How do you teach landings?

[Cat Driver]

I run into a lot of licensed pilots that have great difficulty judging height for the flare and hold off period when landing.

The most common problem is looking in the wrong place to accurately judge height and loss or gain thereof during the latter stages of the landing...

 

[midlifeflyer]

One of the things I do is teach no-flap landings first. In a lot of trainers, the hight amoount of drag with full flaps means very little time in the flare. I find that the marginally higher airspeed and float with no flaps results in a longer flare and more time to develop the proper sight picture.

And, FWIW, my personal flare FAQ:

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It's not unusual for pilots to have dificulty judging their height above the ground. Add to that a strong desire to pull up (and balloon) when we see that ground coming at us!

I find that it often helps to think of the "flare" in two parts, the second of which is really the flaring part: "level off" and "flare".

Levelling off involves flattening your downward motion - you transition the airplane from it's descent to level flight. Thinking of it this way tends to help helps with ballooning problems since changing to the familiar level flight attitude tends to help avoid over-rotating. How high is the level off? Well, it's usually somewhat lower, but you're generally safe if you begin not more than a wing span off the ground - you want to level off into ground effect.

The level off will start the process of bleeding off speed, and the final descent to the ground. Once it begins, you can start the flare.

The flare itself involves slowly (so you slow but do not stop the descent) bringing the nose up to the exact same position it was in when the mains left the ground on takeoff. I'll repeat that. The flare itself involves slowly bringing the nose up to the exact same position it was in when the mains left the ground on takeoff. It's easy to visualize and the best part is that if the nose is in that position, you =will= land mains first. (BTW, noticing my attitude when I take off is how I teach myself how to land an airplane type I never flew before).

Once you get the nose in that position, keep it there.

Keeping it there will require you to continue to apply back pressure. It will also help you apply the correct amount of back pressure. I think that's important to understand.

CFIs constantly tell you to "hold it off" or continue pulling the yoke back. I =know= this is a standard instruction. I hear it all the time. It's essentially correct, but I think it misses the point and leads to some very interesting ballooning as someone brings the stick all the way back because that's the way it's "supposed" to be done.

But what happens when you bring the nose back to the takeoff position and do whatever is necessary to keep it there until it won't stay up any more?

Go back to slow flight. What happens? As the airplane gets slower, controls get less effective -- more deflection is necessary to get the same effect. So you're in the flare and getting slower and slower and slower. This means that in order to keep the nose in the same place, you need to pull back more and more and more.

You don't bring the yoke to your belly because that's the way you're =supposed to= do it, but rather it's more or less the way you =have to= do it.

If you do what is necessary to keep the same pitch attitude, you =will be= "holding it off".
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[Cat Driver]

Mark:

Thanks for the reply.

Where do you teach the student to look to judge the level off point?

And once in the hold off period with a/s decreasing and lift decreasing where do you teach them to look during the hold off period prior to touch down?

 

[Cat Driver]

O.K.

Let me elaborate on why I asked the question.

I teach tailwheel flying as part of my course, and find that most pilots have great difficulty in judging the flare height to perform a simple wheel landing.

I feel it is due to poor training from the start.

Any comments on why this would be?

 

[midlifeflyer]

Where do you teach the student to look to judge the level off point?

And once in the hold off period with a/s decreasing and lift decreasing where do you teach them to look during the hold off period prior to touch down?

For the level off point, I like the same distance down the runway that we generally use when we drive. We're used to the rest peripheral picture at that point and only have to add in a height sense rather than create a whole new concept.

During the hold off period, it's going to be different for different airplanes. I don't fly tailwheel (unfortunately!), but even among nosewheel airplanes there are substantial differences. There are low wings like the Tiger and Cirrus where we can literally look down at the nose and see everything in front of it during the flare and still have the nosewheel off the ground. On the other hand, depending on seat height, if you can see the runway in front of you in a CE-172, the nose is probably too low.

