SEL 'FIRM' landings

'Fess up' time. We were having a hanger session a while ago, talking
about firm landings. My worst was going into an airport near Urbana IL
(not sure of the spelling, this was back in the early 80s so it made an
impression on me.)

There was a cross wind from the left, and for some reason I I decided
to land close to the numbers. Turns out there was a big barn not far
from the runway threshold, and it really messed up the airflow right at
the runway. I fly a Mooney, and don't like to carry a lot of airspeed
into the flare.

The wind went from a headwind component of 5 or 8 knots to a tailwind
right at the start of the flare and the airplane quit flying a couple
of feet off the runway. I thought the gear would come through the
wings!

Turns out nothing was damaged, and the locals said they did like to
watch transient pilots deal with that problem.

I had to return there later that day, landed a lot longer on the
runway, and carried a few more knots of airspeed as well.

I learned a lesson most of you probably already know. If there's a
crosswind and there's any kind of obstruction to the windward side of
the runway, take special care.

That's my story (and I'm sticking to that excuse!). What's your's, and
what were the lessons learned?

"Tony" wrote in message
oups.com...
[...]
That's my story (and I'm sticking to that excuse!). What's your's, and
what were the lessons learned?

k, I'll bite. Besides, your story was a little light on drama and pilot
error.

I've got two, one while I was a student, and the other not long after I
passed my checkride. Student story first:

Practicing aborted takeoffs with my instructor. We had a 2 mile runway to
play on, so we started at one end, took off, simulated an engine failure at
about 50', landed, repeat. My instructor got complacent (it's always the
instructor's fault, right? ) and didn't realize I'd fixated on the
airspeed indicator. Before we both knew it, we were just feet from the
runway and I still hadn't flared.

I did get the nose up in time, but we still had quite a descent rate.
Landing mains first, I'm not even sure if the nosewheel touched down
(probably did, but the one thing I did manage to get right was get the nose
*way* up just before impact). It was a C172 and the tubular steel main gear
did a great job; flexed plenty to absorb the impact, and then sprung right
back, tossing us back into the air about 10' or 20' (my instructor's
estimate...I was too busy flying to note the actual altitude) for another
try at the landing (with precious little airspeed, of course).

Believe it or not, no permanent harm was done to airplane or occupants, and
I became a lot more reliant on "feel" and less on instrument gauges after
that.

The second time was sometime during my first half dozen flights or so.
Don't recall the exact one. I turned base a little too early, which of
course put me too high on short final. But I was prepared! I knew ALL
about slips, having all of the qualifications of a brand new holder of a
Private Pilot certificate.

One thing that was never really mentioned in my training, however, was the
value of slipping INTO the crosswind. I of course chose to slip to the
left, so I could get a better view out the window of my approach. But the
wind was from the right. This meant that come time to straighten the
airplane out for the flare and touchdown, I had to completely reverse the
bank angle from a left bank to a right bank.

At that point, trying to figure out just the right configuration and how to
get there, my brain hit overload. I didn't freeze on the controls or
anything, but I sure messed up everything from that point all the way to the
rollout. Never did get the nose of the airplane pointed the right way,
touched down on one wheel with plenty of sideload, bounced, overcorrected,
the whole works. Three or four touchdowns later (on alternate wheels, of
course), the airplane finally decided I'd had enough chances to try to get
it right and landed itself.

Believe it or not, again the only damage was to my ego (no instructor around
to blame it on that time). But I did learn that the concept of planning
ahead applies even to transient flight maneuvers, and it was a great
reminder on the value of a go-around (which would have allowed me to avoid
the whole problem altogether).

Dropping the plane in from "a couple of feet"? Pshaw! You didn't even come
*close* to breaking something. Even with the funny rubber-disc landing gear
that Mooney has. Come back when you've *really* scared yourself.

Pete

'Fess up' time.

Now that the statute of limitations is up, I can relate what Mary always
calls "your Rockford landing" (whenever I tease her about a firm arrival).

It was right after we got our first plane, and we were taking it to "The
Avionics Place" at KRFD to have an intercom installed. I had never flown
into Rockford before, and was unfamiliar with the airport layout. There
were a lot of planes in the pattern, I wasn't yet comfortable dealing with
controlled airspace, and the workload was high. Mary wasn't a pilot yet, so
she could offer little assistance.

End result: I couldn't find the runway I was cleared to land on until I was
RIGHT on top of it. It was one of those "Where *is* that damned runway?
Oh, THERE it is!" approaches, which meant too high, too fast, too close.

Of course, it was winter, and there was a howling cross-wind.

