how can I improve my landings?

[radubc]

I'm not a flight instructor, but I'm a student who recently learned how to land. So I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I'll tell you what worked for me.

The most important thing is not to rely 100% on the instructor. Believe it or not, it is hard for him to understand better than you how you think and learn. I took charge of my learning. Of course, he explained me all the theory, but I decided what worked for me or not.

I had big problems staying on the centerline and always landed with a crab. Until my instructor did one landing and it all came to me. The idea was to check wether the centerline is painted straight. It may sound crazy but this is what worked for me. Check if it's straight, as you would check a piece of lumber. All my landings after that were on the centerline. More than that, all of a sudden I could feel the plane asking for rudder input.

As for the flare, I guess the most used organ is my ass. My approach speed is 65-70 knots, flaps as needed to control the descent. When i'm sure I make it to the runway, I reduce the power to idle. When I feel that I want to stop the descent, I apply some back pressure and stop the descent. Then the plane starts to descend again, and I stop it again. This time the stall horn starts to whine and I know I can pull back as much as I can. My ass tells me when I descend too fast, when I have to stop the descent, and how much back pressure to apply on the yoke.

[andy.air]

radubc has it right on with the centreline alignment. The runway centerline should appear as a straight vertical line when you look out the window and should remain that way all the way until your wheels touch the ground. If your nose is pointed in one direction while trying to maintain this centreline, that typically means you have a crosswind and you need to use rudder in order to make your aircraft's longitudinal axis align. Your ailerons control whether you will touch down on the centre line (more or less controls your left and right), and your rudders control your alignment so you don't land crooked. If you are in a crosswind, remember to keep your rudder inputs in to the extent required to keep the aircraft aligned right until you touch down (one wheel should hit the pavement before the other).

For the flare, it should begin relatively close to what the flight training manuals says (around 35 feet?). Basically, it should begin just moments after you cross the threshold, assuming you maintained a good 3 degree glide path (in other words, your approach is not too high or too low). As you flare, you gently raise the nose until you are maintaining a minimal descent rate a couple feet off the ground. Let it keep flying for a bit until the aircraft slows down enough to gently touch it's wheels on the ground.

The hardest part is probably the flare. As you flare, you always need to make small corrections with your aileron to stay on the centre line, and small corrections with your rudder to not go crooked. Use your peripheral vision and the runway edges to gauge your height off the ground. The centreline can sometimes be a good indicator as to how high you are as well. Try not to look down, otherwise you'll get this tendency to slam the plane to the ground. I normally eye close to the end of the runway myself.

[CpnCrunch]

So I went back to my flight training Manual, it says:
when you are 15 Feet to 30 feet from ground, the flare, (round about) should begin.
I was told about 5 feet.

I think you're a little confused about terminology. 15 feet sounds about right for the round-out, and 5 feet for the flare.

[PilotDAR]

Good landings are:

On the centreline
Reasonably soon after the threshold or close to the spot you choose
On the main gear, with the nosewheel off the ground
With the aircraft aligned with the runway, not crooked
With the aircraft flying parallel to the runway, not flying off towards the runway edge

They don't want to be bone-jarring hard, but you can spend too much time and mental energy trying to do pillow-soft touchdowns at the expense of the items listed above, which are more important.

So if you're worrying about trying to grease it on, don't. Work on the other stuff first.

Yup.

Landing will require being on, and remaining on, the runway laterally, hence the need for directional control, as mentioned above.

Thereafter, a tricycle landing will require energy management.

Altitude and speed are both energy. For a tricycle aircraft to land, it must be exhausted of energy required to remain flying, so it settles on. Any other technique will have a somewhat violent outcome. When you cross the threshold, the energy sum of your airspeed and altitude is what you must get rid of, before you can land. So if you're carrying extra speed, and/or altitude, the ONLY effect of that will be to displace your touchdown point down the runway, while you get rid of the extra energy.

The use of flaps and slipping are two good ways to get rid of excess energy, but proper glidepath and speed control on short final are better. Think of those cool sci fi movies where the spacecraft is maneuvering for approach through the acid cloud of the distant planet, and the computer is constantly drawing rectangles through which the pilot is to fly.... Imagine those triangles are being drawn for you, on the heads up display in your 152... Now imagine that in the top left corner of each triangle there is also a target speed, and in each triangle down the short final approach that speed is reducing by 1 knots, so as to be about 1.2 Vs just as you cross the threshold with the wheels a few feet up.

