Haven't Solo'd, Sill Struggling w/ Landings

LAWYER2

LAWYER2

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LAWYER2
I've been working towards my private pilot's license since October 22', and it has been an ongoing process as you can imagine. I fly roughly 3 days a wk, but do travel often for work and try to make it up when I can.
I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I'm over 60hrs and still haven't solo'd yet and I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions or advice on mastering landings.

Essentially, I get tunnel vison when landing and tend to become hyper-focused on one thing at a time, and in doing so, struggle with other peripheral cues and references. It's been like a game whack-a-mole mastering all 3-parts of the landing, (1) round out, (2) level flight and (3) flare, lol. Once I seem to get one, I struggle with another. Right now, it's #2 and the quick transition from #1 through #3.

I'm incredibly stubborn and refuse to give up, but admittedly have been feeling really frustrated lately. Most of my landings have been in fairly windy conditions here in the desert SW during the time of day that I fly. I've switched a few days to mornings and did better w/o wind, but it's hard with my schedule fly in the morning.

My instructor says Its' much more difficult to learn how to land in continuous cross-wind conditions and that it's common among older students to struggle and can be very frustrating for most high achievers.
Though this has gotten incredibly expensive and time consuming, I'm determined to see this through.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
 
Your CFI is not wrong.

You can work on other tasks (night cross country, towered airport ops, etc.) to make some progression.

Find an airfield with more favorable runway/wind alignment.

Take a break.

Don’t fly if c-wind component is >5kts.

Instead of trying to land, fly the centerline about 1 foot AGL for a few laps. Tracking centerline means you’ve figured out how to control the aircraft relative to the wind effect.

Find a different CFI for a lesson or more.
 
Forget about #3, that will just happen as part of #2 as your speed decays you'll require more nose up pitch to "hold it off" / stay level.

Don't sweat the 60 hours, it takes what it takes, I'll bet a small portion of that 60 is landing practice.

Also another perspective on the expense... Flying won't get much cheaper after you get the certificate and probably the opposite. Enjoy the process.
 
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My advice it to not land the plane ... fly it down the runway close to the runway. Slow it down and get closer. You are not making a landing but learning how to make an "approach to landing."

I see TCABM has posted what I was after ... :)
 
Handling the XWind is a complexity you might be better off avoiding until you get the basics down. Perhaps a different airport? Or fly on more calm wind days?

Technique wise two things that helped me:
(1) Make sure you're flying the plane all the way to the ground. A lot of times when you get low like that it's easy to sort of think of yourself as "done" before the planes touches the ground. This is an error I had during PPL training and it resulted in sloppy landings. You have to be mindful to keep your game face on and continue making the necessary control inputs until the plane is fully settled on the ground. I think this is particularly true if you're flying in cross wind.
(2) Have you tried announcing each step outloud as you do it? Doing that helped me sort of develop a rhythm. As I would say "level off", "bleed off airspeed" (fly level above the runway, maybe a slight pitch up to keep altitude as I intentionally bled off airspeed) and "touchdown" (increase pitch even more to stay airborne and settle plane down lightly). Then if I said one of the steps out loud it would sort of prompt me to be thinking about which step I'm going to have to say/do next. Sounds silly, but it helped me! 500h later sometimes I still say it out loud :D.
 
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ArrowFlyer86 said:
You have to be mindful to keep your game face on and continue making the necessary control inputs until the plane is fully settled on the ground. I think this is particularly true if you're flying in cross wind.
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Just a slight correction if flying a tailwheel airplane ... the landing isn't finished until it's parked in the hangar! :D
 
I solo'd at 70 hours, and I know multiple people who took even longer.

Are you feeling that you are improving? If your landings are getting better (even at a very slow pace), I would not worry too much - it will happen one day. But if you feel like you are doing the same mistakes over and over, you should probably consider taking a few lessons with a different CFI. I have flown with a few different CFIs, and gotten different types of feedback from them, and also noticed that each have their own blind spots. For example, I never learned how to properly flare with my first CFI - which is not a big problem in a small 152 but can result in very hard landings in a 182. I didn't even know that this is a problem until I started flying with other CFIs.
 
LAWYER2 said:
I've been working towards my private pilot's license since October 22', and it has been an ongoing process as you can imagine. I fly roughly 3 days a wk, but do travel often for work and try to make it up when I can.
I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I'm over 60hrs and still haven't solo'd yet and I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions or advice on mastering landings.

