Landings Archives - Page 7 of 11

Flying a proper pattern for the perfect landing

Making a great landing is always a challenge, even for experienced pilots. However, there are some common misconceptions about how to make a great landing – namely that a pilot must concentrate on the round-out and flare.

Hence, a short post by Chris Findley, a flight instructor in the Nashville area and the founder of myFlightCoach.com, for the Let’s Go Flying blog is well worth reading as he explained the importance of flying a proper pattern, especially on the downwind leg, in order to have a great landing. Chris noted that many student pilots are reluctant to allow the aircraft to descend on the downwind – which makes them high on the final approach. He also noted that other students are to fast and have to much airspeed while going into the roundabout or they do the opposite and come in to low and drop the plane onto the threshold.

However, Chris then explained that landing is about energy management. In other words, airspeed and altitude. He also mentioned that:

I had one pilot I flew with who was very frustrated that his landings were all long –using up 2/3 of the runway. After one trip around the pattern I saw that he was high in the pattern, didn’t use a consistent flap setting, and was trying to land 15 knots over the recommended approach speed. That will make you land long every time.
After a few more trips around and a review of the recommended speeds, his landings were 100% better.

In other words, flying a proper pattern along with plenty of practice will be keys to having a perfect landing.

Distracted pilot forgets about the landing gear

General Aviation News has reprinted a November 2008 accident report from the USA’s National Transportation Safety Board that is well worth reading by pilots everywhere. The incident involved a Beech Bonanza in Port Townsend, Washington and resulted in substantial damage after the pilot forgot to put down the landing gear. Here is what reportedly happened:

The pilot decided to make a straight-in VFR approach to the non-controlled airport. There was traffic departing from the airport during the Bonanza’s approach. The pilot said he became distracted while discussing that traffic with his passenger and did not use the pre-landing checklist. As a result, he failed to lower the gear prior to landing.

The cause of the accident was ruled to be the failure to lower the landing gear but indirectly the accident was caused by the pilot being distracted and his failure to use a checklist.

In the comments section, Frank Szachta Sr. noted that the cause of many such accidents seems to be pilots being distractions. Hence, he wrote:

In retract gear birds, it is necessary to think of Gear Down three times in each approach and landing pattern. Once early in checklist, on Final, and again as runway is in sight. Look for imaginary sign on runway edge, “Gear Down & Locked”.

Meanwhile, commenter Tom Hartley simply noted:

….is “GUMP”: gas, undercarriage, mixture, & props? or is it: Gear down, Undercarriage down, Make sure it’s down, & Put it down right now!

Definitely advice worth remembering!

How to make a soft field landing

Jason Schappert of MZeroA.com has recently put together a great short video about how to make a soft field landing (that is, a landing on an unpaved surface such as a grass or a dirt landing strip). In the video, Jason talks you through a proper soft field landing by first noting that you will want to protect your nose wheel. As he explained in the video:

I’m going to come in and you know what, sometimes I even carry a little bit of power because I wanna touch down on the mains first and really hold that nose wheel off until the last second. You also want to really avoid braking.

In addition, he noted that the key to a great soft field landing is to manage your airspeed. Hence, your speed will need to be a bit slower (however, this is not necessarily always the case with every soft field landing).

Jason’s short video is well worth watching, even if you do not regularly land on soft fields.

Proper landing techniques video

For some student pilots, proper landings come naturally and only take a few hours to master. For other students, it takes a significant amount of time to master landings. Hence, a lengthy video about proper landing techniques that was recently put together by Jason Schappert for his MzeroA.com site is well worth watching by both would-be and experienced pilots.

Jason begins the video by explaining in detail the techniques he uses to teach his students proper landings. He then he shows actual clips from the cockpit where he instructs one of his students (the sister of another student pilot who was hoping to solo on the same day as her brother) how to perform a proper landing.

Again, the video is well worth watching by both student and experienced pilots.

What is the most difficult airport you have ever landed at?

There are probably tens of thousands of airports around the world (and if you count improvised landing strips, you could probably say that there are hundreds of thousands of “airports”) with some being more difficult to land at than others for a variety of reasons. For example, the Winged Victory Women in Aviation blog has recently pointed out how difficult it is to land at the Mangalore International Airport in India while the Wikipedia entry for the airport noted that:

The airport is located on top of a hill, with the runway landing approaches leading up to the extreme edges of the hill sides and thus called a table top runway. Only two other airports in India have table top runways – Kozhikode and Lengpui. The edges of the hill dropping into the valley from a height of about 90 m (300 ft) to 9 m (30 ft)) within a short distance of just 500 m (1,600 ft) on the east side of the runway and from about 83 m (272 ft) to 25 m (82 ft) on the western side. An additional disadvantage was that the runway was not level, with the height varying from 90 m (300 ft) to 83 m (272 ft) from east to west. Landing on this short runway at this airport was considered difficult

Already, two passenger jets have overshot the runway with one accident last May leading to the lost of 158 lives.

Then of course there was Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak airport which was shut down in 1998. According to a recent post on the Bangalore Aviation Blog (which also included a couple of great videos), a landing approach would require a “checkboard turn” with no room for error and then pilots often faced strong cross winds as they neared the runway.

Finally, there is the Toncontín International Airport serving Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. According to Wikipedia, the airport’s single runway is 2,163 meters (7,096 feet) in length and its at an altitude of 1,004 meters (3,294 feet) – making it one of the shortest international runways in the world. Late last year, we had posted a video of a very risky looking landing at the airport as aircraft are forced to make a hairpin turn before landing on the very short runway.

However, the above mentioned airports are or were all large international or regional airports where most flights would be passenger or cargo flights. Hence, we would like to ask our readers: What is the most difficult or dangerous airport that you have ever landed at and why?

Improve your landings with Jacobson Flare

Both pilots and flight instructors alike need to always be open to new ideas in order to become better and safer pilots. Moreover, performing a proper and safe landing is one of the more difficult tasks faced by both new and experienced pilots.

Hence, a recent post by John Ewing for Aviation Mentor is well worth reading because he describes a landing technique that a student, one with an inconsistent landing performance, had introduced him to after he found it on the internet. The technique is known as Jacobson Flare. According to John:

Jacobson uses the pilot’s Eye-to-Wheel Height (or EWH, based on the aircraft type), the pilot’s offset from the main landing gear (also based on aircraft type), the airplane’s approach angle (usually 3 or 4 degrees), and simple geometry to determine visual references on the runway surface where the pilot can aim and begin the landing flare.

After downloading and reading the material, John then had the opportunity to try out the technique with another instructor who on her first landing, mentioned that she had to suppress some of her normal landing instincts. However, her landing was very good and her second landing was even better and just about perfect. The next day, John and another instructor tried the technique again with the same performance results. Finally, John’s student with the inconsistent landing performance tried the technique and had nearly the same results.

Towards the end of his post, John concluded that:

It’s my considered opinion that pilots who learn to apply Jacobson’s techniques can make consistently good landings, provided they know how to configure their aircraft and fly a stable approach at the appropriate airspeed. Pilots still have to develop and maintain a feel for their aircraft and learn how to handle crosswinds and gusty conditions, but Jacobson’s procedure is very useful. And when you haven’t flown in several weeks or it’s your first landing in a new-to-you aircraft type, Jacobson’s approach gives you something on which to hang your hat.

However, John noted that there still is not much data for using the technique with newer aircraft and hence he is putting together a spreadsheet of measurements for some of the aircraft that he flies. Moreover, he noted that its also wise to have a flight instructor along before performing a new technique with your aircraft.