SEL 'FIRM' landings

On 2006-01-06, Tony wrote:
'Fess up' time. We were having a hanger session a while ago, talking
about firm landings.

Right after I got my Comanche I was up with my CFI doing practice landings.
I did one short field landing that was just fine, so we were both a little
complacent when I came around the second time and made a perfect short
field landing about 3' in the air. I saw it coming and had full power on
just as the bottom fell out, and we just smacked down for a split second
and then we were going around. What I was totally unprepared for was how
upsetting it was to do something like that to *my* *airplane*. I was a
wreck on the next pattern. I tried to land softly, ended up forgetting
to ever totally cut power, skating around on the runway with full flaps
until my instructor pointed out the throttle.

At that point my Comanche landings were (obviously) not up to the standard
of my 172 landings, and that incident set me back another 100 hours or so
while I regained confidence flying low and slow in the Comanche. It's a
pig when slow (very little aileron authority) which gives you the feeling
that it won't be able to round out and flare, but it actually has plenty
of elevator authority.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/