Essentially, I get tunnel vison when landing and tend to become hyper-focused on one thing at a time, and in doing so, struggle with other peripheral cues and references. It's been like a game whack-a-mole mastering all 3-parts of the landing, (1) round out, (2) level flight and (3) flare, lol. Once I seem to get one, I struggle with another. Right now, it's #2 and the quick transition from #1 through #3.

I'm incredibly stubborn and refuse to give up, but admittedly have been feeling really frustrated lately. Most of my landings have been in fairly windy conditions here in the desert SW during the time of day that I fly. I've switched a few days to mornings and did better w/o wind, but it's hard with my schedule fly in the morning.

My instructor says Its' much more difficult to learn how to land in continuous cross-wind conditions and that it's common among older students to struggle and can be very frustrating for most high achievers.
Though this has gotten incredibly expensive and time consuming, I'm determined to see this through.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
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Separating out the effects of wind shifts and turbulence from pilot input can be difficult. You need to find very smooth conditions. I have lived in the desert SW, and those conditions do exist, probably around early morning or dusk. Common mistakes are gripping the yoke too hard with your hands, making large power changes, and staring at one point in space and losing the depth perception. Pick an aiming point, trim the airplane to fly hands off, and let it come down by itself with your hands off. Then using just your index finger and thumb (not your whole hand), hold the airplane off 1 ft above the ground. Reducing the power to idle too quickly can cause the airplane to yaw and mess you up at the very last second. If you have a long runway, you can leave the power where it is. Otherwise, slowly (over 5 seconds) reduce power to idle to prevent sudden pitch or yaw changes. I would also suggest recording your flights using a GoPro or similar camera and study it later.
 
All very accurate advise above.
You are not alone.
I started training at 55 years old.
Landing is always one of the toughest things to learn especially for older students.
We spent months flying the pattern so I could solo. 50-60 hrs worth.
My last instructor was incredibly patient with me. He was a saint to fly with me as much as he did so I could solo.
I asked one day if he ever thought I would get better. He said I would with enough landings and he was right.
After I got my certificate I got my own 172 and landed about 2500 times until I felt close to 100% . It felt good getting better on my own.
This was in 2015 and I wasn't on this website to ask for advise. I was too ashamed that it took me so long and kept it to myself.

In the beginning of my training I was fighting other demons in my life so I was not prepared for most of my lessons early on.
My instructor said to me at one point that I had so much invested in my training that couldn't stop now. He was right and I focused on flight training and got my solo done. After that it was easier and more fun.
Good luck your not alone...

My buddy who is a 21 year captain and a 40 year pilot, told me he soloed at 10 hrs and got his license at 41 hrs when he was 17. Wow I guess times were different then?

I have to look again at my original log book for how many hrs it took me, but I did look one time and it took me 309 landings to solo.
 
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If you're getting a lot of crosswinds, consider dutch rolls at altitude. Track along a straight road and drop a wing + rudder to align with the road. Hold that for a few seconds and then reverse it with the other wing / rudder. That coordination is how you land in a crosswind, by lowering the upwind wing and using your feet to keep straight. This needs to be a natural reaction that you don't really think about.

Note this is cross controlled, so do it with an instructor because if you get slow and stall, you can spin. It would be good to rehearse the last 30 seconds of flight at altitude where you can do it several times, climb up again and do it more. Faster than flying 5 minutes around the pattern to practice 30 seconds.
 
bflynn said:
If you're getting a lot of crosswinds, consider dutch rolls at altitude. Track along a straight road and drop a wing + rudder to align with the road. Hold that for a few seconds and then reverse it with the other wing / rudder. That coordination is how you land in a crosswind, by lowering the upwind wing and using your feet to keep straight. This needs to be a natural reaction that you don't really think about.

Note this is cross controlled, so do it with an instructor because if you get slow and stall, you can spin. It would be good to rehearse the last 30 seconds of flight at altitude where you can do it several times, climb up again and do it more. Faster than flying 5 minutes around the pattern to practice 30 seconds.
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I remember doing this with my instructor, my last instructor. I did fly with 5 CFI and I learned a little how to land from each of them. Glad I was exposed to more than one instructor.
 
I'm afraid of replying for fear of being sued!


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Thank you guys for all the helpful advice and words of support & encouragement. I got a bit emotional reading through them and felt much better knowing it's not just me. Understandably, there are not very many people I can talk to about this.
That said, my son has been bugging me about some GoPro's so we'll order some and he's going to help setup and edit them for me. I'm also going to try to better instruct my CFI on what I think I need more help with and how I think she can help. We actually just did a long level-flight down the runway where she controlled the power and I maneuvered the attitude and angle and I thought that was helpful and will ask to do more of those. I'm also going to schedule time with different flight instructors and try to fly as early as I can on Saturdays to minimize wind conditions.
 
