Control Inputs After Landing

[AeroSpark]

Hello
I've noticed when watching a few flight deck videos that after the aircraft has touched down the PF still seems to move the control column around a fair bit. I understand about rudder steering above a certain speed but I would have thought the elvators/ailerons would be pretty much useless on the ground, except for maybe pinning the nosewheel to the deck. Can anyone help?
Cheers

[4got2flare]

I gess those pilots were landing with some, or strong crosswind. After you touch down on these conditions the basic crosswind landing technics are very usefull on helping you to keep the alignment with the runway, when you still have enough speed, of course.


Regards

[5150]

We regularly use lots of control inputs even after touching the wheels down.

When they built our airport they got it 90 degrees wrong...there's always a crosswind, so your technique at landing becomes pretty good.

What you need to remember is that windy/gusty conditions still want to 'weathercock' your aircraft into wind and lift your wing.

All aircraft have a Vmcg - minimum speed for controlling the aircraft (using the flying controls) whilst on the ground. Above this speed, it makes maintaining directional control a lot easier by sticking a load of aileron into wind. This can be a bit disconcerting to the eye as we can be in the flare with full aileron as the speed bleeds off.....perfectly normal method to keeping the wings level (with some opposite rudder thrown in) just prior to touchdown.

A bit of a cr@p explanation, but hope it helps....!

[Tinstaafl]

The wings & control surfaces don't suddenly stop working the instant the wheels touch down. There is a significant period during the landing roll when using the controls can provide useful forces to aid controlling the aircraft. The size of these forces reduces as speed reduces until eventually they're insignificant.

Generally the slower the aircraft can fly the slower the speed where control inputs are useful.

NOTE: By 'speed' I refer to what the wing/airframe is experiencing from the airflow over it -including any wind that is present - not the speed over the ground.

[darrenmorris]

Also handy for getting bogged down prop airplanes out of their parking swamp. Give it some throttle and pull-back...

[AeroSpark]

All very informative replies. Thanks very much!