Landing skills

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:
OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:
On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:



OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

Feather-touch landings are not my strongest suit either. A lot of times if
you’re coming out of an IFR flight you have other things on your mind than
getting set up for a perfect landing, and you may be a bit high and hot as
well. I admit I’m impressed by pilots who grease it every time, but I’m
just as impressed by some of these same pilots’ low and slow maneuvering
abilities. Short patterns, slips, engine-out landings. I demonstrate these
things, like everyone else, on every BFR, but some pilots are really good
at them.
One thing for sure is that MSFS or any really affordable desktop sim is no
help at all, as their flying characteristics are wildly unrealistic for
this type of work, and even the typical flight school sims (Frasca, etc)
don’t do much better in this particular aspect. It would be really useful
if we could develop a reasonably priced, full motion simulator with good
fidelity for this type of training. If we could get not 6 but 60 landings
in an hour’s time, with all different wind conditions and really good
fidelity I’m sure we could reduce the number of landing incidents. Probably
wouldn’t save a lot of lives, but might help with insurance rates.

In article
,
says...

Next time I do this, it'll be called touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

Ground effect in the Mooney? When your wheels are an inch off the runway
your wings are three inches off! Trouble is the airplane just wants to sit
there like that and won't surrender those last inches. Of course many
Mooney pilots improve on this by simply not lowering the gear at all.
Sliders, but not greasers!

On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:
On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:





On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

In article
,
says...

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.


If we could watch our planes from the side we would all make perfect
landings. Failing this, we really don't know exactly how high we are.
Sounds like the guy you know has developed a visual system to help in this
judgement. Birds can land on a twig without snapping it, and they just have
one eye on either side of their head!

On Jun 26, 9:50*am, a wrote:

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

When I had my Sundowner, I shot for slow flight configuration in my
round out to flare. That seem to work wonders. Of course, it took
some extra power to chop once the wheels touched down but it did work
for me.

Like you indicated, certain things you feel, and with slow flight I
felt "firmness" in the seat of my pants until the wheels touched (that
was my goal).

a wrote:
OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

When I want to work on my landings as opposed to just logging them, I
never do a touch and go and always come to a full stop.

Once the airplane is stopped I critique myself and think about what I did
and what I need to do on the next landing to make it better.

This is a technique shown me by an instructor who said that if you do touch
and goes you have to pay attention to flying the airplane and can't
concentrate on analyzing what you just did.

It works for me, your mileage my vary.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:



On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.
I will work on those, but I'm not sure taking cues from beside the
airplane is a good idea: my guess is just when you're looking to the
side is when a deer will decide the grass is greener on the other side
of the runway.

As someone else mentioned, the low wing Mooney, especially when landed
with full flaps, likes to float, so energy/speed control is pretty
critical -- get close to flare altitude 5 knots fast and you've just
lengthened flare to stop distance by 500 feet or more. I think very
smooth landings in the M20 would best be done with minimal flaps --
that trapped air under the wings and ahead of the flaps just has no
place to go! In really short field practice I know the center of lift
really moves aft with full flaps -- and for short fields I like to
bring the flaps up in the very late flare to get weight on the gear as
soon as possible. As they go up I need increasing back pressure
because the center of lift moves forward.

It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down