If you can see in front of you, I think about 1000' is a good spot since it keeps your eyes high enough to be able to see your surroundings. If the nose is going to cover the runway, shifting the view 30-45° off to the side seems to work.

Why the problem? I think that a lot of us teach a sight picture for a specific airplane using parts of the airplane as a guide ("line up this rivet with that part of the runway"). When a pilot learns this way, it means creating a new sight picture for a new airplane rather than a minor adjustment. Whether that's poor training or not depends on your definition, but that's why I teach nose position at takeoff = nose position at touchdown. Might not work with both types of tailwheel landing, though.

 

[Cat Driver]

thanks for answering Mark:

The problem that I quite often run into with converting pilots to tailwheel flying is their inability to judge flare height for a wheel landing.

By flare height I am refeering to the point at which one changes the attitude from the approach attitude to the level attitude just above the runway.

To properly execute a wheel landing the pilot has to be able to accurately judge the height at which to flare for a proper attitude at wheel contact with the runway to prevent bouncing back into the air at touchdown.

The main fault that I find is they look in the wrong area to judge height prior to the flare...usually to far ahead,,,,in fact most say they were taught to look at the far end of the runway to judge height....

And that dosen't work worth a **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** for accurate height judgement.

Cat Driver:

 

[rchcfi]

Cat Driver,

Could the bouncing be attributed to this:

When I went for my tailwheel instruction, I had 1500 hours of "regular" airplane time. I took my tailwheel in a Cessna 140.
I did fairly well with 3 point landings but I kept bouncing my wheel landings. And that was because my instructor told me to push forward on the yoke on wheel contact. The problem being that it was not normal for me to push forward on the yoke having come from tricycle gear airplanes. So when I attempted my first wheel landing, I just pushed forward a little but it wasn't enough to stick the airplane to the asphalt. So I bounced up again and again and again until the instructor took control and "pushed" hard on the yoke and the airplane just stuck like glue. I was terrified the airplane was going to nose over I guess. After a couple of attempts I was comfortable enough to push hard and get the airplane to stick...It was just so uncomfortable and unnatural to me. That was why I kept bouncing, but you might be describing something different.

Cheers

 

[Cat Driver]

Rchcfi :

The secret to good wheel landings is a smooth flare to the level attitude just as the wheels touch the runway.... done properly there is no need to use a lot of foward elevator movement, just check it slightly foward will suffice, especially with a Cessna 140 with that spring gear....

Flaring to high usually results in touching the runway with to much of a tail low attitude, then of course aggressive foward elevator movement is necessary to pin it on.

The problem that I find with a lot of students is the inability to flare low enough to touch down in the proper wheel landing attitude...and every one of them are looking to far ahead during this phase of the landing.

When questioned I find most of them were taught to look at the far end of the runway and gradually assume the level attitude in the later part of the approach and from there just arrive...

Makes it difficult to re train them to land.

 

[Timebuilder]

I had trouble with the tailwheel setup also. Who in the heck wants to push forward?? The darned thing feels like it will flip over on the prop!!

The "sight picture" I used to teach was two or three stripes ahead, which is probably VERY close to the "driving" distance that Mark referenced.

In general, I always started the landing instruction with using a point on the windshield and a point on the runway to set up a stabilized approach. Without a good beginning, a good flare is unlikely.

 

[Cat Driver]

Yeh, at first wheel landings in a tailwheel airplane can be a little difficult for pilots used to nose wheel airplanes to get used to.

The best method that I find to get em up to speed real fast is to find a small airport with no traffic and no houses near it and then make them do one minute circuits alternating left hand and right hand.

The curving approach is a lot easier to judge the touch down point and its also easier to land from a stabilized turning approach to the flare.

The big problem is finding the proper airport to fly very tight circuits...we are lucky where I live there is a four thousand foot paved runway with zero buildings for miles...its perfect.

I have decided to retire soon and have decided to sell my Aerobat Texas Taildragger that I use in a Bush Pilot training course I run.........kind of hate to see it go but its time I quit this working for a living.

 

[Timebuilder]

Good luck to you, then. Happy trails.