Sometimes this biplane flying is hard. We came back from the flyin Saturday afternoon and the winds had picked up quite a bit. The windsock was standing straight out perpendicular to the runway and bouncing.

Now, Sonoma Skypark can be an intimidating airport. The runway is asphalt 40 feet wide. Plenty long at about 2,400 feet. But the trees at the approach end of 26, which is the preferred runway, are about 100 feet tall. The first few times you look at it it’s intimidating. Well, ok, it always looks that way…

Coming over the trees, inside of the big house on the hill that marks the downwind to base turning point, there was a lot of moderately bumpy burble. You need to be fairly close
to the trees, or at least it seems like it, to not be too high on short final. A bit of a slip helps.

I bounced it! Power up and go around. Second try it looks, or rather feels like, I am getting pushed near the runway edge. Go around.

Third time is the charm right? No. I’m pushed off the line over the trees, correcting it’s not where I want to be over the threshold. I’m too fast. This is getting frustrating. Try to force it. That’s not a good idea. Go around.

Fourth try my friend in the front hole suggests a longer final. I try that. Good forward slip with good vis it “feels” better as we get kicked around over the trees. Stick all the way over I tell myself “just hold it off”. A touch of power and the mains squeak on. Now I’m pedaling for all I’m worth. Keep pushing the stick up and finally the tail just won’t stay up. A little bang and stick in my gut and tail wheel is pinned. Not much energy is left but it’s not over. A big gust tries to push me off but a tap on the brakes and we are stopped. Half way down the runway down and stopped thank goodness in about 1500 feet!

We taxi to the fuel pumps, shut down and I just sit there for a minute. Feeling tired. But also good. I ruined the day of the guy I saw shooting photos from
his truck. He’s thinking “darn it, the Waco didnt crash!”. I see him drive off, unstrap and climb out glad to be back on the ground.

A few minutes later I’m standing on a ladder squeezing gas in the tank and I notice the wind sock. It’s flying at half mast (8 knots) pointing straight down the runway. Some days timing is everything…

Tony - I puckered up reading your account and can relate having been in similar conditions. My question is, did you have a plan B? Call me a chicken but I have a mental policy to have a Plan B and execute it after 2 or depending on the conditions, 3 tries.

Speaking of landings. I loved flying my first Stearman. Standard wheels, could grease it on in the 3-point without any trouble whatsoever - even in some pretty gusty spring-in-Texas crosswinds. Then I traded it for the one I have now.

This one has the T-6 wheels and tires (a popular cropduster mod which is probably where it got them) and a stance that was a few inches higher in the front. Despite a number of cross country trips and hundreds of hours without incident, I still cannot get into a cadence with landing the thing. The angle, sight picture, ability to anticipate, flare timely etc. All feel dorky and improvised. Oh, I can make okay landings in it and if you rode with me you might not even notice, but I have to pay attention on each one like it is my first day checking out. All that said: I do believe this airplane taught me how to fly tailwheel. I was forced to learn how to turn chicken droppings into chicken salad.

Making a virtue of necessity, if you will.

A photo so you see the bigger wheels.

Alex,

Thanks for the question. It's made me think about it.

I never thought the safe outcome of the flight was in doubt at the time. I can see in retrospect that it might have been. Each attempt was challenging and my technique each try was not as good as it should have been and importantly what I'm capable of.

Napa (KAPC) has a wide and long north south runway with open approaches and I could have gone there. I probably should have.

So, hopefully my original post can serve as a description of both the challenges we can get ourselves into, how weather or winds can rapidly change and create unexpected risk, the debate we can get into in the moment between task fixation, skill and conditions. And, importantly, as you point out, having a plan B with a predetermined trigger, can be a good way of helping us make a safe(r) decision in a moment of stress.

Thank you.

As a side note to your story, I have been in a handful of situations where I have been uneasy with the winds on the Waco (gusty and crossed). When my son was looking at colleges, we decided it would be fun to visit schools on the Waco and made a trip around some of the Texas schools (A&M, UT-Austin, Rice, SMU, TCU, Baylor). Of course the weather didn't cooperate. On our visit to A&M the main runway was closed and the wind was gusty and blowing 90 degrees from the runway in use - before I attempted the landing, I told myself - "one try - if it does not look good, we'll just fly to Bryan". Things turned out very well, but I was prepared to divert before I tried.

On the Citation, I try to adhere to the same rigor on instrument approaches - 2 misses, and I'm diverting - or even 1 miss depending on the circumstances. We are not perfect and some days we perform better than others, but at least forcing ourselves to some structure to reject risk helps us fly another day.

As the saying goes, exceptional pilots use their exceptional judgement to stay out of situations that will require the use of their exceptional skills.

I think it was Tom G who told the story of a scary crosswind when he was a student in a tailwheel trainer (Champ, maybe?) When he asked the instructor what they were going to do, the instructor replied (as I recall), "You're going to fly your best crosswind technique and land. If it isn't working, we'll go around and I'll use my best crosswind technique and land. If that doesn't work, we'll go somewhere else."

As I've gotten better at crosswinds in the 185, I've become much more conservative and rigid about what I'm willing to try. I imagine a Waco makes a 185 look easy.

One of the things my Dad (7000+ hour tailwheel pilot in every kind of airplane) taught me was that if the crosswind is such that you can't land, most light taildraggers will land slow enough such that you can land on a taxiway or even the ramp into that wind. Not saying it's legal, or that you shouldn't go somewhere else if you can, just saying it works. I never had to do it but Dad did.

When Budd Davisson checked me out for my PItts S2A, he said: "There's no landing that you absolutely HAVE to make: the only landing you absolutely HAVE to make is if you are out of fuel or on fire... If you don't like what is happening on landing, push the throttle, add another .1 to the Hobbs, and try again for a more controlled landing".
Tony's post on 4/29 stuck with me after I read it. I came back to my home field a few days later, after an invigorating acro practice. The winds were 90 degrees to the runway, with the windsock making it obvious to all observers that it did not suffer from erectile dysfunction or glossophobia... I gave it a go, but on short final, it just didn't feel right. I powered up and went to the airport next door, with wide runways and better wind orientation.
Taxied up to the tiedowns, chocked it, and took the cushion out of the front hole. Napped under the wing until dusk. When I woke up, the winds were calm, and I flew home. No drama.
Thank you, Budd, and thank you, Tony.

TN

Perfectly legal.

"I'm declaring an emergency and landing on the ramp."

Back in the nineties when I was timebuilding for my instrument rating, I got caught out at FDK when a dry front had come through. Equally cross on both runways.

I somehow wrestled the Aeronca Champ to the ground, but could barely taxi in. DIdn't have the experience then to have done the right thing, which was declare an emergency and land across the runway. The rollout would have been less than the width of either runway.