Precision Landing Contest - I didn't win

kimberlyanne546

Final Approach
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Kimberly
So on Saturday I got to participate in my very first landing contest.

http://www.iflylikeagirl.com/spot-landing-contest-in-oakdale/

In summary:

3 People scored worse than I did.

I was one of only 9 scores that counted (8 landed short and were disqualified).

So of the 9 planes I came in 6th place! Not bad for a plane I never fly!

cuuKsaM.jpg
 
Congrats! You were pretty close to third place
 
Congrats! You were pretty close to third place

I didn't even notice. Honestly I thought my first takeoff sucked since there was a gust of wind and I kind of headed straight towards the viewing audience and judges for a second. Scary stuff but I corrected for it.
 
The Cessna 150 club does those, too. There's two green strips across the runway, separated by a fairly small distance, and a person stands to one side near the middle of the touch-down area and waves a flag so the pilot can get an idea of where the green strips are while still on final.

The rule is that some part of the plane -- preferable the main wheels -- touch down inside the zone. Then the three judges rate the style of the landing. Some of the viewing gallery people make their own cards with scores on them and hold them up.

It probably as much fun for the viewers as the pilots.
 
What kinds of planes were people using?

Mostly fixed gear; Cessnas, Cherokees, a Stinson and a few other tail draggers. There was one Mooney (only retract). There were a couple of RVs and some other slower home builts, like a RANS Coyote II. I DQ'd like half the field, BTW.
 
Uuuummm 400'. Sheesh.

N1234 declaring an emergency I need vectors to the nearest 10,000' runway.

Say aircraft type?

Cessna 152.


????????....
 
Uuuummm 400'. Sheesh.

N1234 declaring an emergency I need vectors to the nearest 10,000' runway.

Say aircraft type?

Cessna 152.


????????....

It was the cumulative of two landings. If you landed before the line, at all, you were DQ'd. If you were over 200', they just gave you 200 for that landing. One problem, was they displaced the line about 1000' beyond the normal threshold and it was not a long runway. I was a foot or two short on my first landing, which DQ'd me.
 
That's actually pretty awesome. I'd love something like that here.

It might have seemed casual but I can tell a lot of thought went into it. They had a guy on the radio, a guy at the hold short line releasing planes, judges by the line, and an audience viewing area where you had to stand behind caution tape to stay a safe distance from the runway.

I'm assuming the $20 - which covered the $5 lunch - helped pay for the cost of what looked like nice wooden plaques / trophies.
 
It was the cumulative of two landings. If you landed before the line, at all, you were DQ'd. If you were over 200', they just gave you 200 for that landing. One problem, was they displaced the line about 1000' beyond the normal threshold and it was not a long runway. I was a foot or two short on my first landing, which DQ'd me.

Actually I talked to the judges and if you were over 200 as you can see on the image above they wrote 200 +

So thank goodness I only got a 200. The second was a 130 so I'm happy that showed improvement.

I'm not saying my score was "good" not by any means but I was happy I was within PTS in a plane I rarely fly. I feel like if I was flying 516 (my rental 150) or something like that - I could have done much better.
 
Uuuummm 400'. Sheesh.

N1234 declaring an emergency I need vectors to the nearest 10,000' runway.

Say aircraft type?

Cessna 152.


????????....

Out of 17 planes competing, 4 planes got a "200 + " rating:

Plane 5B

Plane 7B

Plane 8B

Plane 9A
 
I'd like to see a spot landing contest where you're required to pull power to idle abeam the numbers, never touch it again, and land with the nosewheel well in the air (or 3-point for a taildragger). That would be a good test. Lots of these spot landing contests seem turn into exercises in dragging it in low, chopping power, and then driving it onto the runway well above stall speed, just past the line. What were the rules for this one?

