I’ve drafted an article for student pilots struggling to learn how to land an airplane. I would appreciate comments here that I’ll try to work into the article (which I’ll then open up for comments on the main server).
Thanks in advance.
[p.s. This was prompted by http://philip.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000uCf.]
I always found the term “flare” to actually be the cause for my initial poor landing attempts. The word always gave me the mental imagery of yanking back on the yoke with some kind of amazing braking action and a gentle settling down on the runway. In truth all this led to was a couple frightening leaps upward in air with rising altitude and airspeed rapidly dropping to near stall while I “flared” 20 feet high. Rather than flare I started thinking of “coasting”. Power down and coast a foot above the runway while speed bleeds off and the plane slowly loses the will to fly.
I too had a lot of trouble with the flare (after a stabilized approach) until someone asked me where I was looking. At the ground, of course, I didn’t want to hit it!
By forcing myself to look at the far end of the runway instead of the ground nearby, I was able to judge my distance over it much more accurately (and avoid ballooning).
I think I’m the audience for your article: I literally made my first landing 1 week ago. I have a total of 16 hours (in a Skyhawk SP). So I know next to nothing about landing planes.
Your example about the 70 mile approach just confuses me. It’s nothing at all like a real landing. Maybe it’d be clearer to talk about a more realistic direct in approach, say 2 miles out at 1000 AGL?
Your section “a standard pattern” describes the most important thing my instructor has been teaching me. What it doesn’t do is describe how to create that stabilized approach. My CFI is teaching me a magic formula for turns, flaps, and power settings that results in a stabilized approach with little stress. Power to 1600RPM, trim for the descent, turns and flaps at the right time, and you’re in a stabilized approach. At first I thought it’d be harder to learn to land with turns, but it only took a couple of approaches before it made sense.
The thing I am finding hard is not rounding out too early. The ground is right there, coming at me very fast, and it’s really hard to overcome the “pull up to avoid crashing” instinct. Even if your approach is beautiful and it’s only 3-4 degrees of attitude change, it’s still important to round out at the right moment. The main tip my CFI has given me that helps time the round out is “power out, eyes out, round out”; cut the power to idle when the runway is made, shift your vision to the far end of the runway, and then make the round out. Looking at the far horizon makes everything slow down and seems to make it easier to round out at the right level.
The flare portion of the landing seems easy to me so far. Just pull back increasingly and try to keep the plane off the ground. The hard part is rounding out low enough to the ground that when the plane finally stops flying from the flare, you don’t fall very far. At least, that’s what it feels like now after about 10 landings, I’m sure it’ll change once I actually have some real experience.
Thanks, Nelson. Congratulations on your landing. The 70-mile approach is a thought experiment. It is designed to convince students that landing need not be hard and need not involve a flare, assuming that it is sufficiently shallow and stabilized. And that if their instructor is having them do the polar opposite, i.e., chop the power and dive for the runway, it will be very challenging. I guess I will have to reword and maybe put in a drawing showing the ridiculously shallow approach (easy) and what a lot of instructors try to teach (tough).
You are certainly right that the ground rush frightens normal humans. As well it should! But the knowledge that they need to flare or the airplane will be destroyed makes it even more nerve-wracking. That’s why I think it might be nice to teach beginners with a 3-degree approach so that they don’t really need to flare.
I think Steve (above) may be on to something when he says that the term “flare” should be avoided. It is just a small pitch up.
If you really want to learn how to land, go take some lessons in flying a glider.
The requirements for the practical test for private are:
1. Exhibits knowledge of the elements related to normal and
crosswind approach and landing procedures.
2. Adjusts flaps, spoilers, or dive brakes, as appropriate.
3. Maintains recommended approach airspeed, +10/-5 knots.
4. Maintains crosswind correction and directional control
throughout the approach and landing.
5. Makes smooth, timely, and positive control application during
the roundout and touchdown.
6. Touches down smoothly within the designated landing area,
with no appreciable drift, and with the longitudinal axis aligned
with the desired landing path, stopping short of and within 200
feet (120 meters) of a designated point.
7. Maintains control during the after-landing roll.
8. Completes appropriate checklists.
It goes down to 100 feet for Commercial.
