Newer student struggling with landings....

[jeff20578]

A quick overview. I have roughly 13 hours in the air with about 20 landings under my belt.

I'd like to think I am a pretty quick learner when it comes to "hands on" things. I feel like I can grasp all the maneuvers I have been thought at this point. I am comfortable with my takeoffs and flying in the pattern. I cant seem to grasp the proper flare and keeping that nose going down the center line! I seem to flare to early or pitch up the nose too much. My instructor has been telling me that I must make small adjustments while before or after the flare. It is a bit frustrating at the moment, only because it looks like an easy thing to do (but knowing its a life learning experience).

Are there any tips that couple possibly help me with this learning experience? Or is this just something I will only learn from repetition?

Thanks

 

[MSPAviator]

20 landings recorded in your logbook in 13 hours total? You need more. Take off, fly the pattern, touch and go, repeat. I had over 100 landings in my logbook when I solo'ed around 11hrs.

What are you flying? You will float or balloon up if you have too much airspeed.

What length of runway are you landing at? If there is one nearby that is really short, go there to practice. A little less than 3000ft. would be cool.

 

[JB1842]

I had some of the same issues. I learned to let the plane "catch up" to my control movements, and to let the plane settle, escpecially in the flare. If the flare is too high, let the plane settle, level out, and then slowly pull up the nose. I'm also learning in a tailwheel, so I'm not sure how much this will help. I'm sure someone with thousands upon thousands of landings will be better at giving advice (I only have around 150 landings).

 

[Skip Miller]

Are there any tips that couple possibly help me with this learning experience? Or is this just something I will only learn from repetition?

Thanks

All you need is practice. I came home from a particularly frustrating lesson and announced to my wife that it was impossible for anyone anywhere to land an airplane. but after a while it clicked, kinda like learning to ride a bike.

Charles Schulz said it best:

-Skip

 

[jeff20578]

Sorry.

Im flying a 152. I have been told my speed is a bit fast sometimes, so we have been adding an extra set f flaps to try and bleed of any excess speed.

 

[Henning]

A quick overview. I have roughly 13 hours in the air with about 20 landings under my belt.

I'd like to think I am a pretty quick learner when it comes to "hands on" things. I feel like I can grasp all the maneuvers I have been thought at this point. I am comfortable with my takeoffs and flying in the pattern. I cant seem to grasp the proper flare and keeping that nose going down the center line! I seem to flare to early or pitch up the nose too much. My instructor has been telling me that I must make small adjustments while before or after the flare. It is a bit frustrating at the moment, only because it looks like an easy thing to do (but knowing its a life learning experience).

Are there any tips that couple possibly help me with this learning experience? Or is this just something I will only learn from repetition?

Thanks

Go taxi down the runway a few times just fast enough to carry the nose wheel off the ground in landing attitude do that several times, a half hours worth or so. Look out front, pay attention to you peripheral cues... Just get that sight picture ingrained in your mind.

 

[Henning]

Sorry.

Im flying a 152. I have been told my speed is a bit fast sometimes, so we have been adding an extra set f flaps to try and bleed of any excess speed.

You should have full flaps in every time before the flare. If your instructor is having you use partial flaps at this point, they're screwing you.

 

[rottydaddy]

Sounds like you're "feeling for the runway"... it's a normal beginner problem.

There's no substitute for just doing it many times until it "clicks", but the closest thing I've seen to a "plug-in formula" is : make sure the airspeed is correct when you cross the threshold, know what attitude you should see at touchdown, and coax the airplane into that attitude as you pull the power and it begins to settle in ground effect. Make a little change, give it a moment to respond, make another change if needed. It's very hard to force an airplane to land when it's not ready, and it makes for bad landings.
There should be a couple of seconds where you are just holding it, letting it settle on. But you need to be holding it in the right attitude, at the right airspeed. Crosswinds require other considerations, but you won't get anywhere with that stuff until you can land predictably and well in a straight wind or no wind.

