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What's the best course of action in the event of a ground loop?

moespeeds

Well Known Member
Friend
I see tons of info out there on how to avoid a ground loop, and of course avoiding it altogether is always best. But in the event you do go for a ride, what's the best thing to do?

Let the controls go? Both brakes? Inside or Outside brake?
 
I got my tailwheel endorsement in a Stinson with no right side brakes; while my instructor was showing me s-turns on the ground he lost it and yelled "DON'T TOUCH THE BRAKES". we spun around maybe 270 degrees but were slow enough we were never in danger of tipping.

All that to say, at least per my instructor "DON'T TOUCH THE BRAKES!!!"

ETA: this is after the ground loop is imminent, I agree with others that you should use opposite brake to prevent a ground loop while still making forward progress. once the tail is coming around, I feel adding brakes will increases the chance of tipping and scraping a wing or worse.
 
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Try to stop the ground loop and fight it all the way! If it’s going left, I would use full right rudder, right brake, left aileron, and full power. The power may provide the necessary airflow over the tail to prevent it. Plus if you can get it airborne, you are no longer a tailwheel aircraft and can just fly it away. It’s my understanding that when a -8 gets groundlooped, often times the fuselage gets tweaked because the gear towers are kinda weak..
 
I ground looped the 8 pretty early on. Unfortunately it was at a towered class D airport and I took out a marker light on my way off the pavement. As such, it was reported and I had a little conversation with the FAA. Dude was good about it and asked if I learned anything from it. I wanted to say "yeah, don't do it at a towered airport", but rather talked about what happened. He was convinced, and as the only damage was the light, (which apparently get run down frequently) my right wheel pant and my ego, he said he marked our conversation as "additional training has been given" and that was that.

The problem was that a gust caught me just as I slowed enough where I ran out of rudder authority and I went into the grass and stopped 180 degrees into it. Fortunately missing the big runway number sign by a couple of feet.

On debrief in my own head, I thought I might have saved it by applying the right brake when I ran out of rudder (looped to the left). I'd not needed to try out the theory in the next 800 hours until this past weekend. Exact same scenario (different airport) only this time, with quite a bit more experience, when I was running out of rudder and beginning to lose it, muscle memory automatically pushed on the brake. Straightened it right out. Gotta be careful when the wind is 16 gusting to 28 at 50 degrees out of alignment with the runway..... Maybe just should have left it in the hangar.
 
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Lie about it....

liked that one.........but....

I like to say that there are only two kind of pilots around.
The ones who already did a ground loop, and the ones who will do one sooner or later. There is no third kind....

besides that, if you are beyond the recovery point and going for a ride, i would pull mixture cut off, get on the brakes (not full but firm) and pull the stick.
i would try to safe the engine from a prop strike, decrease energy and hope for a god outcome.
 
I talk myself down all the time.
Left crosswind.
"Left Aileron, Right Rudder, Left Aileron, Right Rudder." Repeat.
Reverse opposite direction.
Oh, and do the Rudder Dance until you come to a stop.
Oh, and Go Around, try again if its sketchy.
 
Stick back,
Power idle or off,
Get off the brakes.

A full groundloop is one thing. Those three things might help to keep you from going up on the nose or over - although probably it's already too late for aft stick to do any good.

If you're going fast enough that the elevator is effective, then certainly full aft stick. And you might try a bit of rudder and brake to correct, possibly power. But once the event is out of your control or the tail starts to come up, go to aft stick, no power, no brakes.

Dave
 
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liked that one.........but....

I like to say that there are only two kind of pilots around.
The ones who already did a ground loop, and the ones who will do one sooner or later. There is no third kind....

I dislike this type of quote.. just like the two types of people who gear up landing.. I call BS. I would say there are two types of pilots, proficient professional pilots and all the other ones..
 

