Landings

[RTC'83]

Having a tuff time with landing. I have worked on them my last 3 flight lessons. I am not improving, I understand the pattern and speeds, stability and approach to touchdown, but when it come to performing I need a lot of help from the instructor.

What are some realistic expectations? I do not want to get discouraged. My instructor tells me it will come, but I do not know if they are just being nice.

BTW I think that seeing the ground, and nose down, I just want to instinctively pull up.

Look forward to your input.

[Warmi]

Having a tuff time with landing. I have worked on them my last 3 flight lessons. I am not improving, I understand the pattern and speeds, stability and approach to touchdown, but when it come to performing I need a lot of help from the instructor.

What are some realistic expectations? I do not want to get discouraged. My instructor tells me it will come, but I do not know if they are just being nice.

BTW I think that seeing the ground, and nose down, I just want to instinctively pull up.

Look forward to your input.

In my case it was being shy with the rudder...

All that stuff like the patterns and speeds , yeah you need that but that’s just prerequisites - ultimately landings are all about being able to react confidently to different combinations/ratios of the same set of variables that are thrown at you with every landing you make.
I don’t know about others but for me this was just a function of spending enough time practicing until I got to the point where I was not afraid to react instantly to changing inputs , yes anticipate and react rather than just trying to follow some “perfect” plan and then wondering why doing it by the book was not the magic bullet I was expecting to be.

[Scooper]

For me, the first priority is a stabilized approach. That means nailing the approach speed and keeping the runway touchdown area in the same spot on windshield as you descend (if the touchdown spot goes up in the windshield you'll be short; if it goes down in the windshield you'll be long). Once you're at the touchdown spot, close the throttle and level off just above the runway. Let the airspeed bleed off and the airplane will settle gently on the runway. Resist the temptation to apply too much elevator back pressure which can result in pilot induced oscillation, ballooning, and a bounced landing - especially if you're going too fast. Like Warmi says, don't be afraid to use the rudder.

[drseti]

What Stan and Warmi said. In addition, make sure your eyes focus all the way out to the far end of the runway. If you look too close to the nose, you'll tend to over-control.

[RTC'83]

Thanks, but for leveling off don’t I have to apply some back pressure? At the same time I go to idle?

[drseti]

Thanks, but for leveling off don’t I have to apply some back pressure? At the same time I go to idle?

Yes, but that happens when you're in ground effect (within one wingspan of the ground), so you get some additional buoyancy and settle down gently.

[Warmi]

Thanks, but for leveling off don’t I have to apply some back pressure? At the same time I go to idle?

Pretty much all my landings are with my engine being idle all the way before I even turn base but that’s actually pretty irrelevant as far as landing itself is concerned.
Your plane doesn’t care about the engine , all it cares about is how much kinetic energy you got left which is what allows you to stay airborne and your engine is just one way to add more energy - another way is to simply trade altitude for airspeed ( i.e gliding )
The whole trick is to arrive over the runway with enough energy to slow down your descent ( with back pressure) and basically end up hovering a foot or so over the runway and then gently bleed off any remaining energy by applying some more back pressure. Sometimes you will end up timing it just right and your original flare ( the slow down of descent ) will pretty much be the only back pressure you will need and you will settle on the runway but more often than not you will have more energy and you will simply end up floating for a few seconds while you slowly bleed any remaining energy. This whole business of bleeding off your energy is simply trading airspeed for altitude so you have to careful not to do it one one sudden move because you will find yourself 3 or 4 feet above the runway with no energy left and then drop like a rock.
If you arrive with a lot of energy ( airspeed) you will end up floating longer time which , while less than optimal since you are exposing yourself to crosswinds etc, it is still better than running out of energy and then dropping down like a rock.
If you do feel like you are dropping like a rock because you have used up all your energy then the only solution at that point is add a bit more power ( more like a shot of power rather than just keeping your throttle open ) to gain more energy and then you are back where you started, trying to bleed of this energy while floating over the runway.

My personal rule is not to allow to many adjustments like that ( add more power, float, bleed energy, add more power etc ) and rather just go around and start over.

[3Dreaming]

I tell students this when learning landings. Landings are one of the most complex things to learn in regards to flying a airplane. You are changing pitch, and speed, all while trying to keep the airplane aligned with the runway and precisely judging your height above the ground. The practice you need to gain experience in these skills is the hardest come by. For the majority of the traffic pattern you are doing everything you have already been practicing as you were learning to fly. The last 50 feet or so is the most critical part of learning landings, and at most you can get at most 20 seconds of practice of this critical part separated by 5 minutes of practicing your other skills. That is 3 trips around the pattern for 1 minute of practice, and if your lucky 3 minutes a lesson. For 3 or 4 lessons that is around 10 minutes of actual landing practice. It is no wonder that it takes so long to get landings nailed down.

Now there is one thing you can do to help. Once you have a good visual picture of what the landing are supposed to look like you can sit in your easy chair at night, close your eyes and practice landings with your mind. You will be amazed at how much this can help.

[RTC'83]

Warmi, Scooper, Drseti and 3Dreaming:

Thanks for the input. Giving me a lot of insight that I did not have before.

[FastEddieB]

What Stan and Warmi said. In addition, make sure your eyes focus all the way out to the far end of the runway. If you look too close to the nose, you'll tend to over-control.

I must respectfully disagree with the Professor on this one.

Enough instructors teach this that it must work for some students. But in my experience, both when teaching landings and troubleshooting them, trying to look over the nose at the far end of the runway is the one habit I most likely have to break students of.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, over the next several posts I’ll post images of 1) The FAA recommendation, 2) Kershner on the topic, and, 3) an article I wrote for the Cirrus Owners and Pilots magazine. I’m sure I’ve posted them before, but they’re worth repeating.

[FastEddieB]

#1 of 3, the FAA recommendation:

[FastEddieB]

#2 of 3, Bill Kershner on the topic:

[FastEddieB]

#3 of 3, my COPA article:

[FastEddieB]

Finally, a Cirrus owner added this to the “COPApedia” article where my article was linked:

[Scooper]

Eddie, sportpilottalk needs a "like" button for posts like yours.