My first Ski landing

Hi!

Yesterday (Morning) was a wonderfully clear day in Northern Italy, so
we packed a lunch bag, mounted the skis on a 135 HP Super Cub and up we
went! Out to see the snow covered Alps!

We went up to about 7000 ft, and it started to be REALLY cold, so we
headed for the Asiago Airport, that is roughly half a mile from town,
to land and have a cup of hot chocolate.
Well, the other guy asked me if I wanted to land the thing.

One *VERY* good thing for all to remember: Airplanes on skis have NO
brakes!!!

The right sky started looking good enough after only 20 minutes of
hammer... :-)))

Simple, I landed correctly on all three skis with a good flare, applied
brakes and she just kept going.
I started alternating left and right rudder to slow her down, but hit a
pile of snow with the right main, that stopped the plane (Already very
slow) but bent the tip of the ski.

No big deal, but next time I'll flare slower...

Great day, though, too bad tonight I have to restore the sky. I'll make
it look as good as new!
And I'll polish the other, too.

Piero

<giorgi.piero@> wrote in message
news:1134406037.908066.325040@o13g2000cwo. o...
> Hi!
>
> Yesterday (Morning) was a wonderfully clear day in Northern Italy, so
> we packed a lunch bag, mounted the skis on a 135 HP Super Cub and up we
> went! Out to see the snow covered Alps!
>
> We went up to about 7000 ft, and it started to be REALLY cold, so we
> headed for the Asiago Airport, that is roughly half a mile from town,
> to land and have a cup of hot chocolate.
> Well, the other guy asked me if I wanted to land the thing.
>
> One *VERY* good thing for all to remember: Airplanes on skis have NO
> brakes!!!
>
> The right sky started looking good enough after only 20 minutes of
> hammer... :-)))
>
> Simple, I landed correctly on all three skis with a good flare, applied
> brakes and she just kept going.
> I started alternating left and right rudder to slow her down, but hit a
> pile of snow with the right main, that stopped the plane (Already very
> slow) but bent the tip of the ski.
>
> No big deal, but next time I'll flare slower...
>
> Great day, though, too bad tonight I have to restore the sky. I'll make
> it look as good as new!
> And I'll polish the other, too.
>
> Piero


Next time you could try a carving turn :)

I realize now that bending the *SKY* is a bit more that I can handle, I
think I just bent the right *SKI*... :-)))

Anyway, how in the world can you stop the landing rollout, besides
planting the plane on a snowpile? An anchor, maybe? :-)))

Piero

>Great day, though, too bad tonight I have to restore the ski.
>I'll make it look as good as new!

Turned out that it wasn't exactly as easy as planned.

Took me five hours to straighten it perfectly, redo one of the
strenghtening rods, fit the rod on the ski and polish both of them...
They look good, though, just like new. As planned.

....Took also six Band-Aids... Aw...

Next time instead of lunch I'll bring an anchor, and THEN we can talk
about stopping the rollout!

Piero

> 1200m and you couldn't get stopped? ;_)

Well... I suppose that with a little of patience and just by going
straight I could have solved the whole deal.

But, with the limited frontal visibility of a taildragger I just gave a
bit too much right rudder.
Basically, I was Zig-Zagging and I "Zigged" ok, but "Zagged" a little
more than I should have.
Everything is fine, now... I even removed four out of six Band-Aids.

Piero