I Think I Know How to Make My Landings Better
There is a whole bunch going on in landings. So many things happen so quickly that are all so new and it’s overwhelming. No wonder I forgot the landing checklist – the mind races at all the tasks that are about to happen once we hit the pattern, and also because the landing checklist isn’t a task I’ve thrown into that heap!
Ask the internet, and the perfect landing begins with the perfect pattern. Okay fair enough, so let’s table the whole final to touchdown piece. It’s all about setting up the same initial condition up to that point. Upwind on course, turn to crosswind at 1300 ft MSL (700 ft AGL at my airport since we’re under a Class B shelf at 1900 ft). This is a 3-part compartmentalization:
- Complete the turn to crosswind heading while accounting for wind drift. When the turn is complete, count to 3 and turn downwind.
- Reach pattern altitude and stop the climb with power and pitch.
- Make the radio call and get a picture of traffic.
Turning downwind feels a little easier without the climb component. Make the radio call for the turn and pick the heading that corrects for wind. Hold the pattern altitude until abeam the aim point. And then power, flaps, airspeed, trim. Let the nose sink on power down, counteract the nose-up from the flaps with the yoke, pitch for airspeed, trim. Make the call for base and start a 30° bank.
Turn to base seems to throw me because banking also drops the lift component and pitch throws off the airspeed. The VSI has a delay so glances there give information that is not very timely. I guess power is needed. I tend to hit base at 700 ft AGL which is a bit low. PFAT, “high/low, fast/slow?” I seem to have to add power to arrest the descent here, so perhaps a bit more power on the turn to base is needed. Anyway, call the turn to final.
And here we are – where we should be every single time. The gateway to the rest of the landing. Turning to final and ending the turn pointed towards the runway with the PAPI showing 2 red and 2 white lights (it almost never does). And this should be the point where it’s just correcting for the variables.
So why is it so hard? For starters, probably because my patterns need work, and the initial conditions are all over the place. But I think this realization is going to help me improve!
I also had two other epiphanies: aim point and slow flight. First, the aim point. Landing is overwhelming at first, but what I have seem to have lost sight of is what exactly to look for! The aim point! Duh. I’m looking all over the place, making sure the airspeed is right, obsessing over the PAPI, looking for the centerline, the scenery flies by, “what’s that on the taxiway?” etc… “Landing is a visual maneuver.” Some of these will get ironed out when the initial conditions are set, and some will get ironed out when I’m thinking further ahead of the airplane. Ultimately all of this attention is at the wrong thing – it should be at the aim point…the numbers…the big 29 on the end of the runway! “Is that 29 rising or falling?”
The second part is the transition. I forgot something I heard so long ago that helped my simulator landings – do not flare. You transition a small airplane – you transition to slow flight! I have not been thinking about it in terms of what we’ve been doing at 3000-4000 ft. The airplane will stall at 45 KIAS with flaps fully extended when fully loaded. Now we’re not landing with full flaps generally which means the stall speed is a little higher, but the trick here is to transition to slow flight – lower the speed and hold the altitude in ground effect, and eventually the speed will drop to the stall speed and you want that to happen just as the wheels touch. I have been thinking only about holding off the landing, holding off the nose, and that’s resulted in some ballooning when I over-correct (also because I’m too tense!). When the trapezoid in front of me swings out to the sides instead, transition to slow flight – straight and level and slow.
This might be more psychological, but as a mindset, it seems to click so much better than just “hold it off.” If for no other reason than it engages a concept I’ve been actively practicing. Hell, the first thing we did the other day was ride around in slow flight ten or fifteen minutes!
I tried this in X-plane and eureka, at least in the sim in a 172SP (which, by the way, has MUCH better handling in terms of response to input than the Carenado PA-28 Archer II) the landings were so much better!
- Set up pattern to hit the same initial conditions – distance, altitude, airspeed, configuration. The pattern is all about getting to this.
- Focus on the aim point, everything else is just a glance.
- Transition to slow flight. Hold the altitude steady until the plane stalls on its own. Remember that feeling of mushy controls in slow flight.
FencerPTS 