In my eagerness to get down, I literally dove for the runway. This, of
course, meant we were going way too fast to land, so I flared, trying to
bleed off excess airspeed. That howling cross wind now reared it's ugly
head, and I was being blown off into the frozen weeds, whilst waiting for my
airspeed to decay.

No problem -- I know how to counter *that* -- so I buried left rudder, and
dialed in full right aileron. Drift now corrected, we were coming down like
a load of sand. No problem -- add power! Now we're drifting again....

Up, down, side to side, this continued for several thousand feet of runway,
much to the delight of the Rockford tower crew, I'm sure. I just couldn't
get it dialed in right.

Finally, we touched down, mostly because I was getting tired.
Unfortunately, I was so fixated on correcting the crosswind that I
completely forgot to release that left rudder correction -- not smart in a
Piper product, which has the nosewheel and rudder firmly attached to the
pedals. All was well, sort of, until the nosegear hit, when we suddenly and
quite violently veered off toward those weeds again.

Thankfully, Rockford has 150 foot-wide runways. As I was sitting there,
now a passenger in a plane that had suddenly become my worst enemy, heading
toward the runway lights, my brain finally engaged and I released my frozen
rudder leg. Of course, the plane immediately corrected itself, and we
rolled out to the end of the runway.

As we taxied to the ramp, I was silently hyperventilating, and
uncharacteristically you could hear a pin drop in the plane. No one -- not
even my then-toddler children -- said a word until we shut down. Amazingly,
that Warrior nose gear took all that stress without complaint.

On that day I learned that all of my landings had been successful only
because of rote procedure ("OK, 80 on downwind, 1000 feet up. Runway over
my shoulder, add a notch of flaps. Start my left turn....") not because I
was truly "landing" the plane. I learned that when something happened to
CHANGE that procedure, I was a mess.

I then embarked on truly learning the art of landing, from ANY approach or
configuration. That took another couple of hundred hours, in retrospect.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote

As we taxied to the ramp, I was silently hyperventilating, and
uncharacteristically you could hear a pin drop in the plane. No one --
not even my then-toddler children -- said a word until we shut down.
Amazingly, that Warrior nose gear took all that stress without complaint.

I sure hope you didn't sell that airplane to any *friends*. g
--
Jim in NC

I fly a Mooney too and carrying too much speed to the pavement always
ends up with you getting to record several landings. The hockey pucks
that Mooney uses for the shock absorbers are pretty unforgiving when it
comes to too much airspeed. The landing gear basically consists of a
couple pieces of steel with some hockey pucks in the middle for
cushioning. :-)

OK.. Here is my story... New Mooney pilot going to a fly-in lunch at
KBAK (Columbus, Indiana). Can't remember it is was the first time that
my wife flew in the Mooney or not but she hadn't been up in it too many
times. BAK is a nice class Delta field with intersecting runways.

I was unfamiliar with the field and the airplane and ended up over the
field a little disoriented as to which runway I was to land on. Once I
figured it out I had to be quick about getting slowed down so I could
drop the gear. Slowing down a Mooney takes being ahead of the plane,
which of course, I wasn't.

My goal was to show my wife how nice and smooth landing our new
low-winger was but I was 20 mph too fast on short final. Of course I
tried to force it on to the runway causing what could only be described
as a pogo-stick with wings trying to stay planted on the runway.

My inexperience in the plane actually caused me to be suprised that we
were now 10 feet off the ground again. No problem, I'll just flair now I
thought. I came down even harder than before and up we went again. I
finally occurred to me that at this point a touch of power may be in
order, so so in goes the throttle. This allowed me to arrest the
bouncing and set up for a proper flair and landing. We rolled to a stop
and I sheepishly walked to the resturant.

I'm quite sure that all the folks in the Tower were having a good laugh
at my expense. I did however log it as 1 T/O and 3 landings. :-)

On the return flight we needed to traverse Indianapolis International's
class Charley. No big deal and we were cleared. What I didn't know
what that my wife had her headset turned down so much that she couldn
hear the controller calling out traffic. As we passed the runway 23
arrival corridor I heard "Mooney 4443Hotel, traffic 3:00 o'clock, 3
miles, westbound a Boeing 757". I looked to my right and there it was
heading staight for us. I called to the controller "Indy Approach,
Mooney 4443Hotel has the traffic". Just then I saw the look of terror on
my wifes face. She had not been able to hear my exchange with the
controller and was a "little concerned" about what she was seeing out
her window. :-)

Needless to say we made it back home and landed uneventfully (using the
proper airspeed of course).