Even more important than all of that stuff is to look at the far end of the runway at the critical moment- this helps you develop the right "sight picture" and keeps you from over-focusing on the intended landing spot (which in turn can make you neglect your peripheral vision). Eyes outside, Big Picture, etc. I don't look at anything on the panel after I come over the fence, no matter what I'm flying or what the wind is up to. And once I know I've got my target spot more or less nailed, I look ahead, not at the spot.

 

[dell30rb]

Good plane to learn in.

For a normal landing, 20 degrees of flaps, and 65 kts is a good starting point for your approach. it is hard to learn how to flare, it is easier to learn if you start the flare from the same height above the runway and at the same airspeed each time.

One more thought, have you done many power off stalls with landing flaps in? My landings got much better after I practiced power off stalls while holding an altitude precisely. A drill you should do (at altitude) is to set up a descent at your normal approach configuration (65kts and 20 degrees flaps, 1400rpm) then pick an altitude to simulate the runway. When you reach that altitude, pull the power all the way off and maintain that altitude precisely until the plane stalls. If you cant perfect that drill you don't yet have the skills to make good landings

 

[somorris]

When you are flaring, look out in front of the airplane about like you would when driving a car. If you look too far out or too close, it will be hard to get the flare right at the right altitude. When I was having a similar problem, this was told to me by an instructor with thousands of hours instructing and it works (from Wikipedia):
"Evelyn Bryan Johnson (born November 4, 1909), nicknamed “Mama Bird”, was born in Corbin, Kentucky, United States. She is the female pilot with the most number of flying hours in the world. She is a Colonel in the Civil Air Patrol and a founding member of the Morristown, TN Civil Air Patrol squadron. Johnson, who learned to fly in 1944, logged 57,635.4 flying hours, and is the oldest flight instructor in the world."

A wonderful and gracious lady. Thank you Mama Bird.

 

[Clark1961]

Even more important than all of that stuff is to look at the far end of the runway at the critical moment- this helps you develop the right "sight picture" and keeps you from over-focusing on the intended landing spot

At some point you'll have to do it as described above. Fight it all you want (I did and still do) but eventually you'll look at the end of the runway...

I always try to spot the landing by looking at the runway underneath me. I am good at judging heights. The killer is that closure rate is a tougher call and I tend to round-out early. When I do it right and keep the eyes caged forward everything works just fine. At 500 hours I'm still telling myself that someday I'll learn to fly after some of my landings. (haven't broken a plane yet - that I know of...)

 

[gismo]

A quick overview. I have roughly 13 hours in the air with about 20 landings under my belt.

I'd like to think I am a pretty quick learner when it comes to "hands on" things. I feel like I can grasp all the maneuvers I have been thought at this point. I am comfortable with my takeoffs and flying in the pattern. I cant seem to grasp the proper flare and keeping that nose going down the center line! I seem to flare to early or pitch up the nose too much. My instructor has been telling me that I must make small adjustments while before or after the flare. It is a bit frustrating at the moment, only because it looks like an easy thing to do (but knowing its a life learning experience).

Are there any tips that couple possibly help me with this learning experience? Or is this just something I will only learn from repetition?

Thanks

First of all, you may need to adjust your expectations if you think you're going to master landing an airplane in 20 attempts.

Part of the problem is that you need to accomplish three relatively independent things simultaneously while the effectiveness of the controls at the same time the effectiveness of the controls is diminishing.

1) You need to maintain the runway centerline. This can be a lot more complicated than it sounds, especially if the wind is shifting. One related issue I struggled with is the need to bank the airplane into the wind while you're close to the ground. Once you get comfortable in that situation, staying over the centerline is nothing more than steering the airplane with small but increasing (remember the controls are loosing effectiveness as you slow down) aileron inputs.

2) You need to get the fuselage aligned with the runway. Obviously this requires some rudder and opposite aileron and since this is pretty much the only time you are likely to apply that combination of control inputs during primary training it should be no surprise that you're not very good at it yet. I suspect that this skill along with skill 1 above can best be learned by NOT landing during a low pass over the majority of the runway several times. That not only removes the need to share mental bandwidth with the task of flaring, it also eliminates much of the anxiety associated with attempting to land.

