On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 23:59:36 -0800, Peter Duniho wrote:

Some thoughts (other than the true comment Jay offered ):

Hi Peter,

'preciate your thoughts!

I watched two of the landings: the first night landing listed, and the
daytime landing at PIB. Neither of them presented any obvious faults, IMHO.
That doesn't mean they couldn't be improved, nor does it mean that they
could be.

Practice makes better, not perfect :-) I am probably more critical of my
own handling of the plane then most.

In the daytime video, one can get a feel for power setting by watching the
propeller as it "strobes" with the frame rate. The engine sound might have
been useful too, but I couldn't perceive any distinct engine pitch in the
audio. Probably too much wind or other noise masking it.

Anyway, my interpretation of the changing nature of the strobing of the prop
is that the engine RPM was changing, and thus the power setting was
changing. It seemed to be changing nearly constantly throughout the entire
landing. Ideally, one should only need a couple (or even just one) major
power setting change, and two or three minor adjustments at most.

I control descent rate with power, so I tend to adjust power as needed.
(pitch for airspeed, power for altitude)

One thing probably would have been helpful in the original post would have
been to post wind conditions. Winds for the daytime landing was winds out
of 010 12 knots gusting to 18. Night landings, winds were out of 040 at 5
knots or less.

Of course, I'm looking only at secondary evidence, and it's entirely
possible there weren't any power changes at all. Still, the video does
suggest that the final approach wasn't stabilized, from a power setting
perspective (or possibly an airspeed perspective).

Airspeed was within a couple of knots on final, not "spot on" as I like it
on calm days, but a few thermals didn't help.

The only other thing that I might comment on is the apparent lack of a
relatively nose-high pitch attitude at touchdown. However, both of the
landings I watched included the stall warning horn, so that suggests to me
that the video simply doesn't do a good job of depicting the actual pitch
attitude.

I tend to fly the plane to the ground. As I pull back on the yoke, my goal
is to get the stall horn to kick off and then apply 25 rpm to ease the
plane on the runway. As soon as the wheels touch, I pull the power to
idle. Short runways, I do not do this, power to idle when ever possible.

*I think* the way the camera was being held up high would change the actual
pitch altitude view. Since I had the nose pitched up, my nephew had to
raise the camera to see the runway.

If you really want advice and accurate assessments, you'd need to provide
much more detailed information. At a minimum, I'd want to see an exterior
shot of the airplane as it touched down, as well as a running display of the
current airspeed. That, along with the specific "book numbers" for that
airplane, would give a reasonably objective reference point from which to
comment.

*big smile*, test planes are hard to come by. Guess I will have to settle
for my lil ole Sundowner and amateur videoing.

Allen