I’m not trying to insult Peter or anyone else, it’s just that by saying “there are those who have groundlooped, and those that will” is assuming that everyone who flys tailwheel will or have groundlooped, and that is simply not true. It’s insulting to all tailwheel pilots that someone would say this. Perhaps it’s a way to keep themself humble, or it’s an excuse to make themself feel justified for having ground-looped their plane, but that old saying is simply not true.
 
I would say there are two types of pilots, proficient professional pilots and all the other ones..

Pilots at the highest levels of proficiency and professionalism would never make a statement such as this - they have too much experience. It's simply informative on where you fit in.
 
Put it on straight and it will keep going that way!

Nope. Not so. In the case I referred to earlier in the thread, I put it on straight”. And all was well right up to that mighty gust, then it wasn’t. Life comes at you fast bro.
 
I do notice that when doing wheel landings, many pilots hold the tail up longer than necessary, leaving them susceptible to ill-timed gusts during that zone where most of the rudder authority is gone. In RVs there is a decent sized range of speed where the rudder still has good authority, but at which you're unlikely to get ballooned back in the air by a gust from a 3-point attitude. This is the zone in which you should get the tail down.

When doing wheel landings in strong x-wind/gusty conditions, I always erred on the side of lowering the tail with too much airspeed rather than too little. Even so, it was quite rare to actually get ballooned back in the air by any significant amount once in the 3-point attitude.

With their power to weight ratio, high lift wings and effective flaps, RVs excel at performing go arounds at ANY point during the landing process. I'd much rather do a simple go around if I got ballooned way back in the air than lose directional control and have to perform some heroics to gather it back up before ending up in the ditch with a bent airplane.
 
Grroundloops

Different airplanes require different techniques. The Stearman is a special case. Narrow gear, very high center of gravity, three point attitude is a very high pitch angle. VERY weak ailerons with the stock wings. Only viable option in much crosswind is wheel landing and keeping the tail up as long as possible. Any other technique and you will sooner rather than later watch the upwind wing lift with full aileron into the wind, the airplane then goes up on one wheel and its all over. With the good brakes, which not all Stearmans have, the airplane can be stopped with the tail in the air.
 
Ground Loops

Reading Kathryn's report I see several accidents a month with Cherokee's, 172's and such are ground looped, often with extensive damage to airplane and various item's on ground such as taxiway signs etc.
years ago my examiner friend told me about the first takeoff in a Cherokee on Private flight exam. Just after liftoff the "pilot" took his feet off the rudder pedals. Examiner: what are you doing with your feet. Pilot: I used to have problems with overcontrolling the rudder, I don't have that problem any more.
 
Different airplanes require different techniques. The Stearman is a special case. Narrow gear, very high center of gravity, three point attitude is a very high pitch angle. VERY weak ailerons with the stock wings. Only viable option in much crosswind is wheel landing and keeping the tail up as long as possible. Any other technique and you will sooner rather than later watch the upwind wing lift with full aileron into the wind, the airplane then goes up on one wheel and its all over. With the good brakes, which not all Stearmans have, the airplane can be stopped with the tail in the air.

Good info. RVs have decent ailerons and I've never had a wing come up while holding aileron in a x-wind. Pitts' have the opposite problem...you have to be careful not to use too MUCH aileron in x-winds. :)
 
On my RV-4, and to a lesser degree on the RV-8, there was an interesting phenomenon. With full flaps on the rollout, the full weight of the airplane was not on the wheels in three point until you were really slow. Options were to keep the tail up or to dump the flaps -- easy on the -4 with manual flaps, harder on my -8 because you had to hold the flap switch up.

On one landing on the -4, in three point attitude with all wheels on the ground, I got hit by a gust from the side and although there was no loss of directional control, the plane was pushed sideways on the runway about 10 feet.

And taking off on a dead calm morning in the AirCam, I got hit by a gust that required full rudder and aileron to keep the plane under control.

It's also interesting to me that nobody seems to talk about fixed tailwheel links -- if they have enough authority for low speed taxiing, they have too much authority at higher speeds on the landing roll. If I remember my classical control theory, a deadband (like steering chains), linearizes to a lower gain. In other words, you can put in a bunch of rudder before you get any tailwheel deflection.
 
