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calls for unusual procedures. One is that there are multiple touchdown zones – the normal end of the runway, and the “white,” “orange,” “pink” and “green” dots farther down (the spe- cific color depends on the runway in use). You will be directed to land on a specific dot in your landing clearance.
Be extremely proficient at “spot” landings before flying to Oshkosh. Hit your spot in a short-field tech- nique to avoid rolling into the touch- down zone of an airplane aiming for the dot ahead of yours. Use a high-an- gle, constant-descent, obstacle clear– ing technique (not “driving level” then chopping power for the last 50 feet). You may be overf lying another airplane on the ground or one ahead of you but aiming at a spot closer to the arrival threshold. Make your approach as tight (close to the airport) as safely possible. Nothing throws a wrench in the arrival works like an airplane that extends for a three-mile final. Practice short-field landings to a designated spot plus no more than 100 feet (commercial pilot
short-field standards) so you can pull one off even with a crosswind or a quartering tailwind.
Task 5: Passenger Training
It makes your flight far safer, and a lot more fun, if you take along at least one observer to help you look outside the airplane. Train your passengers to be observers. The observer’s primary mission is traffic avoidance. Teach observers what to look for, and how to communicate with you. Before you take off for Oshkosh, review some ba- sics such as:
• The “o’clock” system of identifying an airplane’s position relative to your own (“12 o’clock high”, etc.);
• What a typical general aviation air- plane looks like at a distance of one mile and half a mile. You can do this by pointing out other airplanes in an airport traffic pattern on a pre-Oshkosh flight;
• Descriptions like “high wing,” “low wing,” “biplane,” etc. Keep it very
basic – the Oshkosh controllers will. Prepare your observer for what traffic advisories he/she should ex- pect to hear;
• How to help find charts, parts of the arrival NOTAM, etc., that you may need;
• Landmarks inbound on the visual arrival path;
• How to help you, with short, pre- cise phrases like “I see the traffic, three o’clock level”, “you’re left of the arrival course”, “your landing gear is not down”, “you’re 10 knots slow” – whatever you can work out with your observer beforehand;
You might even make up a one-page “observer guide,” with pictures and phrases that apply to your flight, to take along for the arrival.
Task 6: Crosswinds and Tailwinds
Pressed to route as many arrivals as possible into Wittman Field, and with demands from flight demon- strations, air show acts, fly-bys and departures, the superb professionals that work Air Traffic procedures dur- ing the event are sometimes forced to route traffic to non-optimal runways, with light-to-moderate tailwind com- ponents. To be good enough for Osh- kosh you must:
• Assume you’ll have to go around unless things work out perfectly.
• Practice your crosswind land- ings. Get really good at them... and more importantly, know your limitations and the limitations of the airplane.
• Very cautiously try a few landings on a wide runway with a light tail- wind component crosswind. Note that left-turning tendency of most propeller airplanes means it’ll be harder to maintain control with a wind from behind your left. Get fa- miliar with whether you can land safely with any tailwind compo- nent at all, and if so, what tailwind you can safely handle.
• Develop and adhere to a personal crosswind and personal tailwind component limitation. This is an
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12 • TWIN & TURBINE
July 2018