3) You must transition from a descent at a constant rate/angle with constant airspeed and pitch attitude to nearly but not quite level flight with decreasing airspeed (and control effectiveness), increasing pitch attitude, and a slowly decreasing rate of descent. This needs to occur within a fairly short time lest the airspeed decay too far before the wheels touch the runway.

BTW, Rottydaddy's post gave the best explanation of the process IMO. Bruce Chien has described a similar process he calls the "Butt sink method". If I remember his advice correctly this involves arresting the descent a few feet above the runway and holding the elevator steady until the pilot feels that his posterior has started to "sink" at which point more elevator back pressure is added to arrest the sink, repeating that until the main wheels touch. Add Rotty's "look at the far end of the runway" (ideally you'd look at the horizon but since that's usually blocked by obstacles the far end becomes the most practical substitute). When you hold your gaze on the horizon or some fixed distant point ahead, your rate of descent becomes far more apparent than when you look closer in. You might grasp this better if you have your CFI perform a descent to the runway from about 10' AGL with varying (slow) rates of descent while you look ahead at the runway end and see if you can see the effect I'm describing.

 

[jpower]

A quick overview. I have roughly 13 hours in the air with about 20 landings under my belt.

I'd like to think I am a pretty quick learner when it comes to "hands on" things. I feel like I can grasp all the maneuvers I have been thought at this point. I am comfortable with my takeoffs and flying in the pattern. I cant seem to grasp the proper flare and keeping that nose going down the center line! I seem to flare to early or pitch up the nose too much. My instructor has been telling me that I must make small adjustments while before or after the flare. It is a bit frustrating at the moment, only because it looks like an easy thing to do (but knowing its a life learning experience).

Are there any tips that couple possibly help me with this learning experience? Or is this just something I will only learn from repetition?

Thanks

A lot repetition, as others have said.

One thing that may help is to look at it slightly differently. My instructor put a different idea of what you're supposed to do on landing in my head, and it worked very well. Don't try to "flare" the airplane, so to speak. That puts an image in my head of an airplane flying down the runway maintaining altitude at a very high angle of attack--an impossible task. You'll just, as you said, pull the nose up too high. My instructor told me from the get go, "Don't think about this flaring hogwash. All you have to do is take the airplane to one foot above the runway and hold it there for as long as you possibly can. The airplane will land itself."

"Flaring" and my instructor's "method" are effectively two different ways of looking at the exact same process.

Also, do you tend to have the nose to one side of the centerline? Perhaps the left?

 

[jpower]

1) You need to maintain the runway centerline. This can be a lot more complicated than it sounds, especially if the wind is shifting. One related issue I struggled with is the need to bank the airplane into the wind while you're close to the ground. Once you get comfortable in that situation, staying over the centerline is nothing more than steering the airplane with small but increasing (remember the controls are loosing effectiveness as you slow down) aileron inputs.

Are you dealing with crosswinds? If so, it's great practice to find a nice long runway (I do this at KESN, which as a good 4500 - 5500 feet of asphalt) and do some low passes at a few feet AGL, maintaining crosswind correction each pass. There's no better way to get more crosswind practice for your money.

 

[Henning]

Another thing is to get your trim set down final. Lots of people have trouble flaring the plane because they are using to much muscle already just holding the nose up coming down the slope. They just have to use too much strength to have finesse.

 

[gismo]

A lot repetition, as others have said.

Repetition by itself will not necessarily improve skill. Repetition leads to consistency but if you are repeating mistakes you will just get consistent mistakes. Your instructor's method had merit though.

 

[DaleB]

Another thing is to get your trim set down final. Lots of people have trouble flaring the plane because they are using to much muscle already just holding the nose up coming down the slope. They just have to use too much strength to have finesse.

I was having a lot of trouble landing well the way CFI #1 wanted it done (1700 PRM all the way until the flare). CFI #2 taught me a new method... one notch of flaps, one crank of trim (Cherokee with th e overhead window crank). Next not of flaps, another crank of trim. Worked great, it relieved all the back pressure I was having to hold as we crossed the numbers and I was able to land decently instead of over-flaring and floating.

