How do you land a plane?

[Slick Goodlin]

Boy is this ever a stupid question.  A thread over on the other forum was offering random landing advice, and being capable of landing an airplane myself I decided to take a good look inward and see if I could offer anything up.  The thing is, I’m not even really sure of how I do it.  It’s like I go “Stable-ish approach, get close to the ground, power as required, *SCENE MISSING* and roll out smoothly.”  I’m pretty decent at it; can plonk the plane down right where I want it and usually quite gently, but I’ll be damned if I can explain how to someone else.


Is that just me who’s like that?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Explaining how to land a plane using a keyboard can be a difficult task.


Some years ago a I wrote an article about how to judge height on the approach and in the landing phase.


I think it was called " The point at which apparent movement ceases. "


In that article I went into some detail on the subject and explained how I came up with the method I use to teach landings and also the method was based on thinking about the subject for a long time of examining how I judged closure rate and height when I was in the aerial application, fire bombing and airdisplay flying business.


I posted it on Pprune and later on Avcanada about ten or fifteen years ago.


Maybe I can find it somewhere in my computers.


If I do I will post it here.

[Nark1]

Kind of. 


The hardest thing I learned as a CFI was verbalizing in a way my subject could understand.
No two people comprehend the same.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

This subject deserves to be discussed because it is an important subject.


So I am going to write an outline of the method I use to teach landings.


It will take a bit of time but I will post it here when I have finished.




















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this

[Colonel]

Put the airplane at 6 inches above the runway with the power off
and try to stop it from touching down.  That will result in a perfect
landing, in a light aircraft.

Getting the airplane to there, from 1000 AGL on downwind abeam
the runway is often made more complicated than it really needs to be.

Really all you need to do on downwind is reduce the power to your
nominal approach setting, configure the aircraft for landing, and trim
for your approach speed.

From there, it's just a matter of letting the airplane descend in a glide
to the runway threshold, and then power off and level off for touchdown. 

The less the throttle is moved on base and final, the better. 

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Jets are even easier to land.  Don't let a four bars blow smoke up your
butt and tell you that only a hero can land a jet.  This is 125 knots on
final.

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My honest advice is to get some practice.  I found that my landings got
better after I did 10,000 of them.

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What I learned from 45 years of flying, and 25 years of instructing.

PS  Fun fact:  for a Pitts formation landing, I fly straight in, which
is normally a really bad idea for a solo Pitts landing.  Long final is
160 mph, mid final is 140 mph, short final is 120 mph.  With jet
traffic, I will descend at (and fly long final) at 180+ mph.  That works
out pretty well with the kerosene burners, in my experience.  With
a little luck, ATC will ask me for a speed reduction for the crowd killer
in front of me.

[Slick Goodlin]

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=9123.msg25028#msg25028 date=1538446562]
I found that my landings got better after I did 10,000 of them.
[/quote]
I figure I’m around 10,000 give or take a couple hundred, which I assume is why I don’t think that hard about it now.  I think that’s a sign that I need to learn a new plane, something weird that will make me feel like an idiot.

[Colonel]

There is no doubt in my mind, that flying more types of aircraft
makes you a better pilot.  Learning different systems, experiencing
different flight control responses, different sight pictures.

I know some of the white shirt crowd don't think that counts for
much, but that's pretty much what a (very expensive) test pilot
course is:

[url=https://www.ntps.edu/descriptions/descriptions.html]https://www.ntps.edu/descriptions/descriptions.html[/url]

PS  People say I'm a shit instructor, and I'm ok with that.  TC
has told me that I'm not eligible to renew my instructor ratings
in Ontario Region.  Thanks, Chris!  But the guy that landed a
Pitts in formation with [i]fuselage overlap[/i] in the above video is
[i]one of my students[/i]. 

Funny that.

Let's see some TC Inspectors and four bars land a Pitts in formation
with fuselage overlap.  I'm a shit pilot and I can do it.  And I suffer
from the disadvantage, that I was taught to fly by another shit pilot,
that flew all-weather low-altitude high-speed single-pilot one-way
nuke delivery. 

[img width=500 height=185][/img]

Shit pilots all around, right TC?

I sure wish I could fly as well as a TC golden arm.

[youtube][/youtube]

[img width=500 height=374]https://keywestbiplanes.com/wp-content/ ... 70x651.jpg[/img]

[CD]

Amazing what you can find on the interwebs... ;)

[Url=http://www.supercub.org/forum/showthrea ... 2c50076f84][u]Chuck E. Landing techniques[/u]

[Colonel]

I remember a few years back, recommending an expired class 3 instructor
for his flight test.

He flies Boeings now, but he owned a Luscombe and he asked me if he
should rent a 172 for the instructor flight test.

I told him, hell no, do it in your Luscombe.

Turns out TC has ONE Inspector competent on tailwheel aircraft, and
when that Golden Arm Inspector tried to land the Luscombe, the candidate
had to take control to avoid a groundloop.

These are the same guys that say an F-104 pilot is shit.

[Fendermandan]

Like so:
[url=https://bit.ly/2zMyj74]https://bit.ly/2zMyj74[/url]