One of the things that I always wondered was “How am I ever going to teach someone to land an airplane?” The flare happens fairly fast and the difference between a reasonable and damaging landing is a matter of just a few seconds and/or an inch or two of stick movement. One year after receiving my CFI, I think that I’ve finally figured it out. Most people flare too early. They are going 60 knots and plummeting toward what looks like a hard and unforgiving asphalt surface. When that runway gets close, they start to yank back on the stick. The result is a balloon, the airplane loses flying speed about 15′ above the ground and then the sickening sink begins. The instructor wonders “How am I going to live this one down if we bend the gear?” while adding power. The student is frustrated because the controls have been grabbed.
My new religion:
- insist that student trim the airplane for approach speed and verify that it is properly trimmed by removing hands from stick at 200′ AGL
- remind the student to look far down the runway as we approach the ground
- put a fist behind the stick so that the potential travel of the stick is limited
- talk the student through the flare
The student will probably still try to flare too hard and maybe too high, but it won’t matter because you’ve limited the rearward movement of the stick. After a few of these, the student learns the correct attitudes for landing and stops pulling back so hard.
The Cirrus salesman used the stick-limiting technique on me when I tried my first landing in an SR22. I was unimpressed and I would have preferred a hand on the control rather than an odd “stop” on the stick.
My PP instructor was also a control tapper, so if I tipped the yoke when I was meant to press right rudder the yoke you tap tap tap back at me. I guess soem of the students found it tolerable; I hated it.
I think a LOT of talking is better. “Pull it back, easy, easier, a little less, get ready to flare. Now.”
But I haven’t tried to teach someone to land yet.
How about not planning to land? How about trying to fly the plane 6″ above the runway? How about going around after maintaining 6″ for a while.
The 6″ above the runway is an arbitrary distance, perhaps one foot or two feet would be useful.
After stabilizing at 6″, slowly reduce the power to idle while maintaining your 6″ altitude with the elevator. This will be a losing exercise, with a landing being the goal.
This method also works nicely while teaching crosswind landings. (Isn’t every landing a crosswind landing?) Maintain runway position (left/right) with aileron and keep the nose lined up with the runway (track) with the rudder.
I agree with Phil Salisbury. This is pretty much the way you land a glider except you use the spoilers to reduce the lift until you set down. Just for fun and practice at Hanscom with a 7000 foot runway and a hangar at Pine Hill, I would fly my Duchess at about 1 foot above the runway after a normal approach to 29 and usually touch down about 1000 feet from the far end. Landing into the wind and with two propeller disks for drag I knew that even if the brakes did not work, I could make the turnoff at the end. This gave me about 5000 feet of legal low altitude flying. With full flaps and in ground effect, this is very slow. Forget about Vmc, I could just cut the power and land at any time. I would do this in all kind of wind conditions. With the plane trimmed properly, altitude was all throttle (using it like the collective in the helicopter or the spoilers in a glider),
Phil — I don’t know about the “human stick backstop” idea, but part of your prescription jibes very well with how my own training went.
My experience is all in gliders, but the same issue is present — with the obvious difference that flying a foot or two above the runway and then going around is not an option. I had some trouble learning the flare, until one day in debriefing with my instructor I realized that I was looking at my aim point on the runway for too long. By the time I touched down, I was basically looking at my nose as the aimpoint disappeared below me.
Once I got serious about looking ahead when I was at 15 feet AGL or so, the flare became natural very quickly. As a side benefit (pun intended), my rudder control on short final and rollout improved greatly too.
The approach must be perfect. Correct speed correct height over the threshold.
The aircraft must be stable. Flaps gear rate of descent airspeed and power.
At the flare look way down the runway hold the correct angle just above the runway and as the speed bleeds continue to hold the aircraft off the runway.
The aircraft will sink gently onto the runway and you can lower the nose steer
and brake. The secret to a good landing is a good approach.if it isn’t a good approach go around.I have handled types as diverse as an A380 and a Cessna. In all cases a good approach made a good landing and a bad approach resulted in something a whole lot worse. I have 18,000 flying hours and a fair share of bad landings as well as good. At no time has a bad approach resulted in a good landing and I have learned to concentrate on accurate flying right down to the touch down. That isn’t new. I am a very average pilot and I can’t afford to be sloppy I guess none of us can.