how can I improve my landings?

[B-rad]

My question is is the whole time frame from the round out to touch down called the flare in today's training ?

Yes

[Cat Driver]

So if you people are giving instruction to a new pilot and the student has changed the flight path from the approach angle to the parallel with the runway angle and the student has not allowed enough energy to dissipate and the attitude is not correct and the airplane is about to contact the runway what do you say?

Keep flaring?

[Big Pistons Forever]

So if you people are giving instruction to a new pilot and the student has changed the flight path from the approach angle to the parallel with the runway angle and the student has not allowed enough energy to dissipate and the attitude is not correct and the airplane is about to contact the runway what do you say?

Keep flaring?

What do you say in this situation ?

[CpnCrunch]

As I understand it, there are 3 parts of the landing phase (from 50ft to touchdown):

- round-out
- flare
- hold-off

However the word "flare" can also refer to all 3 of these phases.

PS, I'm not an instructor, so feel free to tell me if I'm talking out of my ass

[Cat Driver]

What do you say in this situation ?

For me to answer that B.P.F. you would have to be in the airplane with me, because my instruction is not structured like pablum.

What I would say would be based on each individual and the problem they are having with situational awareness.

However if you just go back one page here and read the three posts by EA306 on Sept. 30/14 you will find my instructional techniques are sound....he is a Captain on heavies now and my instruction worked for him.

[Big Pistons Forever]

What do you say in this situation ?

For me to answer that B.P.F. you would have to be in the airplane with me, because my instruction is not structured like pablum.

What I would say would be based on each individual and the problem they are having with situational awareness.

However if you just go back one page here and read the three posts by EA306 on Sept. 30/14 you will find my instructional techniques are sound....he is a Captain on heavies now and my instruction worked for him.

I have re read the Sept 30 post and it brings up some good points, but I am puzzled that you do not seem to want to answer a pretty simple question. If you are teaching somebody to land and, as in your example, the student fails to adopt the correct landing attitude such that a premature too nose low touch down will occur I presume you are going to say something, right ? so what is it ?

[Cat Driver]

If you are teaching somebody to land and, as in your example, the student fails to adopt the correct landing attitude such that a premature too nose low touch down will occur I presume you are going to say something, right ? so what is it ?

For me to answer that B.P.F. you would have to be in the airplane with me, because my instruction is not structured like pablum.

What I would say would be based on each individual and the problem they are having with situational awareness.

What is so difficult for you to understand in my answer B.P.F. ?

So let me try again......

.....what I would say and when I say it would depend on the student and what the students problem is at that moment in time....

.......my teaching is based on the individual and what they do not understand, it has been many decades since I have taught in the FTU structured method of teaching....hense my questions on the meaning of the description of "flare ".

Obviously my understanding of what" flare " is and how a lot of instructors understand it is quite different.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Cat Driver

You presented a landing scenario and then asked a very specific question "What would you say ?"
Obviously something is going to be said in this situation, but your avoiding the issue leads me to think that the true motive of your question was to elicit a response which would then allow you to ridicule the poster, a tactic which you have used repeated in the past.

Off course contributing to the conversation by providing an answer would make my assumption invalid......

[Cat Driver]

B.P.F. if you read all of my question you will find I asked a specific question...

Keep flaring?

I am sorry you feel so strongly about my contributions on this site.

[B-rad]

So if you people are giving instruction to a new pilot and the student has changed the flight path from the approach angle to the parallel with the runway angle and the student has not allowed enough energy to dissipate and the attitude is not correct and the airplane is about to contact the runway what do you say?

Keep flaring?

What I'd tell my student would be much like you Cat, What I would say would be based on each individual and the problem they are having with situational awareness.

The term Flare is used to understand the stage of flight we are in but it is not the instruction to help solve a problem with landing. Actually, since we are in the landing stage of flight what I would tell them is "Keep Landing". Happy now?