Now I'm on CFI #3, school #2, airplane #3 (CFIs 1 & 2 worked for flight school #1 which went belly up). Trim is now between the seats, runway is half as wide and the entire pattern is over dense population... so I'm adjusting, but I think if the wx ever clears so I can fly again I'll nail it. I'm at 15 hours, 36 landings and still working on it.

 

[NineThreeKilo]

20 landings is nothing, keep going young grasshopper

 

[poadeleted20]

The key to a good flare is airspeed control on final, and the key to airspeed control is proper use of trim. Knowing the proper pitch attitude for "on speed" on final is also very important. If you trim so the airplane's nose doesn't rise or fall when you let go of the yoke, and then let the trim hold the speed while you use small power adjustments to manage glide path, everything becomes much easier. In addition, if you keep the speed down where it should be (1.3 Vs0 adjusted for weight), you won't be overcontrolling as much (less sensitive pitch control), and you'll have less of a flare to make to go from final approach attitude to touchdown attitude (less nose-down attitude on final).

As for keeping the nose pointed down the runway, that's all about feet -- use of the rudder pedals to point the nose where you want it. Use aileron only to manage lateral drift, not to turn/point the nose.

Finally, the most important thing is that you get good landings the same way you get to Carnegie Hall -- "Practice, my boy, practice."

 

[bbchien]

I think Jeff is at the stage where he needs to recognize that when the runway is rushing up to hit him, is just about always the same number of feet, and he needs to consistently start doing the same things at that very point (because it will always reproduce, some excepts to be learened later on), at the same airpseed and configuration. As in, "when to routinely start the flare"

Once the flare entry, energy, and altitude are consistent, the rest can be worked out rather quickly.

 

[jspilot]

The breakthrough with my landings did not happen with only 20 in the book so I'd give it some time. Two thoughts really helped me during landing training. First, I was flaring to high all the time and having the dreaded thud landing when the airplane drops. My instructor told me to keep the nose pointing down at the runway for as long as possible during short final and then level the plane off just over the runway. When the airspeed bleeds off then you start to flare. I think I was use to the large commercial planes style of landing where they are flaring practically on short final!

The other key to a good flare is patience. This was so hard for me as I kept trying to force the plane to land. Again I got great advice from my instructor. He told me "you can't make the plane land. It will land when it has the right speed. Think of the of the flare as assuring the main wheels touch first when the airspeed is gone." That advice totally changed the way I viewed the flare.

 

[jesse]

A quick overview. I have roughly 13 hours in the air with about 20 landings under my belt.

I'd like to think I am a pretty quick learner when it comes to "hands on" things. I feel like I can grasp all the maneuvers I have been thought at this point. I am comfortable with my takeoffs and flying in the pattern. I cant seem to grasp the proper flare and keeping that nose going down the center line! I seem to flare to early or pitch up the nose too much. My instructor has been telling me that I must make small adjustments while before or after the flare. It is a bit frustrating at the moment, only because it looks like an easy thing to do (but knowing its a life learning experience).

Are there any tips that couple possibly help me with this learning experience? Or is this just something I will only learn from repetition?

Thanks

I've found this to work well:

1.) I'll teach the student how to fly a foot above the runway with me running the throttle. We don't move on until they've mastered that. We just do low approach after low approach.

2.) After that I'll tell them to get the airplane a foot above the runway. I then tell them I am pulling power to idle and I want them to maintain one foot above the runway as long as they possibly can.

3.) They touch down with a nice landing and suddenly get it

The big problem is that you don't get much time learning the most difficult part of landing. The most difficult part is really the last 5 seconds of a normal landing. You've only done this 20 times. So you only have 1.6 minutes of practice doing something that is quite difficult, no wonder you don't have it figured out yet. I take that 5 seconds and turn it into about 40 seconds for each landing.

A typical lesson might involve a hour of pattern work with about 10 landings. That gives you 50 seconds of flare/round-out training. My technique would give you 400 seconds.

A quick overview. I have roughly 13 hours in the air with about 20 landings under my belt.

