Long Live The Heron
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Australia
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Flew Herons with Connair in 1979 based in Darwin
:
1.At the round-out kick straight with rudder and plant it on the ground.
2. If the kick straight is made too late and the aircraft lands with drift use bursts of power on outboard engines combined with rudder to make the aircraft align with runway.
3. If kick straight is made too early while aircraft is floating and aircraft starts to drift off the centreline, fly back towards centreline then try kicking straight again while holding off closer to the ground. Use differential engine power to help keeping straight. Once on the ground use power from either outboard engine to aid directional control on the ground. Avoid using differential braking.
I don't recall any advice to go around.
The Heron has a fully castoring nosegear which will go through 360 degrees if you are determined enough. Directional control on the ground is by differential braking. The rudders are moved in the desired direction and a lever on the control column depressed to apply brake on the selected side. For equal braking on both wheels the rudder pedals are centred and the lever depressed. Differential power is, of course, useful at taxi speeds to assist with sharp turns.
Because it is a pneumatic braking system there is always a slight lag while the air finds its way to the brake bags on the wheels, so the advice to avoid differential braking in a crosswind makes sense. But rather than apply power when trying to stop there is a much easier way to control it in a crosswind. Use rudder as aggressively as needed, then reach under the Captain's seat and gently pull the lever that selects air from the alternative air bottle. This applies equal braking on both wheels regardless of rudder position. Simple, effective and I never got a good reason why they did not include this method in the AFM.
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Yes Fris, Don needed that Heron due to it's long range capability. Sunflower was providing a long haul scheduled service, maybe Wallis and Futuna, I forget the destination now but only the Heron in that class of aircraft, had the "legs" to get there and back.
Sadly Don and Robyn are no longer with us. I miss the good times we had across the Pacific.
Sadly Don and Robyn are no longer with us. I miss the good times we had across the Pacific.
Some rather 'quaint' British advice there, probably written by a boffin who never flew it in serious crosswinds onto short runways. I have yet to fly ANY aeroplane that required adding power to control the landing rollout if the proper landing technique was made - and that includes big taildraggers like the DC3.
On the contrary, the crosswind landing advice was published in the Connellan Airways Operations Manual a copy of which was held in the former DCA Head Office at 188 Queen St. There were other strange words of advice in the same manual one of which included how to draw a mud-map in flight. The crosswind landing advice of kicking rudders, bursts of outboard engine and various other gems of information could only have been written by the same author maybe Ed Connellan himself as much of it was bizarre and personal opinion rather than from the manufacturer. Maybe the CAHS museum at Essendon fields have a copy of that Ops manual. I'll have a look.
On rare occasions I was forced to apply full rudder augmented by a burst of outboard engine power in the Lincoln to straighten up a swing caused by a 200 hour newly qualified RAAF pilot whose first multi-engine aircraft was the Lincoln a 30,000 kg four engine tail-dragger. Crosswind landings, particularly at night, where the long nose of the Lincoln blocked the pilots view of the runway lights could be interesting. Useless in a Dakota though due lack of moment arm with two engines.
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Melbourne
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Fiji Air. A good weekend's work was Suva-Nadi-Funafuti-Tarawa, overnight, and back the same way next day. 2 pilot but no autopilot and no SELCAL. Every night that it rained, the leaky nose cover and electronic PCB's had to be removed and dried with a hair drier. Most important PCB's were the Litton brand LORAN, ADF and DME. Funafuti used to switch their AM broadcast transmitter on for arrivals. It was a relief to get a DME lockon.
Our AFTN was still being sent from Funafuti to Nadi by morse code.
Ahh the things we did when young!
Our AFTN was still being sent from Funafuti to Nadi by morse code.
Ahh the things we did when young!
Join Date: Jul 2019
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Can remember Ken Windsor dropping in more than once, with the Heron and engineer after a 748 went U/S at a remote Fiji Airways outpost.
Ran into him in MAJ after he retired. Went back to his old trade as a ship's sparky - great bloke!
Ran into him in MAJ after he retired. Went back to his old trade as a ship's sparky - great bloke!
Ken was a maestro on the Morse key. Also quite adept at Astro, showed me how it all worked. I enjoyed occasionally flying with him and his company on layovers in various outposts of the old Empire. Happy days they were....
I was learning to fly at Tyabb in the late 90's, and I've a memory of a couple of Heron fuselages dumped outside a barn to the south of the flying club buildings.Or was I mistaken?
Been many years since I’ve ventured out that way but was t there a Dove around there?