Lessons learned:
Airspeed is important for landing safely
Make sure that the wife knows how to work her headset volume

Jon Kraus
'79 Mooney 201
4443H @ TYQ

Tony wrote:

'Fess up' time. We were having a hanger session a while ago, talking
about firm landings. My worst was going into an airport near Urbana IL
(not sure of the spelling, this was back in the early 80s so it made an
impression on me.)

There was a cross wind from the left, and for some reason I I decided
to land close to the numbers. Turns out there was a big barn not far
from the runway threshold, and it really messed up the airflow right at
the runway. I fly a Mooney, and don't like to carry a lot of airspeed
into the flare.

The wind went from a headwind component of 5 or 8 knots to a tailwind
right at the start of the flare and the airplane quit flying a couple
of feet off the runway. I thought the gear would come through the
wings!

Turns out nothing was damaged, and the locals said they did like to
watch transient pilots deal with that problem.

I had to return there later that day, landed a lot longer on the
runway, and carried a few more knots of airspeed as well.

I learned a lesson most of you probably already know. If there's a
crosswind and there's any kind of obstruction to the windward side of
the runway, take special care.

That's my story (and I'm sticking to that excuse!). What's your's, and
what were the lessons learned?

It doesn't take long to figure out you need really long runways if you
carry too much speed into the flare with an M20J! Too any of us Mooney
jocks still don't hear the stall warning horn before touchdown: if you
really want to have fun with a 172 driver in the right seat really hold
if off with a little power until you touch down with the tail skid
first. They NEVER will have been that nose high in the flare.


I'll bet you find this true as well: watching a Skyhawk make an
approach to a fairly short runway and telling yourself he'll NEVER get
it down in time from there. But he does, without even using a slip.
Know thy airplane, huh?

Tony

If it goes 'Beep'-'Squeak' in a Mooney, you know you made a excellent
landing )

Big John
Ex Mark 20C
```````````````````````````````````

On 8 Jan 2006 21:40:31 -0800, "Tony" wrote:

It doesn't take long to figure out you need really long runways if you
carry too much speed into the flare with an M20J! Too any of us Mooney
jocks still don't hear the stall warning horn before touchdown: if you
really want to have fun with a 172 driver in the right seat really hold
if off with a little power until you touch down with the tail skid
first. They NEVER will have been that nose high in the flare.


I'll bet you find this true as well: watching a Skyhawk make an
approach to a fairly short runway and telling yourself he'll NEVER get
it down in time from there. But he does, without even using a slip.
Know thy airplane, huh?

It doesn't take long to figure out you need really long runways if you
carry too much speed into the flare with an M20J! Too any of us Mooney
jocks still don't hear the stall warning horn before touchdown: if you
really want to have fun with a 172 driver in the right seat really hold
if off with a little power until you touch down with the tail skid
first. They NEVER will have been that nose high in the flare.


I'll bet you find this true as well: watching a Skyhawk make an
approach to a fairly short runway and telling yourself he'll NEVER get
it down in time from there. But he does, without even using a slip.
Know thy airplane, huh?

Confession time & a learning moment -

Picture my then nearly new C172M on the ground at Philipsburg MT, with
a runway 16/34, and a strong hot wind from what seemed like WSW at
maybe 25 knots. We had been camping with another couple that had
driven from from Idaho Falls & was time to shift the vacation back to
IDF. We loaded all the gear and the two women into their truck & us
guys were to fly to IDF. Obviously a better decision would have been
to wait, but I reasoned that since we were light.........

What runway to use? Well it was downhill slightly to the south so I
chose that one.

For some stupid reason (thinking a short/soft field situation because
of the elevation and the heat?) I tried to raise the nosewheel early in
the takeoff roll while using full right aileron. Things quickly
deteriorated into the rubbity-scrubbities as the gear protested being
dragged sidewise. Acceleration was slow, and it seemed like an
eternity to get to flying speed. Once horsed into the air, we cleared
the barb wire by a couple of feet.

It was pure chance that I took the crosswind from the right. Had it
been on the left, I'm sure we would have rolled it into a ball. My X/W
technique was awful & it took the next biennial to straighten that out.
Lessons:

1) In any choice situation, take the crosswind from the right. Be
especially wary of left crosswinds. (I have not seen this published
anywhere)

2) Recognize that in any marginal short field/soft field situation,
the presence of a crosswind takes precedence over everything else.

3) Plan your takeoffs. It is too late to start planning them once
initiated.

1) In any choice situation, take the crosswind from the right. Be
especially wary of left crosswinds. (I have not seen this published
anywhere)

Can you expand on that a bit, please? I'm not sure I see where you're going
with this.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"