^#$'
tricks?
-Ben



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I've wondered about the idea of intentionally ground looping if in a
situation
such as Ted's or other where you are running out of room. I'm sure the
instinct is to jump on both pedals, but what about just one and let the dirt

fly? Any reason to keep this out of one's taildragger bag of 'oh *&^#$'
tricks?
-Ben

I've done some pretty agressive braking with my rebel and it's never shown
a tendancy to raise it's tail on sod or ashphalt. If you were to
intentionally ground loop while there was still lots of forward energy I
think there's a good chance that you would dig in a wing tip and cartwheel
the plane. Possibly the same result or worse than what Ted's facing now.
Drew



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I took a mtn flying course maybe 5 years ago in Idaho. A guy was there
flying a new Huskey. He landed long on a very short strip and ended up on
his back. I asked myself the same question about "Why didn't he just ground
loop it?"

I've asked myself that question when replaying this accident of mine. The
answer is that I didn't have the time or presence of mind to consider that
option. So, I had the previous knowledge and chance to consider a
groundloop option but in the heat of the moment the neurons for that option
didn't fire.

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: mike.davis@dcsol.com [mailto:mike.davis@dcsol.com] On Behalf Of
bransom@dcsol.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 11:44 PM
To: rebel-builders@dcsol.com
Subject: [rebel-builders] how to stop real quick

I've wondered about the idea of intentionally ground looping if in a
situation such as Ted's or other where you are running out of room. I'm
sure the instinct is to jump on both pedals, but what about just one and let
the dirt fly? Any reason to keep this out of one's taildragger bag of 'oh
*&^#$' tricks?
-Ben



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That is consistant with my DHC-3 experience. We could pretty much land 3
point with the brakes on on grass (or loose gravel) and not nose over.
Especially when heavy. One does strange things on unknown real estate
when far from civilization. I wondered if the fence didn't make Ted's
noseover inevitable. The damage made me wonder if the fence didn't do a
lot of slowing. Which was probably a good thing since no one was hurt.
Trying to avoid a fence has hurt folks. My conclusion has always been -
sure groundloop if going slow with no brakes but go straight if the
brakes are working unless you are going to hit something very very bad.
Of course instinct will take over based on your training and experience
when you don't have time to think it through... However passengers
don't generally do well with side impacts. Even a fence post will come
through a fuselage side pretty easy.

I remember training and hammering home the point that on a forced
landing - hitting the fence at the beginning of the field will hurt -
hitting the fence at the far end at slow speed probably won't hurt much
and will help slow you...

and "If the plane has quit, it is not your friend so don't feel bad
about bending it to save your skin"

Ken

Drew Dalgleish wrote:

I've wondered about the idea of intentionally ground looping if in a
situation
such as Ted's or other where you are running out of room. I'm sure the
instinct is to jump on both pedals, but what about just one and let the dirt

fly? Any reason to keep this out of one's taildragger bag of 'oh *&^#$'
tricks?
-Ben

I've done some pretty agressive braking with my rebel and it's never shown
a tendancy to raise it's tail on sod or ashphalt. If you were to
intentionally ground loop while there was still lots of forward energy I
think there's a good chance that you would dig in a wing tip and cartwheel
the plane. Possibly the same result or worse than what Ted's facing now.
Drew

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I did a ground loop one time just as I run out of runway. It was cooble
stone gravel under foot and I don't know if I did it on purpose or not. I don't
know if I gave it a blast of power or not to bring 'er around. It was a perfect
180 and I slid backwards maybe 4 feet, no damage to my Cessna 170B.