Phil,
I agree that the old dog instructors are wrong to suggest pilots fly a power-off approach. I leaves you usually having to forward slip, which freaks out passengers, not to mention the fact that there’s really no such thing as power-off in a piston airplane since idle generates significant thrust so you’re still screwed if you REALLY go power-off. What helped my landings the most was instrument training, when I finally learned to fly by the numbers, memorizing what power settings would give a 3 percent glideslope at approach speed, and furthermore noting the rate of descent that would do so given the typical approach speed. This made setting up for landing a proactive event, rather than a try and see deal where I was reacting to what happened given my initial guess. As for flaring, I found that things improved dramatically during primary training when I was told by another instructor that flaring should be done gradually, acting as a way to slow the airplane down as it crosses the threshold, as well as simply arresting the descent right at the surface. If you do it slowly, it sounds like a recipe for stalling it in, but the opposite is true: a slow, early starting flare gives you time to correct if you flare too much or too early, as well as preventing the problems of doing so too late.
By the way, I’m pretty sure the autoland system on airliners doesn’t just fly the airplane into the ground. I think they use the radar altimeter to flare. Given the approach speeds of airliners, I think even a 3 degree glide slope would hurt if flown in.
While this may very well be type-specific (~575 of my ~600 hours are in my Skylane), what helped me the most was religiously using trim during the roundout, and only using 10 or 20* of flap when flying into typical airliner-served airports. My instructor already had me flying the airplane by the numbers, but my arrivals were still fairly shaky until he suggested that I run the trim to the stop (and just be ready to give a good shove in case of a go-around).
Perhaps an increased focus on the use of trim (if appropriate for other trainers) would make the stick forces required for the roundout/flare much less and therefore in the range where humans can be very precise, using their wrists rather than biceps/back to accomplish the landing. I like the analogy of a 70 mile final, but I’m not sure it’s going to resonate with most pilots. I see people trying to turn what appears to be a 70 mile final already at LWM; I don’t want to encourage them… 🙂
Every pilot should be able to put their trainer down in a 1500′ field, but I agree that there’s no need to try to learn the techniques required on your first few landings.
This is all useful, but I was expecting to see “..and then practice for 100 hours with X-Plane, ideally in a realistic cockpit with FAA mode enabled.” The flight physics is getting more plausible, even if one can’t yet book DESDEMONA time to experience it.
Actually, I should qualify that. Apparently this boy taught himself to fly using flight sims, but hadn’t fully mastered the landing bit in real life.
Tom,
Its an interesting idea. Would you train the student to visually control the vertical bearing rate to the touchdown point using the spoilers, then get them to transfer the same habit to the throttle? Using constant airspeed in both cases?
I like.
On Phil’s post, I would train the student to know the RPM setting to establish 65kts @ 500 fpm*, and help him to develop a sense of what 2 minutes away from touchdown looks like, possibly with the aid of a sectional and some landmarks.
On the base-to-final turn, I feel little attention (in training) gets paid to the horizontal bearing rate between the nose and the touchdown point. If you’re pointing inside the touchdown point, you’ll undershoot the extended centerline. Your lead angle to the extended centerline has to be an acute positive value that [smoothly] decreases to zero at the moment you capture the localizer,
*I’m chicken about engines and trees. I like closer/steeper.
I found this particularly interesting as an aspiring CFI. I’ve been flying for a while now (learned in the mid 90s), I own and operate a Mooney, and have a decent amount of flight time in the usual trainers, as well as tail wheel (Citabria) experience.
Phil, I disagree with some of your suggestions. Why? Primacy. Teaching someone that its acceptable to bypass thousands of feet of runway while bleeding off speed is a recipe for an accident when they move up to an airplane less forgiving of excessive airspeed on final approach. It sets the stage for either running off the end of a short(er) runway, or porpoising the airplane (often followed by a prop strike) when they try to force the airplane to the ground when the usable runway remaining is rapidly diminishing.
I am not suggesting that a primary student be a master of spot landing competitions, but they should be able to establish a stabilized approach with power on or off, to be able to see the ‘aim’ point as a point on the ground which the airplane’s flight path intercepts, to trim and configure the airplane reasonably well for the recommended approach speed (let’s say +/- 5kias, gusts notwithstanding), and to use power and drag as necessary to adjust aiming point. From there, the round out and flare take practice and finesse but they are by no means impossible to achieve safely.
The concept of a stabilized approach is something I also find fascinating: Need it be conducted along a path extending from the runway center line? In my opinion it does not. A stabilized approach begins as soon as the desired configuration, power, speed, and descent rate are established and the pilot is making maneuvers — such as timing turns and the timely addition of drag — while referencing a projection of the airplane’s flight path along the ground, and developing a mental picture of the height above the runway to time those turns. (Isn’t this one of the reasons ground reference maneuvers are taught?).