Crosswind

The accident report for Charlie Hilliard's fatal accident at Lakeland in 1996 stated improper use of ailerons as contributing factor. It also appeared that he got on the brakes a bit too hard.
The Tehachapi RV8 fatal, go around after departure from edge of runway indicated the dangers of go arounds after loss of directional control.
 
A Voice of Experience

I had my groundloop in a Champ, landing downwind. Once you get past that point of no return, it doesn’t seem to matter much what you do. I think staying off the brakes is a good idea. Braking or locking a wheel will just make things worse. Just lift your feet and wait for it to be over. It won’t be long. Go ahead and put in opposite rudder if it makes you feel like you have some control. It won’t hurt but neither will it help. I tried to claim my groundloop doesn’t count since the airport where it happened does not exist any more. My CFI wife asked if I logged it. I did. She says it would still count either way. Oh well, I’ve had mine, but I’ve known pilots who flew lots of taildraggers over many years and retired without groundlooping. Saying something like “them that have and them that’s gonna” kind of insults those pilots. I used to say that, but not any more.
 
Never liked "Every one has or will" sayings...

I like to say that there are only two kind of pilots around.
The ones who already did a ground loop, and the ones who will do one sooner or later. There is no third kind....

I've been flying for over 54 years, mostly taildraggers and at least my share of retractables. The list includes quite a number of hours in my Globe Swift (retractable taildragger). No ground loops or "wheels-up landings" yet. Does that mean I should quit while I'm ahead?

And while we're covering the "everybody does it" thing, out of 9 airplane builds, I've never punched a figure 8 hole with a dimpler.

And I'm sure I'm not the only one!
 
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May be aircraft specific but when I was getting checked out in my new to me Pacer, and rusty on tailwheel aircraft, my instructor grabbed a bunch of throttle on a couple of occasions where I was on the verge of departing from the straight and narrow. Got more air going over the small rudder and gave a bit more time to correct the aircraft. In the RV with the bigger rudder it may help and set up for a go around if that is an option.
As I am not great at wheel landings I tend to focus on tail low orientation and getting the tail wheel down for a bit more ground control.

I do remember that pretty much every Pacer pilot I flew with had ground looped at least once which kept me pretty focused on landing straight,
Figs
 
Ground loops are ground loops and there are a lot of wise comments here. I've done my best to avoid them.

On the other hand, no decently superstitious pilot would ever make a statement like "I've never once had a (fill in the blank incident here)". That would just be poking the bear.

"What could possibly go wrong" is another one, or "Gee, been a smooth ride all day"

Be safe out there ...
 
I got my tailwheel endorsement in a Stinson with no right side brakes; while my instructor was showing me s-turns on the ground he lost it and yelled "DON'T TOUCH THE BRAKES". we spun around maybe 270 degrees but were slow enough we were never in danger of tipping.

All that to say, at least per my instructor "DON'T TOUCH THE BRAKES!!!"

ETA: this is after the ground loop is imminent, I agree with others that you should use opposite brake to prevent a ground loop while still making forward progress. once the tail is coming around, I feel adding brakes will increases the chance of tipping and scraping a wing or worse.

Sounds like your assessment is probably correct, but I suspect that the reason your instructor was so emphatic about it is because one of the few things a student can do that has no remedial action on the part of an instructor is to get too heavy on the brakes on a taildragger. In most cases if the student decides to stand it on it's nose, there's really no way for the instructor to save it.
 
To paraphrase Hoover: fly the airplane as far into the groundloop as far as possible. Don't give up! Use power if you need it. You know how to taxi and how to fly. Put the controls where they need to be. Make the plane go where you want it to. It may not always work, but doing nothing definately isn't going to work.

I'm not saying it will happen to everyone, but if you don't think it can happen to you....well, good luck with that.
 
...
I'm not saying it will happen to everyone, but if you don't think it can happen to you....well, good luck with that.

