On Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at 11:39:52 AM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Tuesday, May 3, 2016 at 12:30:09 AM UTC-4, George Haeh wrote:

With full brakes you can point reasonably
modern gliders at the threshold and come
down at a constant airspeed. Once you
level off the airspeed comes off rapidly
with full brake.

I've a friend who does this in a PW-6 from 1000 AGL on short final and have been in the back seat several times. I've done many steep finals at 70-80 knots due to turbulence, so I've given it some thought.

My understanding is that the flare expends the energy used to generate the lift that arrests the vertical speed, and that expenditure of energy reduces the horizontal speed in the flare. Do I have that right?

I teach that dive brakes/spoilers control the rate of descent(at constant air speed) and control rate of deceleration in and after the round out. The change in drag resulting from the lift to arrest the rate of descent is pretty much meaningless compared to the power of the air brakes.
UH