Landing

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radioguy01

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radioguy01
Hi all,

I am a super new student, with about 5 hours behind the stick. I just want to make sure that I understand exactly what I'm doing when landing.

My question is this: when I'm in the pattern for landing in my trainer C-172 and I have full flaps and idle engine power, this is not enough to keep the plane in the air, correct? Even if I tried to keep the nose level, I would still lose altitude, correct? So when I go to land, I nose down for some speed and to keep my sight picture right, add power as needed, but when I'm just about to land I pull back (my flare), and even if I tried to fly completely straight and level, my plane would drop onto its wheels because with idle power and full flaps the plane will not maintain its altitude. Is that the essence of landing?

Thank you
 
Truthfully I think you're thinking of this too hard. Think of it like this; I will start at midfield downwind to landing. As you're coming in parallel to the runway, you should be at pattern altitude and once you are abeam (abeam meaning you are perpendicular to the point) your aim point on the runway, you should pull your power back to about 1700 RPM (doesn't have to be exact, just get some power out), and when you're below 110knots put in 10 degrees of flaps. Keep the nose level so that you bleed of your speed until you are at about 75-80 knots, at that point let the nose down so you have about a 500fpm descent and you're keeping your speed at 75-80 knots. Now, once you are 45 degrees to your aim point, turn the aircraft on base leg. Once on your base leg add another notch of flaps to 20 degrees and keep the airplane at 70-75 knots. Then, turn onto final and line up with the runway, add your final notch of flaps and slow to 61 knots. Once you're coming in over the threshold of the runway (you should be about 20ft over the pavement), slowly pull your power to idle and start your flare. You should hold the aircraft off the ground just slightly and let it settle itself onto the runway. When you touchdown, you should be in a stalled condition.

If you have no power in, with full flaps, and you're holding the nose level, you will either have to descend or the aircraft will stall.

I hope this helps!
 
If you want to go up add power. I'm you want to come down reduce power. In essence your notion is correct, you want to stall the aircraft at a place where it won't kill you (a foot or two over the runway) but don't think about about it so much, just fly the airplane and do as your instructor tells you, it'll come.
 
radioguy01 said:
Hi all,

I am a super new student, with about 5 hours behind the stick. I just want to make sure that I understand exactly what I'm doing when landing.

My question is this: when I'm in the pattern for landing in my trainer C-172 and I have full flaps and idle engine power, this is not enough to keep the plane in the air, correct? Even if I tried to keep the nose level, I would still lose altitude, correct? So when I go to land, I nose down for some speed and to keep my sight picture right, add power as needed, but when I'm just about to land I pull back (my flare), and even if I tried to fly completely straight and level, my plane would drop onto its wheels because with idle power and full flaps the plane will not maintain its altitude. Is that the essence of landing?

Thank you
Click to expand...

Idle power is never enough to keep the airplane in the air (let's not complicate with gliders and thermals), flaps or not. If you tried to keep your altitude after reducing power, you would continue raising the nose and slow until you stalled. You drop the nose (it does not take much without adding flaps) and approach at a speed above the stall. When you round out, you will fly level for a bit as you trade off that excess speed above the stall (ground effect also lowers your stall speed and gives you more excess to trade). As you slow, you continue raising the nose to try to make it not land as you inch it down toward the pavement. When you cannot stop it from landing any more then you are on the ground. Voila!
 
Just fly and feel it out I agree don't think about it too much.. But it's hard I did that and still do
 
There's nothing wrong with soliciting opinions from anonymous online "experts", but...

1) Run all this by your instructor. He or she will help you with visualizing what he or she is looking for and how to achieve it.

2) You should already have a copy of the Airplane Flying Handbook, available for free download online. This represents the official FAA source material on how to fly, and is a great place to start. The chapter on landing is quite good and I have found little in it to differ with.
 
FastEddieB said:
There's nothing wrong with soliciting opinions from anonymous online "experts", but...

1) Run all this by your instructor. He or she will help you with visualizing what he or she is looking for and how to achieve it.

2) You should already have a copy of the Airplane Flying Handbook, available for free download online. This represents the official FAA source material on how to fly, and is a great place to start. The chapter on landing is quite good and I have found little in it to differ with.
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with this anonymous online "advice". :rofl:
 
radioguy01 said:
Hi all,

I am a super new student, with about 5 hours behind the stick. So when I go to land, I nose down for some speed and to keep my sight picture right, add power as needed, but when I'm just about to land I pull back (my flare), and even if I tried to fly completely straight and level, my plane would drop onto its wheels because with idle power and full flaps the plane will not maintain its altitude. Is that the essence of landing?
Click to expand...
It's the essence of getting ahead of yourself. With five hours you should be trying to nail down how to quickly get trimmed up in slo-flight and then recover again without losing altitude. Then, at the end of the lesson, turn over the controls to your CFI and watch how to fly back to the airport and make the landing. You need a role model to copy later when you have the skills for it. Too many students put the cart before the horse and end up spending thirty or more hours to get soloed because they didn't master the basics first, IMO.

dtuuri
 
dtuuri said:
It's the essence of getting ahead of yourself. With five hours you should be trying to nail down how to quickly get trimmed up in slo-flight and then recover again without losing altitude. Then, at the end of the lesson, turn over the controls to your CFI and watch how to fly back to the airport and make the landing. You need a role model to copy later when you have the skills for it. Too many students put the cart before the horse and end up spending thirty or more hours to get soloed because they didn't master the basics first, IMO.

dtuuri
Click to expand...

+1 learn the maneuvers for straight and level,trim ,turns,then worry about nailing the landings. Try not to get ahead of your instructor.
 
Set your trim for your desired airspeed, adjust your power to control your rate of descent.
 