But forget all that, well done Kimberly! :)
 
I'd like to see a spot landing contest where you're required to pull power to idle abeam the numbers, never touch it again, and land with the nosewheel well in the air (or 3-point for a taildragger). That would be a good test. Lots of these spot landing contests seem turn into exercises in dragging it in low, chopping power, and then driving it onto the runway well above stall speed, just past the line. What were the rules for this one?

But forget all that, well done Kimberly! :)

Due to the 1000' displacement, there wasn't much runway beyond the line. I didn't see too many people coming in hot, in fact, I would say most were too slow and stalling short of the line (hence, half the field DQ'd).

Yes, well done, Kimberly.
 
I'd like to see a spot landing contest where you're required to pull power to idle abeam the numbers, never touch it again, and land with the nosewheel well in the air (or 3-point for a taildragger). That would be a good test. Lots of these spot landing contests seem turn into exercises in dragging it in low, chopping power, and then driving it onto the runway well above stall speed, just past the line. What were the rules for this one?

But forget all that, well done Kimberly! :)

I didn't even come close to winning, but thank you. I'll find the rules and paste them here in a moment.
 
From my website:

Rules of the day:

SPOT LANDING CONTEST RULES

- All contestants must attend safety briefing at 10am.

- Target line across runway will be marked with 6 inch tape.

- Line to be displaced at least 500 feet from runway threshold.

- Contestants are not to change flap settings after turn to final.

- Touchdown before line, contestant will be disqualified.

- Distance to be measured from target line to the first touchdown point with no bounce.

-Contestant will then make a touch and go for second chance, however total distance will be cumulative.

-Only two aircraft of similar performance allowed in traffic pattern at the same time.

All transient aircraft have right of way.

Judges decisions are final: NO WHINING!

BE SAFE! FLY THE AIRPLANE AT ALL TIMES!

Top two scores from each EAA club will be added together for bragging rights and EAA Pilot Precision Plaque. See you there!

My Number was 5A and we flew in the pattern before plane 5B. I flew a Piper and the plane paired with me was based on the final approach speed which we wrote down when we registered for the contest. Numbers were taped to the plane windows using painter’s tape so the landing judges could take notes on distance.
 
These are generally are set up to avoid you being able to power up to the line and drop it in.

As a result they are usually set up with an additional limitation that you are not allowed to add power on Short Final. I have also heard it described as landing with the minimum power you can safely use for your aircraft.
This also makes hitting the PTS 200' area more challenging.

Brian
 
These are generally are set up to avoid you being able to power up to the line and drop it in.

As a result they are usually set up with an additional limitation that you are not allowed to add power on Short Final. I have also heard it described as landing with the minimum power you can safely use for your aircraft.
This also makes hitting the PTS 200' area more challenging.

Brian

No, the only thing they had like that was you couldn't change your flap configuration after turning final, because people were coming in with no flaps and just dropping the flaps to drop altitude at the last minute, which is dangerous.
 
It was the cumulative of two landings. If you landed before the line, at all, you were DQ'd. If you were over 200', they just gave you 200 for that landing. One problem, was they displaced the line about 1000' beyond the normal threshold and it was not a long runway. I was a foot or two short on my first landing, which DQ'd me.

I didn't know that. I was looking at aircraft 6A with a 375 and a LONG (whatever that means). So I was just assuming that was the actual distance from the line vs. a DQ for landing before the line.
 
The line wasn't clear in the photo so I used MS Paint to make it orange. Not sure if this was my first or second landing. Someone from the EAA sent it to me.
 
And yes, as with flour bombing, it is always strange to have people standing so close to the runway.
 
The Cessna 150 club had no rules on how you got to the touch down point -- drag in it, drop it in, dive for it, etc. Bounce, three point or two. The "style" points by the three judges determined the best landing. Whether short or long, missing the touch down area resulted in DQ.

They also had a sky captain flying overhead to warn of transient aircraft and keep separation.

The viewing area was a tent at the touch down point between the taxiway and the runway -- took a while to get used to being so close.
 
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