A change of scenery, wx, instructor & time might help, like a week in Fl flying twice a day: early morning, late evening. That’s what I did when I got back into flying. Relaxed, focused, away from the daily grind. Knocked the rust off, got my eye back, & knocked down a BFR at the same time. I assume lawyers get vacations.
 
btw, excellent idea above about continuing the rest of the curriculum toward a PPL. If you’re doing 60hrs grinding in the pattern, & you’re not having any successes that is demoralizing. I’ve found success in precision & control doing dutch rolls, slow flight, lots of stalls, ground reference work, peeling the white stripe on a runway but not landing, & short dual XCs to other airports to be a confidence builder in the landing phase. Once you are confident you can make the airplane do what you want without even thinking about it, like driving a car, then the landings will fall into place.
 
Only thing I can add is don't give up. Took me about a billion landings to get comfortable with them. It'll eventually just click.
 
Daleandee said:
My advice it to not land the plane ... fly it down the runway close to the runway. Slow it down and get closer. You are not making a landing but learning how to make an "approach to landing."

I see TCABM has posted what I was after ... :)
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I agree. This helped me and several students I taught.

Also, look up videos about the runway growing. There is an optical illusion that at about the right altitude to flare, the runway appears to suddenly getting wider.

And do not fixate. Keep your eyes moving.

Also, taking a break from landings. Take a day and fly a cross country to get a $100 hamburger. Make flying fun.
 
LAWYER2 said:
Essentially, I get tunnel vison when landing and tend to become hyper-focused on one thing at a time, and in doing so, struggle with other peripheral cues and references. It's been like a game whack-a-mole mastering all 3-parts of the landing, (1) round out, (2) level flight and (3) flare, lol. Once I seem to get one, I struggle with another. Right now, it's #2 and the quick transition from #1 through #3.
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You need to put some of your tasks on automatic so you can do them without having to concentrate on them. That will allow you to relax a bit while focusing on whatever is important at the moment.

The best way I found to do that was to chair fly. A lot. Sit in a chair at home, close your eyes, fly the pattern and land. Over and over. Move your hands to work the yoke, throttle, and flaps. Move your feet to work the rudder. Make your radio calls. Visualize entering ground effect, rounding out, and landing.

Over and over and over again. Trust me; it works. Even the Blue Angels chair fly.
 
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Slow flight over the runway did it for me. Once you master flying 5-10 feet over the runway in the right attitude, landing is as easy as backing off the throttle.

And I'll echo the recommendation to use your feet in a crosswind. I can still hear the voice of my primary instructor 40 years later: "Use your feet, use your feet!" (Sometime accompanied by a friendly whack with a rolled up Trade-a-Plane or similar.)
 
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I’m a student pilot also, just soloed 3 weeks ago. I had a hard time with my landings as well. At times I thought my instructor was going to tell me to hang it up as I was never going to get it. He’d say, “You’re still not seeing the picture.” When I was struggling, I came across this video from MzeroA (
). “The perfect landing begins with a perfect pattern.” This has rang very true for me. When I nail my pattern speeds and altitudes, my landings are always better (not perfect).

Finally, completely agree with getting time in calm winds to practice so you can focus on 1-3. I stopped a couple of training flights early because the winds became more than I was comfortable with and I wasn’t learning much. Once I gained more confidence and my landings were more consistent in calm air, adding x-wind was more approachable. Keep with it, you’ll get it!
 
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When I instructed, I taught my students to fly a precise pattern so that every landing was about the same. Post solo, we would fly different patterns do they could learn to correct when things were not right.
 
LAWYER2 said:
Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
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Did you play football in high school or while growing up? Can you catch a pass while running at full speed? Hit a receiver in full stride? Overhaul an engine? Race a car or have a go-kart? Most guys do this stuff growing up and it gives 'em insight. Most women, not so much. Are you male or female? If you're older you have an eyesight issue — you've watched too many John Wayne movies learning all the wrong things about landing an airplane which you have to unlearn now. Do you leave your flying at the airport, so you can focus on the other aspects of your life? You can't do that if you want to make progress. You have to immerse yourself completely. And you need to stop looking over the nose in the flare! [Hard hat adorned.]
 
“I fly roughly 3 days a wk”

Well, there’s your problem, try flying smoothly a few times a week!

I’m still a student, on hiatus because of health stuff. I haven’t soloed yet either. Good luck! Lots of great advice here from pilots.
 
Appreciate all the input. I've been practicing chair flying a LOT and it's seemed to help.