Flying a faster approach, "add five for the wife and kids" seems to reassure some pilots, and on a bumpy day, yes, it can make control a little easier. But plan to get rid of it very short final. If this means slowing on short final, that's okay.

Lateral and directional control considered, your most pleasing landing will be the result of flying the aircraft to a point inches above the runway, and holding it at that height until it can no longer remain there for lack of lift. The length of time it must be held at that height above the runway is dependent upon how much excess energy you must dissipate.

[Pop n Fresh]

5 hours dual instruction. Countless hours reading opinions about landing on here. Hmmm.

[photofly]

I don't know about the experts here, but I'm not sure I could tell you what 30' above the ground looks like - I've never stopped to measure it; and anyway I'm usually too busy landing an airplane.

[vrrotate]

I don't know about the experts here, but I'm not sure I could tell you what 30' above the ground looks like - I've never stopped to measure it; and anyway I'm usually too busy landing an airplane.

30 feet is about twice the height of the windsock adjacent the runway.
Or if you're in a small Cessna it's roughly your wingspan.

[Shiny Side Up]

5 hours dual instruction. Countless hours reading opinions about landing on here. Hmmm.

Isn't that the way everyone does it these days? "I can't do it perfectly on the first try! There must be something on the interwebs!"

[Pop n Fresh]

Maybe.

30 feet is ten yards by the way.

[Cat Driver]

The judgement of height and closure rate to the runway has nothing to do with " feel ".

Your height above the runway and the rate you are closing with it both horizontally and vertically is determined by sight only.

For example try driving between two concrete pillars at the sides of a road with your eyes closed and using " feel " to drive between the pillars.

About thirty years ago some flight instructor came up with the idea that if they had the student look way ahead at the far end of the runway and then set the airplane up in predetermined attitudes it would make it easier for the student to land.........

Somehow this bizarre idea took hold in ab-initio flight training and we have what one sees today throughout the training industry, people being trained to at some point down the runway arrive back on earth, far to often the skills of landing an airplane are not taught anymore .

Some days I almost reach the point of going back to flight training just to re teach people how to land an airplane.

[FenderManDan]

The judgement of height and closure rate to the runway has nothing to do with " feel ".

Your height above the runway and the rate you are closing with it both horizontally and vertically is determined by sight only.

For example try driving between two concrete pillars at the sides of a road with your eyes closed and using " feel " to drive between the pillars.

About thirty years ago some flight instructor came up with the idea that if they had the student look way ahead at the far end of the runway and then set the airplane up in predetermined attitudes it would make it easier for the student to land.........

Somehow this bizarre idea took hold in ab-initio flight training and we have what one sees today throughout the training industry, people being trained to at some point down the runway arrive back on earth, far to often the skills of landing an airplane are not taught anymore .

Some days I almost reach the point of going back to flight training just to re teach people how to land an airplane.

My initial flight instructor, a nice guy btw, was very adamant about watching the runway end and even further. To me after the second attempt to do it like that was a WTF moment and I landed crooked or not on the center line. I did not tell him at the time, (I should have) that I did not do what he was telling me and found out that to be happy with my landings I looked straight to align the plane and the center line and to the sides to see the height. People say 30ft - 15 ft or whatever to round out. I don't know how you have time measure that.
Landing - you are getting to runway
Round out and flare - runway/ground is getting to you (peripheral vision).

I don't know if I am explaining myself accurately but it works equally well from 30 ft to 150 ft wide runway.

I have the same pet peeve with instructors telling students the geo point in the circuit where to turn. Oh boy try that in KOSH on the Sunday before the show VFR arrival. Circuit to me should be flown (unless ATC or distance from the another plane dictates the situation) as in the engine failure scenario height and distance enough to make it with the point of touch down always in the same reference on the windows and wind shield.

Note: Not an instructor, just point of view what worked for me. Hope it helps.

[dirtysidedown]

All about feel for the aircraft...

Practice practice practice in the circuit....

Nothing on the web will teach you this.

[Shiny Side Up]

For example try driving between two concrete pillars at the sides of a road with your eyes closed and using " feel " to drive between the pillars.

About thirty years ago some flight instructor came up with the idea that if they had the student look way ahead at the far end of the runway and then set the airplane up in predetermined attitudes it would make it easier for the student to land.........