[pelmet]

the true motive of your question was to elicit a response which would then allow you to ridicule the poster, a tactic which you have used repeatedly in the past.

.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Most of the students brain cells will be used up in trying to land so his/her ability to process verbal instruction will be very limited. Therefore I tell my PPL students I will say only three things to them during a landing

1) Flare ! This means the pitch attitude is too low and the nose must immediately be raised

2) Hold ! This means do not move the wheel. This will usually be as a result of a too aggressive pitch up and subsequent balloon. It is intended to prevent the student from either applying more back stick, or more usually to stop an instinctive push forward on the wheel

3 ) Straight ! This means the aircraft is not aligned with the runway centreline and is a cue for applying the appropriate rudder input.

Bottom line, however, is an instructor should never, ever let a student touchdown nose wheel first. You need to take control to prevent that happening.

Unlike some of the previous posters "contributions" the above is provided as information to think about. If it is of value, great. and I welcome constructive dialogue. Personally I have found some of the exchanges on Avcanada very valuable, and the ideas presented have caused me to modify how I was doing things as a result of advice provided here.

For those instructors reading this thread I would suggest para "D" Of my original post on the "So you want to be an instructor" sticky applies to some of the posts.
Haters just got to hate.......

[Cat Driver]

D) Being a flying instructor is to be the Rodney Dangerfield of aviation. There is plenty of Cat Driver like personalities out there who will go out of their way to disrespect you. Best to just suck it up and ignore them

I believe it is within the forum rules for me to add my comments on what B.P.F. sees fit to put in his advice posts.

Those of you reading this should also remember there are a lot of ea306 people out there who have a far different opinion of me based on their personal experience having flown with me.

Haters just got to hate.......

True, but why do you hate B.P.F. ?

I'm thinking ea306 was one of your students, he flew with me in the late eighties.

[Instructor_Mike]

It's obvious that instructors have lost their way and need to take new lessons on how to teach.

It's been a while since this video has been shared I think

http://youtu.be/T8F5MkP484E

[Cat Driver]

So lets get back to landings now that we have sorted out the subject of hate.

When the approach and flare has progressed to the holding off / speed decaying portion of the landing and the airplane is five feet off the surface what degree of accuracy in judging the wheel height above the surface should an instructor have?

For those who think I am trolling, don't bother commenting because in my world of flight instruction two issues are paramount in teaching approach and landings....closure rate and height above the surface.

[Cat Driver]

As I understand it, there are 3 parts of the landing phase (from 50ft to touchdown):

- round-out
- flare
- hold-off

However the word "flare" can also refer to all 3 of these phases.

PS, I'm not an instructor, so feel free to tell me if I'm talking out of my ass

I was taught it was.

- Round out.
- Hold off if needed
- Touch down

Regardless of terminology the approach and landing is more than just changing an attitude and waiting for the arrival.

[Shiny Side Up]

Landing the airplane really ain't rocket science when you think about it. I would say if a student took a toy plane, all the instructor would maybe need to do is say "here, the airplane must touch down like this, think about how you will get there." and the student - if they thought about it enough - should be able to replicate it. All the instructor might need to do then would be to sit in the right seat and prevent the student from hurting themselves, maybe offer the odd word of encouragement so their ego doesn't take too bad of a beating in the process.

Unfortunately, people don't think in such a fashion (they must have used to when one reads about Clyde Cessna's learning to fly odessey) People approach learning to land like it's a secret trick. That there's only one small revelation they need to have, then it's going to be perfect after. I hate to say it, but you can often tell with students if they're going to be good at landing that day or bad, right from when they walk in the door, often by how they approach everything else. The landing isn't a singular trick, but rather the culmination of the sum of all one's flying. If you treat the rest of your flying with equal importance, one will find landings will follow. Have a critical mind to everything you do with the plane, it's not just the flourish at the end that's magically going to be great.