Larry Luckinbill
117 Moose




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Thanks for the thoughts on this everyone. If one can think at that time,
it seems to boil down to braking at least till slow, unless big bad things
straight ahead. Perhaps this is the most likely natural reaction anyway.
-Ben

That is consistant with my DHC-3 experience. We could pretty much land 3
point with the brakes on on grass (or loose gravel) and not nose over.
Especially when heavy. One does strange things on unknown real estate
when far from civilization. I wondered if the fence didn't make Ted's
noseover inevitable. The damage made me wonder if the fence didn't do a
lot of slowing. Which was probably a good thing since no one was hurt.
Trying to avoid a fence has hurt folks. My conclusion has always been -
sure groundloop if going slow with no brakes but go straight if the
brakes are working unless you are going to hit something very very bad.
Of course instinct will take over based on your training and experience
when you don't have time to think it through... However passengers
don't generally do well with side impacts. Even a fence post will come
through a fuselage side pretty easy.

I remember training and hammering home the point that on a forced
landing - hitting the fence at the beginning of the field will hurt -
hitting the fence at the far end at slow speed probably won't hurt much
and will help slow you...

and "If the plane has quit, it is not your friend so don't feel bad
about bending it to save your skin"

Ken

Drew Dalgleish wrote:

I've wondered about the idea of intentionally ground looping if in a
situation
such as Ted's or other where you are running out of room. I'm sure the
instinct is to jump on both pedals, but what about just one and let the

dirt

fly? Any reason to keep this out of one's taildragger bag of 'oh *&^#$'
tricks?
-Ben

I've done some pretty agressive braking with my rebel and it's never shown
a tendancy to raise it's tail on sod or ashphalt. If you were to
intentionally ground loop while there was still lots of forward energy I
think there's a good chance that you would dig in a wing tip and cartwheel
the plane. Possibly the same result or worse than what Ted's facing now.
Drew

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Yeah, that's right. If there's something really bad straight ahead, you'll
stomp on a rudder pedal to miss it instinctively. It's kind of like
learning that you should steer into a skid in a car to correct. You don't
need to learn that. If the back end breaks loose and starts skidding to the
left it will look like you are turning right. You will instinctively do the
right thing and steer left, into the skid.

Mike
044SR

-----Original Message-----
From: mike.davis@dcsol.com [mailto:mike.davis@dcsol.com] On Behalf Of
bransom@dcsol.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 4:33 PM
To: rebel-builders@dcsol.com
Subject: Re: [rebel-builders] how to stop real quick

Thanks for the thoughts on this everyone. If one can think at that time,
it seems to boil down to braking at least till slow, unless big bad things
straight ahead. Perhaps this is the most likely natural reaction anyway.
-Ben

That is consistant with my DHC-3 experience. We could pretty much land 3
point with the brakes on on grass (or loose gravel) and not nose over.
Especially when heavy. One does strange things on unknown real estate
when far from civilization. I wondered if the fence didn't make Ted's
noseover inevitable. The damage made me wonder if the fence didn't do a
lot of slowing. Which was probably a good thing since no one was hurt.
Trying to avoid a fence has hurt folks. My conclusion has always been -
sure groundloop if going slow with no brakes but go straight if the
brakes are working unless you are going to hit something very very bad.
Of course instinct will take over based on your training and experience
when you don't have time to think it through... However passengers
don't generally do well with side impacts. Even a fence post will come
through a fuselage side pretty easy.

I remember training and hammering home the point that on a forced
landing - hitting the fence at the beginning of the field will hurt -
hitting the fence at the far end at slow speed probably won't hurt much
and will help slow you...

and "If the plane has quit, it is not your friend so don't feel bad
about bending it to save your skin"

Ken

Drew Dalgleish wrote:

I've wondered about the idea of intentionally ground looping if in a
situation
such as Ted's or other where you are running out of room. I'm sure the
instinct is to jump on both pedals, but what about just one and let the

dirt

fly? Any reason to keep this out of one's taildragger bag of 'oh *&^#$'
tricks?
-Ben

I've done some pretty agressive braking with my rebel and it's never

shown

a tendancy to raise it's tail on sod or ashphalt. If you were to
intentionally ground loop while there was still lots of forward energy I
think there's a good chance that you would dig in a wing tip and

cartwheel

the plane. Possibly the same result or worse than what Ted's facing now.
Drew

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