Looking down the runway - where you want to go - is only part of the equation. Looking where you want to go is how to keep going straight. It doesn't do anything with judging height. With landing students have two separate but related issues. 1) Keeping straight on the runway, and 2) Judging how to flare/round out/ Whatever you want to call the manuever so we don't plow the airplane into the runway in the descent attitude. Most students start with the impression that it is some trick goes like this.

1) Descend
2) ????
3) Land

and that its some sort of special trick that needs to be employed. In reality its the culmination and combination of what they're learned before - but the failing of instructors is often not to connect these things together. There's air exercises and then you go take stabs at landing, is the general gist of how people view how flight training works. Not enough people really spend some time playing with the airplane before they get to the circuit so they have a good handle on what its going to do.

Here's something for people to try:

Start at altitude and set up in a descent. Control the rate and speed of the descent, control where you level off precisely. Now, when you descend, transition to a slow flight descent, then level off remaining in slow flight. Aim to level off as slow as you can go. Transition back to level normal cruise, then climb back up and do it again. Repeat ad nauseum. Make sure you can fly straight while you do this.

One of the tricks is finding out how quick you can make the transition and how smooth you can do it. Something that often isn't stressed in the slow flight exercise. Do it slow, do it fast. Descend in slow flight, don't let the nose wander.

[photofly]

I don't know about the experts here, but I'm not sure I could tell you what 30' above the ground looks like - I've never stopped to measure it; and anyway I'm usually too busy landing an airplane.

30 feet is about twice the height of the windsock adjacent the runway.
Or if you're in a small Cessna it's roughly your wingspan.

So you're saying I can stop in the air above the runway, get out and build a stack of two windsocks, and if I clear it I must be above 30'? I'll try that, next time.

Or if I roll to a 90 degree bank and I touch a wingtip, I was below 15'?

Gee thanks, that's very helpful.

[Cat Driver]

Judging height and closure rate to the surface is a skill that becomes more refined with exposure to actually doing it.

Teaching the skill is another issue.

The flare ( round out to parallel with the surface ) is a skill Ag. Pilots and airshow pilots must learn to prevent killing them selves.

When I refined my teaching methods I used the lessons I had learned in Ag flying and flying in the airshow circuit, the system to teach these skills was designed by carefully examining exactly what I used as clues to refine situational awareness and in the end I have a system that worked so well I was able to market it and be rewarded with a fair monetary compensation.

By the way I flew for seven years as an ag pilot and eight years in the air show business and only quit because I wanted to.

[cgzro]

its not magic, best way to improve is more landings. Make the circuit smaller and smaller as you get comfortable to increase the number you can do in an hour. Find times when airport is quiet so you can do this or go to small uncontrolled quiet airport to do it.

[halfmilevis]

A stable approach is the begging to a good lanidng. Ensure you are trimmed well at a stable airspeed (65 is correct). A common problem is people maintiang 65 over the numbers... if VR is 55, that means your 10kts faster than your minimum takeoff speed. Ensure your not on short final to fast as this will cause you to float up with you try and flare, and therefore smash and go. try a slightly flatter approach.

HMV

[cgzro]

. Ensure your not on short final to fast as this will cause you to float up with you try and flare, and therefore smash and go.

ill just add that you should not be blindly flaring if it results in a gain in altitude, nor should you continue to flair as the altitude increases. You should be reacting to the visual cues. So even if you are too fast a slight flair/tiny altitude increase should warn you to wait. Its not a mechanical thing where you fly an exact speed then flair at an exact time by an exact amount. It is a question of feedback and reaction that should not require reference to anything except outside queues once you are over the numbers.

To me the art of a safe landing is trying to NOT land while staying a foot above ground, that and staying on heading.

[tbayav8er]

Keep in mind the aircraft I fly is a bit faster and heavier than a Cessna.

I agree with what Cat Driver said about the importance of using your sight to judge the height at which to roundout. You need to make sure that your approach on final is leading you to the "aim point" on the runway where you intend to start the roundout. Do you know how to tell what point on the runway you are descending towards? While assessing your glidepath to this aim point, ensure you are crosschecking your airspeed as well to judge any attitude/power adjustments you need to make. When you are further back on final, you are mostly looking at your aimpoint to assess constant glidepath, perspective (runway getting fat and short, long and skinny, staying the same ideally), centreline and airspeed. For me, when I am getting very close to my aim point on the runway, I start scanning up to the end of the runway and back to the aimpoint. I scan back and forth until I am at a height where the end of the runway is pretty much at eye level and that's how I know when to start the roundout. Again this is aircraft specific. Might not work precisely this way in a Cessna. Once I start the round out, I focus to the end of the runway, keep the end of the runway lined up straight ahead with the use of my feet, and I keep the aircraft from drifting left or right of the centreline with bank. While focusing to the end of the runway, use your peripheral vision to help you make sure the sides of the runway are not going further away, they should be staying the same. If they are getting further away, you raised the nose too much and are ballooning. Gradually raise the nose while decelerating in the hold-off to keep the side edges of the runway in the same position all the way until you reach the same attitude you have during rotation/initial climb. When you have reached that attitude in the flare, the aircraft will settle nicely on to the runway.

