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Old April 5th 17, 05:39 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Newbie Q: Blanik L-23 Landing

On Tuesday, May 30, 2006 at 9:26:13 PM UTC-4, Mitty wrote:
I am learning to fly a Blanik L-23 and my instructor is telling me to
"fly it on" with no flare.

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.

2) The Blanik AFM refers to flaring on landing.

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

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

BTW, this is pretty neat stuff. I wish my first few hours of training
had been in a glider. Certainly I would have learned to use the
rudder much sooner!


The flare required is minuscule ( to barely any) in the Blanik in comparison to a powered aircraft. Flaring will cause you to land on the tail wheel , followed by a hard nose wheel landing.It is Pretty much desirable to be in a straight and level attitude and settle in to a touch down. Landing the Blank in a controlled, straight and virtually level attitude will make the nose wheel touch first which is desirable and less stressful on the aircraft. In level attitude, the nose wheel is lower than the tailwheel . Don't know if you've done any helicopter flying, but the controls on the gliders are just as sensitive and responsive by comparison. In my experience, when I flare to stall for a landing in ,say a 152 cessna, I lose sight of what's in front of me and have to look out to the side of the aircraft to keep an eye on the runway. When landing the Blanik, the site picture of the runway in front of you should stay constant. Keep flying the glider , even on rollout and keep it level and off the tail wheel as long as possible