Mitty wrote:
I am learning to fly a Blanik L-23 and my instructor is telling me to
"fly it on" with no flare.

Listen to the instructor.

1) I am commercial/instrument rated with somewhere north of 1000 ASEL
and a few ASES landings in my logbook. I am _programmed_ to flare.
:-) To not flare is very hard for me.

Well learn a new technique...Its easy and fun. The normal
landing is similar to a wheel landing in a conventional
(tail wheel) airplane.


2) The Blanik AFM refers to flaring on landing.

Yes but read further on and remember that sometimes Czech,
Chinese, or Japanese translations miss some of the meaning.
The manual goes on to say that you should touch down on the
main gear first and then let the tail wheel come down
(gently.)

The easy way to do that is to just ease back enough to stop
the sink just before you touch down. Then, once its down,
hold the stick full back, especially if you think you will
need to use the wheel brake.


3) The instructor is very concerned about the fragility of the tail
wheel, so possibly this is the reason for his technique.

Yes. The old Blanik L-13s were worse but you still need to
try be easy on the tail wheel.

So ... to flare or not? When solo, I mean.

No need to flare at all, just arrest the sink rate and
touch down on the main wheel. The exception would be if you
have to get into a short field in which case you will need a
minimum airspeed (energy) touch down and landing so you can
get stopped. In that case, the tail wheel may touch down
first. But that's the exception.


--

Peter D. Brown
http://home.gci.net/~pdb/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akmtnsoaring/