Henning said:
Set your trim for your desired airspeed, adjust your power to control your rate of descent.
Click to expand...
This and Consult with your instructor for further guidence. One thing that helped me was staring down the runway and while flaring, trying to keep the plane from landing and keeping back pressure. It seems counter intuitive but it really does work
 
radioguy01 said:
Hi all,

I am a super new student, with about 5 hours behind the stick. I just want to make sure that I understand exactly what I'm doing when landing.

My question is this: when I'm in the pattern for landing in my trainer C-172 and I have full flaps and idle engine power, this is not enough to keep the plane in the air, correct? Even if I tried to keep the nose level, I would still lose altitude, correct? So when I go to land, I nose down for some speed and to keep my sight picture right, add power as needed, but when I'm just about to land I pull back (my flare), and even if I tried to fly completely straight and level, my plane would drop onto its wheels because with idle power and full flaps the plane will not maintain its altitude. Is that the essence of landing?

Thank you
Click to expand...



Read the book 'stick and rudder' by Wolfgang Langewiesche.

Then re-program your head, that the throttle is the up and down lever, and the stick is the speed lever.

Speed and elevation are what you are working on. :redface:
 
jordane93 said:
One thing that helped me was staring down the runway and while flaring, trying to keep the plane from landing and keeping back pressure. It seems counter intuitive but it really does work
Click to expand...

I'm glad that helped you, and keep doing it, at least in planes where you can actually see down the runway in the landing attitude.

And if that's what this lad's instructor recommends, that's what he should do.

But, in my opinion, staring down the runway makes it very difficult to discern height. Most texts I've read discourage it, including the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook, as well as Kershner, and others.

Rather than repeat myself, in a while I'll link to an article I wrote on the subject.

But, as always, if it works for you, far be it for me to dissuade you - it's just not what I would teach a fledgling student.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with the "keep the airplane from landing and keeping back pressure" part. I do teach that, just with a different focus.
 
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Here's what my CFI taught me as a visual cue (and there was a Rob Machado video somewhere of him explaining this in more detail but I can't find it now...).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLkS_RcIgTk

On this video watch how the runway 'shape' changes at around 1:12 to 1:14. It's pretty linear all the way down and right about that time it turns more trapezodial. That's my visual cue to start the round out which is basically just flying straight and level over the runway with a little pitch up to bleed off that last bit of speed (and by this time you're at idle power or getting close to it). This is also the spot where I start looking down towards the end of the runway vs at my landing spot that I'm using on final. You'll get used to it in your plane but eventually you'll 'feel' that spot where the wheels are a foot or two off the ground and can better anticipate when you are actually going to land.

Nothing can substitute practice here and your CFI is there to help you. Coming from a newly minted PPL, this is the toughest part to get. I had somewhere around 100 landings logged by the time I solo'd at around 16 hours.
 
There are lots of youtube videos on the subject, some better than others.

I agree with the poster who said not to get ahead of your instructor...learning to fly is a building-block process, with each forward step depending on what you learned from the last step. Break the chain and you slow your progress.

Bob Gardner
 
kenjr said:
Here's what my CFI taught me as a visual cue (and there was a Rob Machado video somewhere of him explaining this in more detail but I can't find it now...).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLkS_RcIgTk

On this video watch how the runway 'shape' changes at around 1:12 to 1:14. It's pretty linear all the way down and right about that time it turns more trapezodial. ...
Click to expand...

That can work.

I have flown any number of planes where, in the landing attitude, I could simply not see the runway at all over the panel/cowling. I've had many shorter students that even in a 172 would have to crane their necks and land before the view disappeared if looking over the nose. And I have a bunch of hours in the back seat of a Citabria where the view straight ahead was the student's back.

So, for each of my students I would put the plane in the landing attitude (pushing down on the tail) and have them see what 30' to 50' ahead of the plane and to the left looked like. That was where I wanted them looking. If I saw them staring over the nose in the flare, I was known to hold up a sectional in front of them to force them to look to the side.

But different strokes, and all that!
 
You need consistency at this point in your training (use the technique your instructor is teaching you). If there are nuances in his teaching you are not fully comprehending you need to communicate with your CFI and get that from him.

Many references have errors in them including the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook. If you would like to consider alternate source to supplement your understanding you should consult with your instructor and get him on board. An excellent soure to consider, with your instructor's consent, might be "See How It Flies" by John Denker. Denker is a physicist that understands the science behind the flying. He explains where his assertions come from and you can find it for free online.

Work with your instructor.
 
OK, and here's an admission...

Watch this video - its me doing a horrible job at a spot landing contest in Blairsville, GA.

http://youtu.be/mWH46K3QvQI?t=1m33s

Truth be told, you can generally track where someone is really looking by watching their head movement. It's very rare to just shift your eyes while holding your head stationary, especially when landing.

So, in real life when I have a totally unobstructed view forward, it seems like I do look forward for the most part. I think I use peripheral cues as to height, since I do know at any given point how high I am.

So, its never as black and white as one would think!
 
My worst landing in the last half a decade was during a spot landing contest, as Murphey can attest since she was judging. And my two passengers who wondered if I'd had a tail strike. Hahaha.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
As I said, my ability to land without being able to see over the nose resulted in several paying jobs over the years that no one else wanted to do.

Including flying this puppy from AZ almost all the way back to Copperhill, TN:

11917888844_f05b1136d1_z.jpg


As an aside, try to avoid Hereford, TX in your travels.

Really.

Anyone want to venture a guess why?
 
What did your instructor say when you asked him/her these questions? That's usually the best place to start when you have questions about what you're doing (or supposed to do, or not supposed to do) in the airplane during primary training.
 
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