Looking for a Teacher

T

TheDave2

Filing Flight Plan
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Jul 26, 2013
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JustDave
I feel I need a Teacher, not an Instructor. I would hope you all would know the difference.

In another thread NineThreeKilo said:
Eh, engineers ALWAYS take forever to solo, they are often too liniear, too 1 or 0 types, the landing flare is a HUGE pain to teach them, feeling the aircraft for a gradual back pressure to hold her off comes very hard to most of those types Ive flown with.
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Well, that's me to a 'T'. Solo after 40 hours, 300 landings at 80 hours. 97% on the written, just lacking 2.8 hours of XC solo and 2.5 hours of instrument/hood work plus pre-test cramming, er, ah refreshing :confused:.

But I've got a landing problem.

Hard time controlling all the throttle / speed / pitch / aim point / rudder / flair / altitude, etc. My CFI says it's will just happen. Right. My best landing is equal to my CFI's worst. I'm stabilized on Final (if it's long enough) until I'm over the numbers, then it all comes apart.

All the book learning and "Instructing" I've gotten just doesn't cut it for me. I learn by doing. One step at a time. You tell me what we will do, show me it, tell me what happened, I try it. Show me again, not me try again (and again ...) because If I didn't do it right the first time, why would I even think if trying it again without seeing it done correctly as I would have just done the same bad way again.

Try to teach me a totally new routine that takes 3 or more steps (of things that I've never done) and throw them all in at once and I'll never do it. Have me do step 1 until I master it, then do step 2 until I master it, combine 1 & 2 until I do that, then show me step 3 until I master, back to 2-3, then 1-2-3, etc. Otherwise as soon as you would have shown me steps 1-2-3-4, I'll have forgotten what #1 was.

An analogy I would use is catching a baseball. Throwing it at 90 mph and expect me to catch it, even after 100 tries, is silly. Sure I'll catch a few of them. So what. Start at 5 mph. Add angles. Add bounce, etc. Then increase the speed.


Right now I'm in a negative feedback loop. The more I try, the worse I get. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Well, ok. I hope you all get where I've coming from. Any help ?
 
Where are you? Perhaps we have a member close by whom you can visit with in person. Making the connection one on one might do the trick.
 
You are thinking too hard. Stop thinking about it and land the plane.
 
I had an issue like that. Found two teachers in my area that hammered home power and airspeed settings. I also used a DVD called "Art and Science of Better Landings". Both these things helped me. Good luck!
 
What you are asking for, if I understand it correctly will be almost impossible to get, they way you want it. Each landing is going to be a compilation of slightly different circumstances (sometimes not so slightly), and your technique, while basically the same each time,same each landing will be different. There will never be "one method" to landing smoothly and without damage to the plane/you /passengers....

When you first learned to drive a car (maybe your parent's car) and you were able to go out on your own, think of your first trips to the store/mall. Parking spaces looked "not quite wide enough" to get the familt truckster in without risk of damage to something. So you end up parking at the outer edges of the lot. With experience, you became more amd more comfortable with the sight picture and your awareness of "where the corners" of the vehicle are. Afte a while, you were able to get that behemoth into the same spot as the folks.

The bottom line. Get used to the sight picture. Stabilize the approach. If the sight picture is unfavorable, adjust. Keep adjusting all the way to touchdown, or until you feel go-around is the best course of action.
After a while, the adjustments should come without you having to think, just as you are able to keep the car centered on your side of the road, even an unfamiliar road. (You can do that, right?:))

Wash,rinse, repeat until satisfied.
 
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1. In no-wind conditions, get with your CFI on a long RWY and fly it very slow, down to a foot or less off the runway, as slow as you can, reducing power with wings level until it lands. Feel that cushion of air under the airfoil in ground effect, and feel it when it gives up and lets the wing stall onto the ground. You'll get the feel that way, then check the exact numbers later after you master the feel. But never depend on numbers totally.

2. Or, just walk into another school for a phase check but don't tell them about your problem, then watch the new CFI, and try it. Try 1. above, first.
 
Speaking as an engineer AND a musician....landing an airplane is NOT analysis problem. You have to "see" the aircraft's motions and feel the inputs. It's much closer to playing a sonata (or baseball) than designing a filter. It's not something you will get by thinking about it harder. Quite the opposite.

