- Sat Sep 04, 2010 7:41 pm
#204141
I'm curious, could this be matter of definition?
Some of the vids here show spotlandings where you approach UP the slope but land ON TOP of the slope or AT THE EDGE of it. I do many of these here at quite a few sites, both small and large, steeper and less steep, downwind to crosswind to headwind. At the very end you yaw round as you flare. IMO, these ones aren't exactly fly on the wall because you're not ending up on a slope. If you misjudge, there's no wall of earth to slam into (unless you approach too low). They take a while to perfect, and steps range from starting with a crossheadwind progressing to cross and crosstail, but that's OK and even I can do them well!
Some other observations: some of the vids are not fully downwind; the first one, the wind's crossing significantly from the left, and this makes a big difference to groundspeed and consequences if you get it wrong.
I agree with INIT4Fun that slopes (not super steep for me, though) are unbeatable to land on in switchy L&V conditions and seek them out in preference to flat paddocks. I've tried downwind on steep slopes and gotten away with it, but not elegantly. I have lots of airtime but also believe I'm one of those you refer to whose skills aren't up to it, or perhaps aren't up to it yet, and that's fine. Maybe in a few years time they will be.
My issue about online instruction about learning to do full-on downwind fly-on-the wall on STEEP faces is that I've seen newish pilots - ie the ones who would need instructions to know how to do these - often do exactly the wrong thing when faced by a wall of earth. Instead of pulling on speed, they get scared, slow down and mush in, a real problem if it's downwind with high groundspeeds. Also, these pilots often tend to confuse groundspeed with airspeed - mush again. Also, there's the combination of tailwind strength to steepness of hill which needs to be accounted for. The amount of extra speed you need to pull in, the roundout and flare simultaneous and it has to be a strong assertive flare. There's a LOT going on in a SHORT space of time.
I know one pilot who does tailwind uphill on steep faces in 12 kts and he often flares from the backwires to get the nose up high enough. This makes sense if you think about the angle of the airflow to the horizon - the airflow is angled up along the slope so your flare has to be angled much higher than usual from horizontal.
As Ryan says, these landings are something you build up to. I remember another thread where someone was asking how to do a loop and the general response was, if you need to ask then you're not ready.
Cheers from Down Under
Helen
Falcon1 170, Fun 190, Malibu 188, Malibu 166, Shark 144, Litesport3, Adv, GT, SSO