Re: Landing airplanes
- From: Matt Whiting <whiting@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:07:07 GMT
Dan Luke wrote:
"Michael" wrote:
In every airplane I've ever landed, including the "notorious" Mooney and
Twin Commanche, I've used the same technique: pull the power off and round
out close to the runway,
How close is close? How fast are you going before you start the
roundout? How much do you lift the nose in the roundout, and how
quickly?
I think what I'm doing is feeling for ground effect. As the ground effect increases, I'm increasing AOA, managing sink with power if necessary. Ground effect is a very palpable thing to me.
Yes, I can generally feel it also.
How quickly do you preduce the power?
Depends on how much energy I have arriving at the roundout point and on the sink rate.
I reduce the power to idle on downwind and generally leave it at idle. Saves having to reduce it later. :-) This, is for visual approaches, not instrument approaches. For the latter, I pull the power to idle just before crossing the runway threshold.
The only airplane I don't do this with is the club Arrow I now fly as with the three blade prop that was installed two years ago, the power-off glide is abysmal. I generally carry 15" or so until just shy of the threshold and then reduce to idle.
And most importantly,
what cues are you using to judge all these things?
Runway picture, seat-of-the-pants sink rate, deck angle, elevator feel.
Yep, that's about how I do it as well. The rate at which your passengers or instructor tenses up can also be an indication of when to flare. :-)
increase back pressure to hold it off as long as it will keep flying
How do you know when it won't keep flying anymore?
I don't. I'm hoping to be within inches of the runway when it gives up.
Most airplanes I've flow will begin to feel mushy as the stall nears, but as you say, I try to be within 6" of the runway such that the stall let's me settle on quite nicely most of the time.
hold the back pressure on roll out.
How much? As much as you had on touchdown? More? Does it matter?
More; it's what I was taught.
I was taught to pull the wheel all the way back prior to touchdown and hold it there until the nosewheel settles to the runway. This worked great in Cessnas, but doesn't work well in Pipers with the stabilator tail. The Arrow I now fly will drop the nosewheel with a thud if I do this. So, in it, I pull the wheel all the way back and then as soon as the mains touch, I start lowering the nose before the airspeed bleeds off to avoid the thud.
The amount of power I carry might vary a bit
That's only one variable. There are others. Really, the principal
variables are speed, height, power, and pitch (assuming for the moment
a constant configuration) - and the rates of change on all of them -
throughout the landing maneuver. There is a relationship between them
- you need to keep the variables within the acceptable envelope for the
airplane to make a good landing. There are tradeoffs involved - after
all, you're really just managing energy and there are many acceptable
solutions.
but one airplane lands pretty
much like another, it seems to me; I've never had trouble with any of them.
If you're consistently making good landings, you're getting the
variables all right (or close enough, anyway) so you must understand
the relationships involved (primarily energy management) - but maybe
only implicitly, the way an outfielder understands the differential
equations that govern the path of the ball so as to consistently put
his glove where the ball will be without ever having taken a calculus
class.
It certainly seems intuitive in my case. I don't know what I'm doing; I just do it.
It sounds to me from your description above that you know what you are doing. I do what I was taught. I was taught by a very good flight instructor (he was written up a few years back in AOPA Pilot) who has more flight hours than all but a handful of pilots in the USA. Every landing was a power-off spot landing so the whole concept of carrying power through the approach and then cutting it back before landing was foreign to me until I started my instrument training and flying into more larger airports.
It really felt odd at first flying those long, shallow approaches, but I still was taught even then to pull the power at or slightly before threshold crossing. Even most airline pilots seem to do this even with the large jets. I doubt they pull back completely to idle, but they sure pull back the power after crossing the threshold. And these jets don't just fall with a thud either.
Matt
.
- References:
- Landing airplanes
- From: Dan Luke
- Re: Landing airplanes
- From: Michael
- Re: Landing airplanes
- From: Dan Luke
- Landing airplanes
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