As mentioned - I tend to focus on one thing at time, so now I'm struggling a bit with rudder balance and staying on the centerline lol. Does anyone think Flight Sim equipment (yoke/pedals) would help?
Either way, I'm feeling a bit more confident and glad to be making a bit of progress.
 
LAWYER2 said:
Appreciate all the input. I've been practicing chair flying a LOT and it's seemed to help.

As mentioned - I tend to focus on one thing at time, so now I'm struggling a bit with rudder balance and staying on the centerline lol. Does anyone think Flight Sim equipment (yoke/pedals) would help?
Either way, I'm feeling a bit more confident and glad to be making a bit of progress.
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Do you have the other components (PC, hotas, etc)?
Pedals may help. I don't like simming without them. They could help with coordinating your limbs, developing muscle memory, etc, but don't expect the physics to be matched exactly yet (and of course it doesn't have the 'butt feel')
 
LAWYER2 said:
Appreciate all the input. I've been practicing chair flying a LOT and it's seemed to help.

As mentioned - I tend to focus on one thing at time, so now I'm struggling a bit with rudder balance and staying on the centerline lol. Does anyone think Flight Sim equipment (yoke/pedals) would help?
Either way, I'm feeling a bit more confident and glad to be making a bit of progress.
Click to expand...

I doubt the sim will help that much. Don't get caught up in how much to move the pedals or stick, rather keep your eyes out the window and move both as much and as often as it takes to get the desired result. It will be different every landing and it varies all the way down. As you are crabbing into the crosswind, or just flying down the centerline in no wind, the rudder is just keeping you coordinated, the yoke keeps you on centerline. Focus on staying on centerline.

At some point you transition from crabbing to slipping if there is a crosswind. For this you simply push on the correct rudder pedal to align the centerline of the plane with the centerline of the runway. If the nose turns away from pointing straight down the runway, push the correct rudder pedal to straighten it back out. How much do you push it? As much as it takes.

Once you have the airplane centerline aligned with the runway centerline, if you have a crosswind, use the aileron to counter it. What will happen is that if there is a crosswind, and there almost always is, when you point the nose down the runway with the rudder, the plane will start moving laterally off the centerline due to the crosswind component and the fact that you are no longer crabbing. If the crosswind is from the right, the centerline of the runway will start moving to the right in your windscreen, so you need to turn the aileron to the right to get back on and stay on the runway centerline. (The airplane will move from left to right). The trick is to not let the nose turn, keep it aligned with the runway centerline. As you add and subtract aileron, you need to add and subtract rudder. More aileron will want to turn the nose, counter that with the rudder. Less aileron will require less rudder. On most flights you are constantly dancing on the rudder, moving the aileron, right down until you touch down. Describing how to do it makes it seem a little overwhelming, but don't think about how much to move the controls, just move them as much as it takes and in the right direction to correct the drift and keep the centerlines parallel. It's actually not that hard once you get the hang of it.

Once again, I think the key is to stop thinking about how much you have to move the controls, just move them as much as it takes to correct the drift and keep the centerline. If you run out of rudder, and can't keep the nose parallel with the runway because of the amount of aileron you need, then you have exceeded the crosswind capability of the airplane. Find another runway.

It's really the same with the elevator and throttle. Pitch for your approach speed, set the throttle for your descent, adjust each as necessary to maintain the glideslope. There will be updrafts and down drafts. Unless it's a hero day, (light wind, down the centerline) you will need to make adjustments.

Sounds like you are close, don't over think it. Once you get it figured out, landing becomes one of the best parts of flying.
 
@LAWYER2 - Why aren't you flying about 90min before sunset? Fire up Windy. Look out about 5 days and pick two evenings where the wind comes down to 5kts or less.
 
Half Fast said:
The best way I found to do that was to chair fly. A lot. Sit in a chair at home, close your eyes, fly the pattern and land. Over and over. Move your hands to work the yoke, throttle, and flaps. Move your feet to work the rudder. Make your radio calls. Visualize entering ground effect, rounding out, and landing.

Over and over and over again. Trust me; it works. Even the Blue Angels chair fly.
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With your instructor.

It's very difficult to get and act on feedback while you're doing pattern work, which is why you're not progressing as quickly as you'd like.

In the plane, they're demonstrating and you're learning by osmosis, there's too much going on to make the permanent mental connection.

Talk through your pattern and landing checklists. Speed, power and flap settings, rate of descent.

Switch to full-stop taxi-back landings. In the rush to get re-configured, landings suffer. The taxi-back gives you the chance for a debrief for every landing immediately after. And a break in the stress so you can think about improving the next one, rather than rejoining the pattern.
 
