Is every touchdown a stall?

Listening to the radio transmissions of a VFR pilot who had a panic
attack in a cloud of IMC, I heard him mention to a controller that
"the stall horn goes off every time I land." I thought that was
bizarre. Is a touchdown supposed to be a stall? My stall horn
doesn't sound on landing.

When I first started landing in the sim (after it had advanced enough
to allow realistic landings), I sometimes stalled the aircraft (but
without an alarm). Later I came to the conclusion that this might not
be good. If the aircraft stalls, you lose control of it right above
the runway. You can't pitch down to pick up speed and restore lift,
and the engines cannot speed up quickly enough to pull you out of the
stall, either. Unless you are inches above the runway, you come
banging down onto it, and in my case I've collapsed the gear many
times this way. So I figured that stalling on landing might not be
the way to do.

These days I try to stay above stall speed throughout the landing,
even during the flare. The flare arrests my descent, but does not
stall the aircraft. I reduce throttle at the same time as the flare
so that I naturally tend to begin a gentle descent, and this seems to
set me down very nicely on the runway, although it takes longer this
way (but small aircraft usually don't need the whole runway, anyway).
And if anything goes wrong, I can power up and pull away without
delay, since I haven't stalled.

So, which is the preferred way to land, and why?

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Mxsmanic wrote:

You know, you might go out and get a book on actual flying (like
Stick and Rudder by Langewiesche or Kirschner's Student Pilot Manual)
rather than basing your entire view of aerodynamics on how a game
behaves.

Listening to the radio transmissions of a VFR pilot who had a panic
attack in a cloud of IMC, I heard him mention to a controller that
"the stall horn goes off every time I land."

The stall horn goes off BEFORE the stall. That's it's whole point.
It's a stall WARNING horn.

I thought that was
bizarre. Is a touchdown supposed to be a stall?

Most light aircraft are touched down as close to a stall
as you can manage. The idea is to bring the nose up until
the lift peters out about the time the wheels touch.

My stall horn
doesn't sound on landing.

You need a better simulator.

If the aircraft stalls, you lose control of it right above
the runway.

Stalling is NOT lost of control. You certainly can control
an aircraft in a stall. If you couldn't you would never be
able to recover. A stall is the breakdown in lift that occurs
when the angle of attach exceeds a critical angle. The airplane
is still flying, controllable, and even producing some lift during
a stall.

You can't pitch down to pick up speed and restore lift,

That's the whole point. You need neither speed nor lift at this
point. The idea is to land with the minimum energy. The wheels
are on the ground so you don't need lift, and any excess speed you
have will just have to be bled off with the brakes. This means you
need more runway, which you might not have.

and the engines cannot speed up quickly enough to pull you out of the
stall, either.

Engines do not pull you out of a stall. Speed does not pull you out
of a stall. Getting the angle of attack below the critical angle
gets you out of a stall.

Unless you are inches above the runway, you come
banging down onto it, and in my case I've collapsed the gear many
times this way. So I figured that stalling on landing might not be
the way to do.

It's a good thing you aren't flying real airplanes. But the trick
in learning how to really land is getting close to that.

These days I try to stay above stall speed throughout the landing,
even during the flare.

Aircraft can stall at any speed.

Mxsmanic wrote:
So, which is the preferred way to land, and why?

No, you are landing too fast. A stall is not lose of control. In a real
plane you would go up and do all kinds of stalls with your instructor
before you soloed.

-Robert, CFII

Wolfgang Schwanke schrieb:

Of course there are several definitions of a good landing. A more
common one is: Any landing which the pilot can walk away from by
himself.

I've always thought that this was a very bad joke which just honours
lazyness.

Stefan

it might help if you were to specify what kind of airplane you're
asking about but here i'll guess light single.

stall at landing?

sorta depends on what the wind is doing. in chop i'll probably hold
more speed till i can get a wheel down then unload flap to firm it up.
in decent air i usually get just a squeek at touchdown. honestly, i
don't really like the horn as i trained a lot without one and got more
used to testing the control authority as i went along. you should be
able to feel it getting mushy as you get close.

i remember one day in my training, in a plane with a working horn, in
chop; i knew that i had some time after the horn started so i kept
dicking with it and kept listening to the horn till finally, it broke
hard. i doubt i was 6-inches but man!

i'm also not fond of the fact that the horn sounds like farting thru a
cheap clarinet and scares the passengers.

dan


Mxsmanic wrote:
Listening to the radio transmissions of a VFR pilot who had a panic
attack in a cloud of IMC, I heard him mention to a controller that
"the stall horn goes off every time I land." I thought that was
bizarre. Is a touchdown supposed to be a stall? My stall horn
doesn't sound on landing.