With regards to the use of power in approaches: I agree that its silly to use the reasoning of an engine failure in the pattern as the sole means to justify routine power off approaches. I do think that purposeful, and frequent practice of power off approaches is something that every fixed wing pilot needs to incorporate into their repertoire so that they have a mental model of how the airplane performs when a power loss does occur and the best forced landing area is small; they only get one shot.
In short, I’d rather get a student thinking on their own about how to plan an approach to landing from any particular point in space with respect to the runway, and not to rely on a ‘rote’ set of steps to get the airplane from downwind to short final, or to have to rely on excessively long final approach paths to stabilize themselves. This will prepare them for real life as a pilot, be it operating in high traffic environments, into small remote strips, or in aircraft that demand greater precision in energy management.
I want to add that I’ve read through some of your other aviation content, including your private pilot lesson plan excerpts. I recall reading your suggestions of locating a long runway and flying down it in ground effect to teach the visual queues necessary to sustain a landing flare. I thought that was an outstanding idea and plan to incorporate it into my teaching should I have a student with difficulty judging height during flare.
I appreciate the general idea… but I guess I never found flaring to be so terribly difficult. It certainly took some practice (and I can still use more!) but to me setting up a stabilized approach to arrive at the threshold with just the right amount of energy was and is more of a challenge than the actual flare maneuver.
And, of course, many airports with intensive training operations just aren’t set up for the kind of approaches you’re recommending. Here at KBDU, we have a 4000′ runway, frequently see density altitudes of 8500′, noise abatement policies discourage wide patterns or extended downwinds, and there’s no VASI on the runway that’s most often in use. You don’t need a classic “short-field” landing, but you can’t waste a lot of runway either.
Perhaps I am not quite your intended trainee — I’m a private-rated glider pilot and am now training for a single-engine add-on rating — but I think I’m close, since glider landings with spoilers are actually pretty different. (My logbook shows 20 hours and 60 landings to solo in a 172.)
I’m curious what flap settings your students are using on these approaches. Instructors I know have differing opinions on that; my primary instructor teaches mostly no-flap landings pre-solo.
Anonymous: Its an interesting idea. Would you train the student to visually control the vertical bearing rate to the touchdown point using the spoilers, then get them to transfer the same habit to the throttle? Using constant airspeed in both cases?
I like.
That’s exactly how I thought about the transition to power. It works, except for the fact that a Cessna will hit idle throttle long before a typical glider runs out of spoiler. So I find a powered approach requires much more precise pattern planning than a glider, where you can usually get away (not that it’s recommended!) with flying basically the same pattern if you arrive at 500′ as if you arrive at 1000′, changing only the amount of spoiler on base and final.
EDZ: I think that nearly all of the instructors at Hanscom Field (home to two flight schools) follow the manufacturer’s checklist for landing. So in the Diamonds it would be full flaps for landing and in the various Cessnas and Pipers it would depend on the model. We have 7000′ of runway, an ILS, and a PAPI. The nearby towered airports are all close to sea level and typically have 5000-7000′ of runway with an ILS and a visual glide slope.
Phil- I think you’ve done a good job discussing landings for students in the slump that I know I went through. I think this will help but not solve the problem for everyone. For me, it came through experience. At about 10 to 14 hours of instruction, I just couldn’t make a good landing. Usually, I was flaring at the wrong time. As others noted, the ground seemed to be rushing at me too fast. One problem, as mentioned above, was that I was looking directly over the nose of the plane and fixating on a spot rather than looking down the runway (and getting significant information from my peripheral vision, too).
What really got me comfortable was a demonstration. On one downwind, I was instructed that I could not use the yoke for the next landing. I had to rely on throttle and trim to land the plane. With a lot of input from my instructor, I was able to fly the rest of the pattern without touching the yoke, using throttle for altitude and trim to flare. Great. Then on the next upwind I was instructed to fly the rest of the pattern without using the yoke or the rudder pedals. Uh, how do I turn? Using the doors (Cessna 150), throttle, and trim I was able to fly the entire pattern and touch down very nicely. Hmmm…If I can do it that way, I should be able to do with with all the airplane controls at my disposal. And, it worked, I was much more comfortable after that demonstration.