FancyG said:
Switch to full-stop taxi-back landings. In the rush to get re-configured, landings suffer. The taxi-back gives you the chance for a debrief for every landing immediately after. And a break in the stress so you can think about improving the next one, rather than rejoining the pattern.
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^^^^This^^^^

I also believe chair flying can help greatly. As the builder of a couple of planes and prepping for the first flight I would sit in the plane and fly the initial flight through all of the perceived movements. Of course when you own the plane you can chair fly in the actual cockpit and get all the physical movements ingrained. The reach for a lever, knob, or switch becomes natural. Memorizing the look over the nose helps greatly when learning where the ground is.

And again, I recommend to fly it down the runway while making an approach to landing. As you practice getting closer to the surface and slowing down at some point it will land ...
 
LAWYER2 said:
Appreciate all the input. I've been practicing chair flying a LOT and it's seemed to help.

As mentioned - I tend to focus on one thing at time, so now I'm struggling a bit with rudder balance and staying on the centerline
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Chair flying probably won't help with the mechanics of landing, although it might help learn procedural habits, but procedures won't land the airplane. You need repetition and feedback from an instructor about flight control technique during landing. It will come. Sessions 2-3 times a week is about right. You need to allow a couple of days for new neural connections for good habits to form, and (more importantly) neural connections for bad habits to disappear. Training too frequently often just ingrains poor technique. (The same principles apply in sports training. It takes about 25 repetitions to learn and ingrain a new sports skill; it takes double that or more to extinguish an improperly ingrained skill. The latter is often more important for success than the former.)

There are two bits of advice that will help you control the plane instead of chasing it: (1) USE TRIM to neutralize control forces; flying the final approach at an appropriate speed, trimmed, will make the final approach segment and touchdown sequence soooo much easier; (2) RESPOND to deviations, don't just watch them happen. If you drift off centerline, correct immediately before the deviation gets too large to easily fix; have your instructor show you how the rudder controls where you point the nose and how small banks can move the plane left or right. This is how you will micromanage staying on the centerline throughout the landing sequence, but especially in the flare just before touchdown. You are basically learning how to slip, which is fun and can be practiced at altitude to get the feel of it.

Good luck. Basically, at some point for most new pilots, something just "clicks," but don't expect perfect landings every time even when you get 1000 hours under your belt. I still make some real honkers of a landing on a bad day, even with a ton of time in the same plane over many years. The idea is to have the bad days be good enough to leave the airplane re-usable.
 
chemgeek said:
I still make some real honkers of a landing on a bad day, even with a ton of time in the same plane over many years. The idea is to have the bad days be good enough to leave the airplane re-usable.
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I seem to make my crummy landings when people are watching and the winds are dead calm. Went up this morning after doing some maintenance on the plane. No one around to see the absolute greaser of a landing I made.

But like you say, even with the bad ones I've managed to be able to use the plane again. So I'm still learning to land after all these years ...
 
Daleandee said:
I seem to make my crummy landings when people are watching and the winds are dead calm. Went up this morning after doing some maintenance on the plane. No one around to see the absolute greaser of a landing I made.

But like you say, even with the bad ones I've managed to be able to use the plane again. So I'm still learning to land after all these years ...
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I usually save my bad landings for IPCs, when you are nice and wrung out. The last IPC I actually managed to make a really nice landing. I told my CFII not to get used to those. But he already knows better. :rolleyes:
 
Things have gotten much better. I guess I vastly underestimated the power of chair-flying, visualization and getting my head in the game before flying. Usually, I'm wrapping up my day with work then rushing to fly late afternoon (windiest periods) and not having a chance to decompress. I flew this morning, and when I checked ATIS, I couldn't believe my ears when the wind was CALM as opposed to what I'm used to. I've literally only flew in calm wind conditions once or twice.
That said, I did really good, but the pattern was busy and ATC had me extend my downwind a couple of times and it kinda threw my altitude/speeds off a bit. My CFI asked if I wanted to solo, and initially I was fully prepared to, but explained I would prefer if she was also fully confident as well, which in turn, makes me more confident.
Initially, I def felt ready to solo, but the busy pattern along with her hesitation made me feel a little less confident, but I explained that I'm okay with waiting because I'm getting exponentially MUCH more confident each time.

Next time!
 
Flying is supposed to be fun. Try to keep that in mind ,don’t beat yourself up. Try to relax and don’t tense up during the landing sequence.
 
Good news, an instructor would not offer solo if you weren’t ready. You hesitated and shut it down. It’s ok, but what is your goal here?
 
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