When I first started landing in the sim (after it had advanced enough
to allow realistic landings), I sometimes stalled the aircraft (but
without an alarm). Later I came to the conclusion that this might not
be good. If the aircraft stalls, you lose control of it right above
the runway. You can't pitch down to pick up speed and restore lift,
and the engines cannot speed up quickly enough to pull you out of the
stall, either. Unless you are inches above the runway, you come
banging down onto it, and in my case I've collapsed the gear many
times this way. So I figured that stalling on landing might not be
the way to do.

These days I try to stay above stall speed throughout the landing,
even during the flare. The flare arrests my descent, but does not
stall the aircraft. I reduce throttle at the same time as the flare
so that I naturally tend to begin a gentle descent, and this seems to
set me down very nicely on the runway, although it takes longer this
way (but small aircraft usually don't need the whole runway, anyway).
And if anything goes wrong, I can power up and pull away without
delay, since I haven't stalled.

So, which is the preferred way to land, and why?

--
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On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:51:59 +0200, Stefan
wrote:

Wolfgang Schwanke schrieb:

Of course there are several definitions of a good landing. A more
common one is: Any landing which the pilot can walk away from by
himself.

I've always thought that this was a very bad joke which just honours
lazyness.

I've wondered where the line originated. I found this quote. I wonder
if it's the root of it.

A good landing was a landing in which the pilot could walk away from
the airplane.
Maj Gen Benjamin D. Foulois,
US Army Air Corps

Wolfgang Schwanke writes:

What kind of airplane?

Baron 58 or A36. Previously I had come in at idle, but I found that
sometimes I stalled too early (whence the gear collapse previously
mentioned, or sometimes worse).

With small aircraft you usually pull throttle to
idle during the entire final, and you only pull it up in case something
goes wrong. With big jets it's probably different.

In large aircraft in the sim I don't set throttles to idle until I'm a
few feet above the ground.

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T o d d P a t t i s t writes:

No, airplane wings almost never reach stall AOA on landing.

Well, now I'm seeing two conflicting opinions. Should the aircraft
stall above the runway, or shouldn't it? Should I be hearing a stall
warning when making a correct landing?

You always have lift while landing, and you'd have lift even
if fully stalled.

No doubt, but my concern is that a stall is a rapid and significant
loss of lift, and it seems that this would be dangerous with so little
space for maneuvering beneath the aircraft. As long as the aircraft
hasn't stalled, the descent rate is constant in a given configuration;
if it stalls, it suddenly descends much more quickly, which seems
risky so close to the runway.

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houstondan writes:

it might help if you were to specify what kind of airplane you're
asking about but here i'll guess light single.

The ones in the sim, mainly Beechcraft Baron 58 and A36, and a
737-800. I don't know if the principles are different for the
different types of aircraft.

sorta depends on what the wind is doing. in chop i'll probably hold
more speed till i can get a wheel down then unload flap to firm it up.
in decent air i usually get just a squeek at touchdown. honestly, i
don't really like the horn as i trained a lot without one and got more
used to testing the control authority as i went along. you should be
able to feel it getting mushy as you get close.

i remember one day in my training, in a plane with a working horn, in
chop; i knew that i had some time after the horn started so i kept
dicking with it and kept listening to the horn till finally, it broke
hard. i doubt i was 6-inches but man!

That's what I worry about.

i'm also not fond of the fact that the horn sounds like farting thru a
cheap clarinet and scares the passengers.

I think it's designed to do that.

--
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Any landing which the pilot can walk away from by himself.
I've always thought that this was a very bad joke which just honours lazyness.

Actually, I think it dates from the time in early aviation when it was
much more true than it is now.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
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