Ultimately how the instructor describes the landing doesn't matter, pictures and good demonstrations are worth a thousand words. If the instructor can't land well, what hope does the student have?

[Cat Driver]

If the instructor can't land well, what hope does the student have?

Going back to my question.

When the approach and flare has progressed to the holding off / speed decaying portion of the landing and the airplane is five feet off the surface what degree of accuracy in judging the wheel height above the surface should an instructor have?

Or is this not really of any importance?

[Shiny Side Up]

In the initial stages maybe not. You can make most planes "arrive" in that fashion reasonably as a starting point. How well you can maybe judge this is going to govern how often you can "grease" the landing as opposed to boinking it on. I would say. This is some what of lesser importance than the correct attitude and keeping it straight.

Personally I could never tell you how many feet I'm off the runway in the flare/hold-off/whatever, but I think rather in terms of seconds to touch, given all the factors of attitude, speed and momentum, thus turn that into an expected necessary change in control position to gain a desired touchdown. But that's just me. Thatsk always based upon conditions before the round out, and the airplane is somewhat predictable in this nature. Thus, what it's going to do when one starts that change in attitude is predicated on what state it was prior to entry. This is the part people have trouble with I find since the connection often isn't made with how well the approach is prior to the round out, governs what happens after.

[Cat Driver]

Am I to understand that you do not know your height above the runway under five feet by visual clues?

You rely on time and aircraft attitude and wait for the touch down?

What happens if the speed is higher than normal in the hold off at five feet and a wind gust or other change in lift changes your height above the runway to say ten feet, if you can not see this change in height above the runway what happens from there?

I am not trying to put you down I am only curious how other people determine height above the runway.

Actually I probably should just forget asking these questions as it probably will not make any difference in the grand scheme of things anyhow.

I do wonder how crop dusters judge height though.

[B-rad]

I do wonder how crop dusters judge height though.

eye balls and experience

[Big Pistons Forever]

I do wonder how crop dusters judge height though.

Since you used to be one why don't you tell us ?

[davecessna]

All you gotta do is

[Cat Driver]

Since you used to be one why don't you tell us ?

Sure I can do that, maybe it will be of use to some instructors here because it does work very well for judging and maintaining a constant height at very low levels.

I focus the center of my sight field between two points ahead of the aircraft ( I had to use aircraft as I am answering a question about Ag flying and I flew both fixed and rotary wing machines when I was in that business. )

(1) The point at which apparent movement becomes un-blurred.

(2) The point at which apparent movement ahead ceases.

These points will vary with speed and height.

Actually I wrote an in detail lesson on that very subject over on Pprune some years ago.

The article was quite popular and well received by the Ppruners, in fact I'm betting that you could go there and ask someone to find it and put it back up for you to read.

It was posted in the Private Flying forum.

Yeh .... I bet someone there can find it.

Oh by the way that method of judging height worked excellent for me in the fire bombing business for fifteen years and eight years in airshow flying so that should give some value to the method.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Since you used to be one why don't you tell us ?

Sure I can do that, maybe it will be of use to some instructors here because it does work very well for judging and maintaining a constant height at very low levels.

I focus the center of my sight field between two points ahead of the aircraft ( I had to use aircraft as I am answering a question about Ag flying and I flew both fixed and rotary wing machines when I was in that business. )

(1) The point at which apparent movement becomes un-blurred.

(2) The point at which apparent movement ahead ceases.

These points will vary with speed and height.

Actually I wrote an in detail lesson on that very subject over on Pprune some years ago.

The article was quite popular and well received by the Ppruners, in fact I'm betting that you could go there and ask someone to find it and put it back up for you to read.

It was posted in the Private Flying forum.

Yeh .... I bet someone there can find it.

Oh by the way that method of judging height worked excellent for me in the fire bombing business for fifteen years and eight years in airshow flying so that should give some value to the method.

Providing actual information when posting on a training forum.....see that isn't so hard