On Jul 15, 11:33*am, Tman x@x wrote:
This makes no sense to me. How can you be in a _stabilised_ approach
and not be assured of the runway? *Why is the approach to the short

I didn't think a stabilized approach was a power-off approach. *You can
be in a stablized approach, lose power, and the landing is not assured.
* That's what I meant.


Ah OK

Do you do all your approaches at 6 degrees to avoid not making the
runway in the event of power loss? *Doesn't sound like a bad policy, but
not what i was taught, and not always possible.


Yes, I think that generally all my approaches are steeper than 3
degrees and have minimal power on (I feel comfortable with ~1200 rpm -
don't forget carb heart in non-injected 172's), I start above the 3
degree glide slope and rely on flaps and decaying airspeed to bring me
onto the visual glide slope on short final. If you have a low energy
reserve style approach (i.e. less than 6 degrees slope in a 172) you
need to be sure power is available... Initial aim point is 1/3 down
the runway and I drop that toward the threshold as I approach short
final. I've seen a lot of flat approaches with power on at my local
field and they are often too fast too -remember in a 172R Vso is about
33k so 1.3 Vso is 44k. To fly at 50 k (or thereabouts) requires a
high nose attitude but watching 172s at my local field I more often I
see a very flat touch down (plenty of balloons too) where the mains
and nose wheel touch almost all together. As an exercise, how about
flying the plane at 44k at altitude with 20 or 30 flaps (and power to
hold altitude) to get a feel for the handling at low airspeed (the
first stall warning may peep intermittently). Then _holding_ that
airspeed chop power and see your rate of descent. The nose high
attitude adds lots of drag so you descend very fast and that's how you
can get it into a really short field over obstructions. Don't forget
to add the gust factor to these speeds (often ~5k in my experience)
for the real approaches. Also if you have a long runway work out the
POH stopping distances compared to runway markers and try to always
meet that performance. It should be possible to easily beat the POH
figures as most of the time you fly you are not at MTOW. Talk this
over with your instructor.

As I understand it, (and ATP's here may correct me) the 3 degree
flatter approach is better for jets who need to keep power on as they
have poor spool up performance.

Cheers