I agree. I saw a ground loop at SNF one year - a guy in a T6 was just rolling out and had the tail down. There was a light headwind and then all of a sudden there was a shift to a quartering tailwind. It was very strong and blew over tents, lawn chairs, anything that was not nailed down. Came out of nowhere. The guy had no chance at all - his aircraft was going where the wind wanted him to go.

I've often thought of this accident when I start getting cocky - I doubt anyone could have avoided putting that T6 on it's nose in the grass at that moment.
 
Like this...
 

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Groundlooping

The one time I was (very) seriously in danger of groundlooping, in a Glasair Sportsman, I did all of the below but getting airborne again is what saved me. It turns out that you can get a Sportsman airborne while trying to go sideways, thank goodness!

Getting airborne again is a vastly underrated response to runway adventures, in my view. :)

I should add that the Sportsman is a very well-mannered taildragger, but it was just BARELY able to accommodate my very low skill level that day.

Interestingly my subsequent landing, which I can assure you received my FULL attention, was perfectly fine.


Try to stop the ground loop and fight it all the way! If it’s going left, I would use full right rudder, right brake, left aileron, and full power. The power may provide the necessary airflow over the tail to prevent it. Plus if you can get it airborne, you are no longer a tailwheel aircraft and can just fly it away.
 
isn't applying brakes a good thing in the event? you probably wouldn't be able to stop the aircraft from looping around, but it would reduce the kinetic energy in the system ==> less tendency to damage stuff. as long you don't nose over...?

or does braking increase the likelihood of a nose over when aircraft is basically out of control?
 
It's difficult to apply the same correction to every situation. My understanding is with the center of gravity behind the mains (where the braking power will be applied) and tail authority already lost with momentum swinging the tail forward, applying brakes will only assist the momentum of the weight and tail swinging forward.
 
It's difficult to apply the same correction to every situation. My understanding is with the center of gravity behind the mains (where the braking power will be applied) and tail authority already lost with momentum swinging the tail forward, applying brakes will only assist the momentum of the weight and tail swinging forward.

that sounds valid. if it hits me one day i will just close my eyes and pray... "please lord, no prop strike"
 
liked that one.........but....

I like to say that there are only two kind of pilots around.
The ones who already did a ground loop, and the ones who will do one sooner or later. There is no third kind....

besides that, if you are beyond the recovery point and going for a ride, i would pull mixture cut off, get on the brakes (not full but firm) and pull the stick.
i would try to safe the engine from a prop strike, decrease energy and hope for a god outcome.

I disagree with the old adage about two kinds of pilots. To me it’s a cop out. There is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be able to fly tailwheels for your entire life without ever even getting close to ground looping much less actually doing it. I’ve had 55 years flying tailwheels and instructing in them without even coming close to ground looping and I have several friends who are in the same position. Set your standards higher.
 
I disagree with the old adage about two kinds of pilots. To me it’s a cop out. There is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be able to fly tailwheels for your entire life without ever even getting close to ground looping much less actually doing it. I’ve had 55 years flying tailwheels and instructing in them without even coming close to ground looping and I have several friends who are in the same position. Set your standards higher.

Yes! Well said! My thought exactly! I just didn’t have the 55 years of flying under my belt to say it.. I have less than half of that, but thank you for backing my thoughts up!
 
Ground Loop

I find many of the comments counter to long established standard procedures. Absolutely use the brakes as necessary. Brake application as the rudder is losing effectiveness should be before any significant deviation from runway centerline.
For airplanes with marginal brakes you should not be flying in conditions where a ground loop is likely.
 
My thinking is the best way to avoid a ground loop is to not be on the ground. As my TW instructor told me, if you are headed off the side of the runway, all you need is one inch of air under the tires to be flying.

That said, if you don't have the space to fly, then going for a ride may be the only option. I have never been that close to a ground loop, but my plan is power out if I have the space.