I'd like to think I am a pretty quick learner when it comes to "hands on" things. I feel like I can grasp all the maneuvers I have been thought at this point. I am comfortable with my takeoffs and flying in the pattern. I cant seem to grasp the proper flare and keeping that nose going down the center line! I seem to flare to early or pitch up the nose too much. My instructor has been telling me that I must make small adjustments while before or after the flare. It is a bit frustrating at the moment, only because it looks like an easy thing to do (but knowing its a life learning experience).

Are there any tips that couple possibly help me with this learning experience? Or is this just something I will only learn from repetition?

Thanks

I think Jeff is at the stage where he needs to recognize that when the runway is rushing up to hit him, is just about always the same number of feet, and he needs to consistently start doing the same things at that very point (because it will always reproduce, some excepts to be learened later on), at the same airpseed and configuration. As in, "when to routinely start the flare"

Once the flare entry, energy, and altitude are consistent, the rest can be worked out rather quickly.

Bruce has it nailed. The big issue is that you need to get good at getting down to the runway in a stable consistent configuration.

I tend to teach people to get right down to the runway. Other instructors teach people to start to flare much earlier and bleed off energy much sooner then I do. Typically they're teaching the students to carry lots of energy which is why they can do that. I don't teach my students to land airplanes too fast so there is no reason for them to "flare" until the last moment.

 

[denverpilot]

Are you dealing with crosswinds? If so, it's great practice to find a nice long runway (I do this at KESN, which as a good 4500 - 5500 feet of asphalt) and do some low passes at a few feet AGL, maintaining crosswind correction each pass. There's no better way to get more crosswind practice for your money.

I asked for a long landing today on my last one in squirrelly crosswinds for just that reason. I also didn't feel like taxiing behind the Gobosh on the Alpha taxiway while he tried not to get flipped over.

Put me wayyyy up ahead of him by a few turnoffs and closer to the self serve pumps.

Flaps 40 and a handful of power until chopping it to land just before A9 on 35R and off the high speed there. Self serve is up near A1.

Just flew along with all that drag hanging out, wiggling that rudder and keeping her over the runway.

Felt "funny" right at the end, as the controller announced "Wind 130 @ 7" right about the time I touched down. That explained the "butt drop feeling" right as I chopped to land.

Silly gusty crosswind became a quartering tailwind right then. Then came around fully out of the South. They changed runways a few minutes later. Twitchy.

 

[alfadog]

20 landings is nothing, keep going young grasshopper

Seriously. I can do 20 landings in one session. See my YT vid of F45

NineThreeKilo, I will take your Kung Fu and raise you a Tao.

And remember when it comes to training...

The way that can be spoken is not the Way.
The way that can be taught is not the Way.

So learn whatever way you instructor uses to teach (and if you do not like his way, find another instructor). Learn his way well, then practice and practice and practice. Soon you will glimpse the Way and can spend the rest of your life as a pilot pursuing it.

 

[PPC1052]

Lot's of talk about repitition. That's true. As you are doing it, the final approach is essential.

1) Make sure you have your airspeed nailed. Typicalically 65 knots. I really mean this. Make sure it's established at 65 every time, and you can maintain that until you pull the power.

2) Trim the airplane properly. Make sure it is trimed for 65 knots so that it will maintain this speed. This is also extremely important. It will really, really help you.

These will really help you in every landing that you do.

In otherwords, pay attention to what Cap'n Ron says!

 

[jnmeade]

Try to always stay ahead of the airplane. That is, it does what you want and expect it to do rather than you react to what it is doing. Start on downwind. Reduce variables by only doing one thing at a time to the extent you can, that let's you stabilize after every input and you know what input produced what result. As others have said, trim, trim, trim till it's second nature.

 

[Meanee]

Took me about 50 landings until it clicked. And for me, looking at the far end of the runway was the problem, not a solution. When I did that, I flared too high and dropped the plane on the runway. After that, I look at my intended touchdown spot and able to flare nice and low. Coming in too fast is still a problem for me once in a while, but I can deal with that.

I think I could've learned proper landings faster if my CFI actually showed them to me. This is CFI #2. The CFI #1 never really taught me how to land and we were fighting for controls every landing. And that went on for 13 hours. CFI #2 I guess assumed that I learned something and never really showed landings, just did adjustments for me. He landed it once himself and that's when it clicked for me.