Just like you don't play the violin by analyzing the vibrating string, mechanical amplifier, etc. You play the violin by listening to the sound you are making and modifying your motions to make it better. Music is all about sensing your output and knowing through muscle memory how to correct it. Musicians who attempt to play open loop or in terms of positions on the string invariably suck donkeys; you can tell by listening to the sound who they are. This is true for any instrument; I'm only using the violin as a fairly obvious example.

Landing an airplane isn't exactly like playing an instrument either. But it's a whole lot closer to that than anything you do in engineering.

You'll "get" landings when you truly see what the airplane is doing. The trajectory along the ground separately from attitude, for instance. No gauges....
 
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Well, what you describe is the way I teach: ie, step 1, then step 2, etc.
I'm old school and that was the way we did it back then when things were simple.
Primary training was focused on mastery of the basic controls. The effects of the four basic controls. step by step, one by one until mastery of each separate control before trying to coordinating them all into a landing.

How can I help you?
 
There are a few of us around here who are your type of instructor and would be happy to fly with you -- for our usual fees. Where are you?
 
The best way to land is not to .......meaning hold it off as long as possible. You are dreading the flair and/or the landing so much that you are in a rush to get it over with( my guess).
 
Justdave, you asked for a teacher and I am one in real life so here goes my advice on how to learn how to land. If you are an engineer you probably are a linear learner meaning you need things broken down step by step in order for them to make sense. So here are the steps as best I understand them to making a successful landing.

First, maintain approach speed within +/- 5 knots. As you approach the end of the runway, pull the throttle to idle. As you feel the airplane start to sink towards the runway, apply enough back pressure to level out the plane. Do not initiate the flare just yet as you will still have to much airspeed and the plane will float at this point. Then allow the plane to bleed off the airspeed by simply maintaining level flight a few feet above the runway. As the speed bleeds off the plane will again sink towards the runway and at this point you slowly pull back on the yoke. At this point, think of the flare as assuring the main wheels touch first, and pull back to accomplish this. Then once down, keep pulling back to slow the plane down.

I'm sure nothing I just wrote is new to you and landing just requires tremendous practice and patience. Everything clicked for me when I was told that te airplane will land when it wants to and not before. Now the teacher in me says that you may benefit from writing the steps you use when landing( you know the things you say in your head when landing) and reviewing them with your instructor to see if they match what he or she believes are the important steps to a successful landing. Once you both agree on the steps required, keep reviewing them and saying them out loud during your flights. The gift of being a linear thinker is that once the steps make sense, you will naturally internalize them and won't have trouble remembering them. Hope this helps!
 
He's looking for a digital answer to an analog question. The keys are good fundamentals and properly supervised/coached practice. You can explain it until the cows come home but they gotta see and feel it to learn how to make the adjustments and corrections.

That's why following the advice about slow-flying the length of the runway is so important. The drill greatly expands the critical time for learning and internalizing the necessary adjustments and a good landing always results when power is reduced just slightly.
 
jspilot said:
First, maintain approach speed within +/- 5 knots. As you approach the end of the runway, pull the throttle to idle. As you feel the airplane start to sink towards the runway, apply enough back pressure to level out the plane. Do not initiate the flare just yet as you will still have to much airspeed and the plane will float at this point. Then allow the plane to bleed off the airspeed by simply maintaining level flight a few feet above the runway. As the speed bleeds off the plane will again sink towards the runway and at this point you slowly pull back on the yoke. At this point, think of the flare as assuring the main wheels touch first, and pull back to accomplish this. Then once down, keep pulling back to slow the plane down.
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:yeahthat:

I felt your pain, long after I solo'd. The three "insights" that made it come together for me was:

- Leveling out is a separate act from flaring. Level out until the plane starts to sink from lack of airspeed, then gently apply increasing back pressure to flare (just enough to maintain the correct attitude).
- As you level out, look down the runway, not down the nose. This will give you the correct sight picture in the flare.
- After you pull the power, make sure the plane is still aligned with the centerline using the rudders. The plane I fly is somewhat trimmed to compensate for the P factor. Thus when I pull the plug the plane yaws to the right, and the landing becomes all kinds of ugly unless I apply left rudder to compensate (unless prevailing winds dictate otherwise).
 
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