Tim
 
At low speeds during the landing roll we have almost no rudder authority and with tailwind there is a speed with Zero airstream and so Zero aerodynamic authority whatsoever. I believe applying brakes during the landing roll in gusty conditions stabilize things and get you through the critical part of landing roll quickly - of course there is the risk of one brake failure with associated problems.
Personally in gusty winds I prefer 3point landings although it is said 2 pointers are the way to go. The RV-8 is still quite responsive in 3point attitude. No ground loop til now....
 
Ground loops

I started flying with a flying club that had four 65 hp taildraggers. 60 members, maybe half of them active. A lot of flying. I don't remember a single ground loop[ accident there or anywhere in the area. VERY few paved runways but many of the grass runways were quite narrow and in some cases there were multiple objects to hit.
At age 17 I would go to the airport on a nice day except the wind was blowing too hard. Sometimes I would stay all afternoon waiting for the wind to decrease. Many times I would give up and not fly.
I don't remember any specific crosswind training. It was just something I eventually learned on my own. I just knew to respect the wind and many times stay on the ground.
I think the pilots of that era had many shortcomings but crosswind landings were not one of them.
The only time I was concerned about a go around after landing was on icy runways, especially with high snowbanks. Many memorable events on narrow, icy runways with the snowbanks just slightly clear of the wingtips.
Everything from the Cub to the Beech 18.
My first job in aviation the instructors were teaching or at least allowing students to land the Cherokee's either three point or nosewheel first. That was where I did my first sheet metal work.
 
Tail in air

Anyone remember Sean Tucker or Kyle Franklin making 90 degree turns taxiing with the tail in the air??
 
Oshkosh

Oshkosh lands 27 and 36 simultaneously, often with nasty 90 degree crosswinds on 36. I have a spot on the east side of the airport where I go to watch landings and grade the performance. Some of the best are the Ford Trimotors but they get lots of practice. It seems like airplanes such as the T6 and P51 which should be quite challenging, do the best, Mooneys, RV A models etc, sometimes not so good.
There is a lady in the midwest who has a Stearman and a tailwheel Beech 18. She can land either in a pretty significant crosswind so perfectly its embarrassing. Always on the wheels with the Beech.
I had an opportunity to talk to Delmar Benjamin at Oshkosh when he was flying the Gee Bee. I asked him how much crosswind he had landed the Gee Bee in. He gave some absurd number. I asked him where and when. His answer was yesterday on runway 36. I asked why didn't you land on 27. He responded because I was behind the Luscombe Phantom and if he could do it I could. Years later I got to see him land the Gee Bee in a 90 degree crosswind, variable plus and minus 30 degrees. Probably gusting to 40. He squeeked it on and the rollout was perfect. Recent information has indicated the Gee Bee approached at 120 and touched down at 100. Rudder goes away early.
 
Interesting all of comments regarding when (or when not) to use the brakes.

Seems to me that you need to do whatever works to either keep the mass behind you, or slow the mass enough to where it's not a threat.

In regards to weird winds, it's not always possible to control the airplane on the ground, but far more often then not when a weird wind causes a ground loop, it's because the pilot stopped flying the airplane before it was strapped down.

Just like anything else in aviation, the more your practice, the more you learn, the safer you are..
 
What kinda airplanes?? Pitts??

Stearman or Waco. LARGE biplanes.

I'm intrigued by people who say to try adding rudder to correct. Every time i've been near a groundloop, my opposite foot is already on the firewall adding all the rudder I have to correct it, and then as much brake as I think I can get away with on top of that.

I've only lost it once, and that was on a slightly wet, very long, and very wide runway, when a moment of inattention got me started on an audition for the next Tokyo Drift movie as I headed towards my taxiway. I needed to make about a 110 degree turn to exit the runway, and ended up completing about last 60 degrees of that sliding sideways while I rotated, hoping the pavement stayed smooth enough that nothing grabbed. All three wheels stayed on the ground and I came to a stop pointing right up the taxiway, released the brakes, and exited the runway. Nobody on tower or ground mentioned it, so I didn't either.
 
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