So, 20 is still too low. I am sure one of your future landings, you will think "Ahh, so THAT's how it's done!" and you will be good to go.

 

[jpower]

Repetition by itself will not necessarily improve skill. Repetition leads to consistency but if you are repeating mistakes you will just get consistent mistakes. Your instructor's method had merit though.

"Practice" would have been a better word

 

[jnmeade]

And for me, looking at the far end of the runway was the problem, not a solution. When I did that, I flared too high and dropped the plane on the runway. After that, I look at my intended touchdown spot and able to flare nice and low. Coming in too fast is still a problem for me once in a while, but I can deal with that.

.

I look at the touchdown spot coming in and at a certain time, no later than when I start the flare, I transition to looking at the horizon. I'm sorry, I can't agree that looking at the landing spot is the solution and looking at the horizon the problem. I have to suggest it's otherwise for everyone I've every taught.

Coming in too fast. AT the time of touchdown? If already at full flaps, there's no solution there. Pull the nose up and float the speed off can get a little interesting in a gusty crosswind.

 

[colomtnflyer]

I think it's interesting when student pilots and even more experienced ones talk about 'lifting' or 'raising' the nose of the aircraft to create the flare.

IF-
1) the airspeed is nominally close
2) your altitude is within a few feet of the ground
3) the aircraft is safely aligned with the centerline

THEN-
All that needs to be done is gently LOWER THE TAIL, as power is reduced.

Yes, the sight picture will make it appear as if the nose has risen, but in actuality, it's altitude above the ground should remain constant, while the mains gently descend to the surface.

This was a very successful description for my students, for what it's worth. YMMV....

 

[Threefingeredjack]

First I must say I am not a CFI, although I have been check pilot in the military, but one thing you might think about is RELAX!!!. 20 landings is just a scratch on the surface. All the advice above seems valid, but at this stage I might suggest you are putting a lot of pressure on yourself because of your expectations as a "quick learner". Landings are absolutely about speed, attitude, configuration and all the rest, but they are also 100% feel. Relax, landing is the hardest part, but it is also the most fun.

 

[John Collins]

Here is a response I proffered on the askacfi forum:

Some individuals have difficulty determining whether or not they are sinking or rising and therefore don’t sense the ground coming up quickly or don’t see the balloon occurring until it is too late. I have found a technique that allows such a student to see the the sink / rise in their peripheral vision. Standing out on the Tarmac and focusing on the horizon, have the student bend their knees and observe the sink or rise as they lower and raise themselves. Once they understand what to look for and to recognize when the airplane is sinking, rising or staying level, point out to them while they are in the cockpit and on the ground to focus off to one side to recognize what the sight picture is on the ground. I usually use runway light fixtures as a reference.

I also instruct the student to not attempt to make the round out all in one motion. From the glide as they pass over the threshold, I have them make a noticeable pitch up motion, so they start to arrest the descent rate, but are still nose down. I have them make successive increases in pitch to break the flare up into several parts. I have them use their newly found ground skills to estimate their height above the ground and to achieve a level off over the runway. Then each time they sense they are sinking, I have them arrest the sink. By repeating this process the nose slowly comes up as the airplane sinks to the ground, and eventually the main wheels touch in a nose high attitude. I also show them to recognize the balloon and to release the back pressure so that the aircraft stops ascending and levels off and then continue the landing process. Of course if things get towards my safety limits, we go around and try again.

I have found that breaking up the process into a series of steps helps some difficult students learn to land.

 

[gismo]

I also instruct the student to not attempt to make the round out all in one motion. From the glide as they pass over the threshold, I have them make a noticeable pitch up motion, so they start to arrest the descent rate, but are still nose down. I have them make successive increases in pitch to break the flare up into several parts. I have them use their newly found ground skills to estimate their height above the ground and to achieve a level off over the runway. Then each time they sense they are sinking, I have them arrest the sink. By repeating this process the nose slowly comes up as the airplane sinks to the ground, and eventually the main wheels touch in a nose high attitude. I also show them to recognize the balloon and to release the back pressure so that the aircraft stops ascending and levels off and then continue the landing process. Of course if things get towards my safety limits, we go around and try again.