I'm not your instructor, so I have no idea how you're doing, so take your instructor's advice first and foremost. Lack of ability in judging proper roundout height to start the flare is one of the most common deficiencies in landings. Also, how high you sit in the cockpit will change what the runway perspective looks like during roundout/hold-off. So, make sure you are always sitting with the same seat height. If you are sitting too low in your seat, that tends to make things difficult as you might lose sight of the end of the runway during roundout/hold-off.

[PilotDAR]

art of a safe landing is trying to NOT land while staying a foot above ground, that and staying on heading

If you could only use one sentence to describe how to land a plane, that would be my choice for the sentence.

[cgzro]

If you could only use one sentence to describe how to land a plane, that would be my choice for the sentence.

Thanks.. Two observations that follow directly from that technique.

1- A perfect "greaser" landing, while satisfying, actually means you did not do it exactly right because you let it touch down while still flying and were therefore going faster than necessary at touch down. A solid arrival, on the other hand (like your car going over a small bump on the highway) is just about perfect and means you were at the slowest possible speed when the wheels touched and a bounce of more than a few inches is physically impossible.

2- The control column or stick will only be moving backwards, not forwards, it may stop moving backwards if you feel the plane rise a few feet but it wont go forward when you need to descend. Instead the plane descends by itself as it looses speed and hence lift, at which point you start bringing it back again to stop the plane from touching.

Not hard to learn, just takes a few hundred repetitions which is why a small circuit and quiet airport really speed up the learning curve.

[cgzro]

two windsocks, and if I clear it I must be above 30'

On the topic of judging height- what can also help is to take a few seconds before take-off to look at where the runway edges are relative to your wing. As you descend to land the runway edges will move outwards in your field of view until at touchdown they meet this point. In a new unfamiliar single seat airplane its common to take a few seconds at the threshold to memorize the "sight picture" because that is what you will see at the instant the plane drops from a few inches onto its gear when you land.
Of course you have to make adjustments for different runway widths and cross wind bank but the technique can still be very helpful at the same airport on a calm day, after that you wont need it any more.

Tail dragger pilots will sometimes use this to learn what straight , centered and flared/stalled looks like. Basically the edges of the runway line up with two imaginary ( or sometimes drawn or taped) lines on the cockpit windows. This sight picture technique helps tremendously when forward visibility is obscured by a big engine and high angle on the gear.

[love2fly14]

Thanks Guys for all the informative information, Finally I was able to grease a few of them !
Things I work on....

1.Seat adjustment.
2.Round out.
3.Flair.

I never ballooned before... This time we add a few, But was able do to control.

[Cat Driver]

Good to see you are progressing and enjoying the learning experience.

When you get your license P.M. me and I will give you some new ideas on how to land.

It is all about the last fifty feet before touch down.

It is all about judgement of two things. (1) Your closing rate to the surface. (2) Judging your height from fifty feet to touch down accurately.

And to do that it is the picture your mind processes......it has to be accurate.

Here is a question for you to ponder.

If looking at the far end of the runway and the edges of the runway in your peripheral vision is how you get the correct picture what do you use when landing on a big grass field..or...landing on water...or landing on a snow covered field?

[love2fly14]

Good to see you are progressing and enjoying the learning experience.

When you get your license P.M. me and I will give you some new ideas on how to land.

It is all about the last fifty feet before touch down.

It is all about judgement of two things. (1) Your closing rate to the surface. (2) Judging your height from fifty feet to touch down accurately.

And to do that it is the picture your mind processes......it has to be accurate.

Here is a question for you to ponder.

If looking at the far end of the runway and the edges of the runway in your peripheral vision is how you get the correct picture what do you use when landing on a big grass field..or...landing on water...or landing on a snow covered field?

Hmm, I see your point !!!