But, that said, I do like your description of making landings and agree with your well described approach.
Chris
I like the idea of the hour-long approach as a though exercise, but the core lesson (always buried in the inevitable jargon) needs to be that A GOOD LANDING IS THE RESULT OF A GOOD APPROACH, well set up and trimmed and something that’s achieved seconds or minutes before you get near the threshold. Once that’s known (and a good instructor will demonstrate it before he demands it of a student), then the challenge to the student is to think well ahead of the airplane and get things set up early — an essential skill for any aspect of aviation.
The “long approach” exercise has another variant that’s quite useful – spotting the runway against something on the windshield (finally, a use for all those bugs) and keeping the touchdown point in place with controls and throttle for a good length of time — an exercise leading to a well set up approach. Once that’s done from well above pattern altitude and a long distance away, the concept will fairly quickly become intuitive and will also give the student some experience for long-final no-flap approaches.
The final flare is often mis-taught in my experience…while learning to fly, I was simply told to “flare”, until a savvy instructor told me to do it in increments…pull a bit, pull a bit more and so on until you get a feel for your particular airplane. You run the risk of ballooning a bit or going long but it won’t be the airshow-dramatic hoists into the air at stall speed which only create frustration and spectacularly bad landings (or maybe that was just me). While the use of trim is good for some people, I’d prefer to have the aircraft trimmed for landing (and go-around by adding power) all the way down instead.
The arguments that precision landings are an absolute necessity right from day one are nonsense in my opinion, and a good way to frustrate and confuse a student Get a student confident in putting the airplane down on the centerline of a long runway and they can hone their short-field skills from then on, though this should be stressed as early as possible and they definitely shouldn’t be landing in the last 1500′ of a 12,000′ runway. One of the pitfalls I fell into was attempting to exactly hit the threshold line of the runway for a short-field landing while everything else was in shambles — overfocusing on the wrong thing.
For gusty days, partial flaps landings seem to never be taught – I’m not sure what the legal implications of this are but I learned in a 172 and on a gusty day with those huge flaps down at 40° I actually got dropped on the gear from a few feet in the air – the airplane just quit flying. No damage done but it scared the crap out of me. From then on, I tend to reel in the flaps a bit depending on how gusty it is, and will land with little or no flaps at all if it’s particularly bad (which also implies that there’s quite a headwind, which keeps the groundspeed at touchdown within acceptable limits). This also makes the approach more stable since you’re not fighting the wing turbulence so much.
FWIW, Your suggested flying the length of the runway in ground effect will give the student one more skill they’ll appreciate later — what to do with a *really* long runway. If you’re putting a light aircraft down on a 10,000′ runway, you’ll be taxiing most of that length, usually in the hot sun or something unpleasant. An old USAF buddy showed me that if you fly the bulk of the it in ground effect, you can drop the aircraft on the pavement near the other end/exit point at will and skip the taxi time, though this isn’t for the absolute beginner.
Learning to fly in South Africa about 20 years ago in a Tomahawk, I was never taught to cut the power on the approach, and I don’t think I would have managed very well if I had been! I was taught to control the rate of descent with power. My instructors also emphasised being in a stable config, and before attempting to flare, my instructor had me try to fly the plane as far as possible down the runway, so showing me that it would eventually settle onto it, and that the flare was thus just a way of speeding up that inevitability rather than an essential piece of the landing equation.
Obviously we did the power cut when practicing emergency landings, but only after normal landings were well practiced, and even then the steepness of the glide path was pretty scary. Even though the idea that an engine failure would leave you short of the runway is obviously correct, it seems extreme to make every landing a challenge to ward against the very unlikely event of a power failure on final.
25 more landings since my last post. The roundout and flare part seems really easy to me now and I’m happy with the way my CFI taught me. Stabilized approach, 3 degree glide slope, round out just over the threshold, and let the speed bleed off with the flare. I tried thinking about it your way a couple of times and I ended up just flying the plane down to the runway 20 knots over stall speed. Didn’t break the plane, but I’d rather flare the plane better to bleed that speed off in the air. The flare technique I’m taught has led naturally into power out landings and forward slip corrections.
The #1 thing I’ve come to appreciate in all my landings now is that every single landing is different, even going around the pattern every five minutes. You try to set up the landings the same way but you’re never quite in the same spot, or the wind changed a bit, or you had to extend downwind. Learning to land is the first time I’ve really felt like I was flying intuitively. It’s fun!