I have found that breaking up the process into a series of steps helps some difficult students learn to land.

Sounds suspiciously like Bruce's "Butt Sink" method to me.

 

[jeff20578]

I have to thanks everyone that has taken the time to post their thoughts/tips for landings.

I understand 20 landings is not nearly enough to have a full grasp yet. I was basically looking for a different view from what my CFI has been trying to teach me. I feel that the more information I can have, the better I will be able to understand.

I do like the idea of rolling down the runway with the nose off the ground. Also, I am thinking that more low passes may be beneficial.

I also see that speed is very crucial and I need to make sure that I am not exceeding 60-65kts.

Looking forward to practicing much more this week!

 

[denverpilot]

I have to thanks everyone that has taken the time to post their thoughts/tips for landings.

I understand 20 landings is not nearly enough to have a full grasp yet. I was basically looking for a different view from what my CFI has been trying to teach me. I feel that the more information I can have, the better I will be able to understand.

I do like the idea of rolling down the runway with the nose off the ground. Also, I am thinking that more low passes may be beneficial.

I also see that speed is very crucial and I need to make sure that I am not exceeding 60-65kts.

Looking forward to practicing much more this week!

Rome wasn't built in a day!

You'll get it.

 

[Terry]

One thing that helped me a lot was not being in a hurry to land.

The second thing was remembering to look at the end of the runway and just be patient and wait for the plane to land.

That is what helped me a lot.

The one other thing was going to the airport and doing touch and go's and touch and go's and touch an go's. I would do that for a solid hour and then return the next day and do it again.

I almost quit after 8 hours of instruction because I couldn't seem to get the hang of it. Then one day, it all came together.

Good Luck,
Terry

 

[Meanee]

I'm sorry, I can't agree that looking at the landing spot is the solution and looking at the horizon the problem. I have to suggest it's otherwise for everyone I've every taught.

Yup, and that's how I was taught. Look at the horizon. But it simply did not work for me at all. I tried that countless times and flared too high. So for some reason, looking at landing spot works well for me, and helps me even more during clearing an obstacle. Even my CFI is surprised at that. He taught me to look further out, but after a while, he saw that my way works for me and left it at that.

And coming in too fast is not like I am attempting to land in 110kt. Just slightly faster than recommended speed. I end up floating a little bit before touching down. Doesn't happen often, and recently I manage to control my speed better.

 

[gismo]

Yup, and that's how I was taught. Look at the horizon. But it simply did not work for me at all. I tried that countless times and flared too high. So for some reason, looking at landing spot works well for me, and helps me even more during clearing an obstacle. Even my CFI is surprised at that. He taught me to look further out, but after a while, he saw that my way works for me and left it at that.

And coming in too fast is not like I am attempting to land in 110kt. Just slightly faster than recommended speed. I end up floating a little bit before touching down. Doesn't happen often, and recently I manage to control my speed better.

Looking at the landing spot works most of the time but will fail you under certain circumstances like night, on a wet or snowy runway, etc. I suggest you try John Collins's suggestion about looking down a runway and squatting to grasp the concept. Keep in mind that the view of the horizon gives you a good perspective on your rate of descent, the absolute height above the runway isn't as obvious from that, partly because the pitch attitude of the airplane is rising as you slow down.

 

[Henning]

Sinking and rising is very easy to determine by shifting perspective to the vanishing point. This is obviated by the rise of the horizon/aim point in the windshield if sinking low of slope or sinking in the windshield, slipping underneath, the case of an overshooting situation.

 

[Captain]

Make sure the landing spot doesn't move in the windshield. None...at all. Stationary. Doesn't move. If you're flying directly at a fixed point it doesn't move, right? Don't let it move.

Once you can do that then all you have to do is figure out the flare. Fly it into ground effect and pitch up. Let the speed dissipate and touch down. When it comes to touch down there are two techniques. Fly it 'onto the runway' and fly above the runway and 'let it settle'. The second one is better. Why? Because I said so.

Consistency is key. Do the same thing over and over and that way you can isolate specific things and see what works and what doesn't.