SEL 'FIRM' landings

"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