Landings better when I'm not watching?

[jsstevens]

I haven't done a ton of flying this year, but I'm noticing what seems to be a trend: My landings are much better when I'm paying attention to something else.

Two cases:
1) I took a friend and his kids to the LSA Expo in Sebring. It was a busy place with a whole conga line of folks flying from the lake over mid-field, going in the left downwind for 18 and following instructions as to where to land. (Pink dot at an intersection, etc.) I was set to land at the pink dot when the controller told me to land on the numbers. I pulled the rest of 40 degrees of flaps, slipped (gasp!) nicely in and chirped the stall horn just as i touched down - greaser! I was so busy getting down and managing airspeed that I wasn't thinking about centerline, flare, crosswind or any of that.
2) Today I took a friend and we flew the shuttle landing strip (great experience!) and then tooled up the coast to New Smyrna Beach ( KEVB ). I'd never been there before and I was concentrating on which runway (they were using 29 for landings, 25 for closed traffic and 20 for takeoffs), staying under the class C shelf of Daytona and another plane ahead of me headed for runway 25. I used all 40 degrees of flaps, chirped the stall horn just before a very smooth touch down and made the first turnoff. Again, I was concentrating on several things but NOT centerline, airspeed, crosswind or flare.

Unfortunately, on return to Orlando (KORL) I was watching all those things and flared just slightly high. I heard the stall horn and waited... thump. Not terrible by any stretch, but not as pretty.

Having said all that, do you have similar experiences? Namely that your landings are better when you're busy with other things than the specifics of landing?

For full disclosure: I am a PP-ASEL with ~160 hours total time and have 9.1 hours total this year.

John

 

[TMetzinger]

Um... I bet that when you are "surprised" or "react" to some distraction during landing that in reality you end up hyper-focused on the landing, but only during those few seconds where the airplane meets the earth (which is where it counts the most).

By contrast, it can become easy to get "bored" with a perfectly centered and smooth approach and you can forget that you have to fly it all the way to and past touchdown.

I don't recommend trying to distract yourself in the pursuit of better landings.

 

[alfadog]

Sounds like your body "knows" better than your mind at this point. We practice to integrate mind and body. You should be able to focus entirely on the landing with only a better result than being distracted and letting it happen on "autopilot'. Or, beyond that, not focus at all, just land, achieving the zen of it.