Night landings vs. day landings

I got a strange thing going on. I got my license a couple of months
ago. My day landings are smooth but not the smoothest. I do them.
i don't myself, a passenger or the plane but sometimes not greasers.
my night landings, every one of them, I can grease them in. Shouldn't
it be the opposite? I find this completely backwards as you have more
visual cues during the day. Anyone else have this 'problem?' obviously
if my day landings were that bad i wouldn't have been able to pass
my checkride. Strange.

Gerald Sylvester

Maybe dark sunglasses would help your day landings? ;-)

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Not all landings are greasers. As long
as you are landing safely and can reuse the plane afterwards....

"Gerald Sylvester" wrote in message
link.net...

I got a strange thing going on. I got my license a couple of months
ago. My day landings are smooth but not the smoothest. I do them.
i don't myself, a passenger or the plane but sometimes not greasers.
my night landings, every one of them, I can grease them in. Shouldn't
it be the opposite? I find this completely backwards as you have more
visual cues during the day. Anyone else have this 'problem?' obviously
if my day landings were that bad i wouldn't have been able to pass
my checkride. Strange.

Gerald Sylvester

"Gerald Sylvester" wrote in message
link.net...

My day landings are smooth but not the smoothest.

my night landings, every one of them, I can grease them in. Shouldn't
it be the opposite? I find this completely backwards as you have more
visual cues during the day.

Not unusual. Too many visual cues during the day, and you must learn to
select and use the correct cues, and disregard the superfluous. At night,
all you have available, in most cases, are the essential cues provided by
the lighting system.

JG

My day landings are smooth but not the smoothest. I do them.
i don't myself, a passenger or the plane but sometimes not greasers.
my night landings, every one of them, I can grease them in. Shouldn't
it be the opposite? Gerald Sylvester

Just a guess but it might be that on the night landing you are looking at
visual cues that are further down the runway and during the day you
may be looking at visual references that are way too close.

Just a guess?

David (KORL)

This used to happen to me when I was a student pilot several years
back. My reasoning for this was that your peripheral vision is better
at night. I can't say for sure if this is the cause of your problem as
well. The landing light and nav lights illuminate the peripheral area,
and your eyes are more sensitive to peripheral vision at night.
Peripheral vision is what you need for good landings. You should not
be looking at your touchdown point, but the edges of the runway. This
comes a little more naturally at night time that day time.



Gerald Sylvester wrote in message hlink.net...
I got a strange thing going on. I got my license a couple of months
ago. My day landings are smooth but not the smoothest. I do them.
i don't myself, a passenger or the plane but sometimes not greasers.
my night landings, every one of them, I can grease them in. Shouldn't
it be the opposite? I find this completely backwards as you have more
visual cues during the day. Anyone else have this 'problem?' obviously
if my day landings were that bad i wouldn't have been able to pass
my checkride. Strange.

Gerald Sylvester

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...

"Gerald Sylvester" wrote in message
link.net...

My day landings are smooth but not the smoothest.

my night landings, every one of them, I can grease them in. Shouldn't
it be the opposite? I find this completely backwards as you have more
visual cues during the day.

Not unusual. Too many visual cues during the day, and you must learn to
select and use the correct cues, and disregard the superfluous. At night,
all you have available, in most cases, are the essential cues provided by
the lighting system.

(You stole my thunder)

That's exactly the conclusion I reached after thinking about it. I, too,
notice that my night touch downs are smoother, even if my approach isn't
quite as graceful.

Just get some welding goggles...


Mike
MU-2

"Gerald Sylvester" wrote in message
link.net...

I got a strange thing going on. I got my license a couple of months
ago. My day landings are smooth but not the smoothest. I do them.
i don't myself, a passenger or the plane but sometimes not greasers.
my night landings, every one of them, I can grease them in. Shouldn't
it be the opposite? I find this completely backwards as you have more
visual cues during the day. Anyone else have this 'problem?' obviously
if my day landings were that bad i wouldn't have been able to pass
my checkride. Strange.

Gerald Sylvester

Just get some welding goggles...

as I said to the other poster, if I did that would it count as a night
landing as it would be a 'simulated night' landing....or whatever
the hell that means.


Even strange about this whole thing is my 12 night landings as
required for the PPL were not exactly gentle with the ground sneaking
up on me too quickly (had my one and only bounce ever at night).
I think it might be what others say as far as too many visual
cues without focusing on the most critical ones. I'll see tomorrow.

thanks everyone

Gerald

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote:

That's exactly the conclusion I reached after thinking about it. I, too,
notice that my night touch downs are smoother, even if my approach isn't
quite as graceful.

Doesn't it also have something to do with less convective turbulence
at night?

Rob

Doesn't it also have something to do with less convective turbulence
at night?

maybe a little but generally the more bumpy it is, the further
I extend the downwind just to set up and trim out the plane
more for a more stable final leg. I think it is more mental than
anything.


Then again, today I did my mountain checkout in an Archer (also
the first time I flew the Archer vs. Warrior) and had my best
landing yet with the textbook definition of a greaser.
Someday I'll be able to grease them all flying my BBJ.

Gerald