I don't understand this type of landing.

[avbug]

Using this phrase is an instructing technique to get students to stop landing in a too-flat-attitude...but,wait, you knew that didn't you?

I prefer dealing with a student honestly, and calling a spade a spade. If I mean a nose-high attitude, then I tell the student nose high attitude.

Particularly with a new student or any primary student, telling the student to land the airplane like a taildragger has no meaning, if the student is flying a tricycle gear airplane. The student has no experience with which to correlate such an example, except perhaps having seen one on the ramp...this does little good in the cockpit.

If the student has a particularly hard time getting it, I'll tie the tail down and lift the nose and let the student sit in the airplane for an hour before we fly, visualizing the landing, then opening his eyes and seeing the landing attitude.

I'll do the same thing in a conventional gear airplane. In order for the student to visualize and understand a wheel or two point landing, I'll raise the tail of the airplane and place it in a truck bed or on a stand, and have the student sit in the airplane while mentally "flying it." The student gets the sight picture so that it's more familiar to him or her when we land. The student may go back and do this several times, as needed.

I explain to a student wile taxiing in a tricycle gear airplane that this is a three point attitude. Look outside, memorize how close you feel to the ground while moving...this is very close to what you'll see on landing, but with the nose in the air, just like it was when you were at the ramp with the tail tied down (or raised for a conventional gear airplane).

If I'm taxiing with a student in a conventional gear airplane, then yes, I can tell the student that we are experiencing the same proximity to the ground, in a three point landing attitude, that the student will experience when he or she lands.

I do not try to help a student in a tricycle gear airplane understand a landing by using incorrect terminology and poor examples, and by confusing the student using aircraft configurations and feelings and sight pictures that he or she has never experienced.

 

[nosehair]

I prefer dealing with a student honestly, and calling a spade a spade. If I mean a nose-high attitude, then I tell the student nose high attitude.

...OK, that's what you do. You use the term "nose-high attitude". There are lots of instructors who use the term "3-point attitude", and that is what the original question of this thread was about. Of course, you are right about the terminology; it may be confusing, like "take-off power" - which way is that?
That is your point - the terminology is technically incorrect - but the meaning is the same as it has always been - a "nose high attitude".

If the student has a particularly hard time getting it, I'll tie the tail down and lift the nose and let the student sit in the airplane for an hour before we fly, visualizing the landing, then opening his eyes and seeing the landing attitude.

...OK, here's what I do...I have the student get on the runway, and do some "high speed taxiing"...we get enough speed to lift the nosewheel up to a landing attitude, and get the feel of directional control with the rudder pressure only...not with nosewheel steering. The new student gets the look of the nose-high landing attitude, and the elevator/throttle coordination, and the feel of rudder pressure to control direction down the centerline...in the landing attitude and control feel.

I don't use the "3-point" term either, (with tricycles) but it's out there...you can't stop it, just acknowledge it, explain it if necessary, and move on.
​

 

[avbug]

Many moons ago I hired on with a company flying twin commanders. I'd never flown one. Prior to ground school, the chief pilot had to take a checkride. Several of us flew down to the airport where the FSDO was located. I rode in back. They did the ride, the others left, and I flew back with the chief pilot.

This was my first chance to fly the airplane. We were parked on the line at this airport, with the POI watching. The chief pilot said that the airplane was easy to taxi, it taxies just like a "taildragger." He said, "If you know how to fly a taildragger, then you already know how to taxi this airplane."

Brakes released, and we began to roll forward. I pushed a rudder all the way to the stops, to no avail. I tried tapping the brake and got a jerky response, but kept taxiing forward. And forward. And forward.

"Come on! It's just like a taildragger? I thought you said you know how to fly a taildragger?"

At this point I was thoroughly confused. I tried pushing forward on the control column, to see if it would release a steering lock. Nope, not like a taildragger. I tried pushing rudders both ways. Nope, not like a taildragger. I tried using differential braking, but the results certainly weren't satisfactory. Nope, not like a taildragger. I tried doing all of the above while carrying power and using differential power. Nope, not like a taildragger.

Now of course, the twin commander is easy to taxi, and all he had to say was "start to apply a little toe pressure, and you'll get steering. Apply a little harder and you get brake." But he didn't. He kept insisting that the twin commander taxiis like a conventional gear airplane, which it doesn't, in any way, shape, or form. Perhaps he was trying to suggest that because he uses a lot of braking in flying a conventional gear airplane that everyone else does...or that getting the airplane to move might be like unlocking some wheels from their detent by tapping a brake. I don't know what he meant...if he'd have just used plain english and called a spade a spade, it would have come across a whole lot clearer.

 

[nosehair]

...if he'd have just used plain english and called a spade a spade, it would have come across a whole lot clearer.

...and if all the instructors in all the training flights we have all done would have always used the clearest form of communication so that we would have always understood the precise meaning of the intended communication...
...then we wouldn't be having this conversation...
​

 

[TonyC]

...and if all the instructors in all the training flights we have all done would have always used the clearest form of communication so that we would have always understood the precise meaning of the intended communication...
...then we wouldn't be having this conversation...

​

It appears to me that the conversation has been prolonged not because of "all the instructors...", but rather because of the poor communication skills and usage of improper techniques of a single instructor.

The silver lining in the cloud is you've encouraged Avbug to more clearly articulate not only how the misuse of "three point landing" is technically incorrect, but is conducive to negative learning and perhaps unsafe. I wholeheartedly endorse his approach to the subject.



.

 

[the_dimwit]

I agree. Avbug's description of the landing position of an airplane (whether conventional or tricycle) relative to the ground is quite clear. I could picture the entire scenario well.

--Dim

 

[nosehair]

The silver lining in the cloud is you've encouraged Avbug to more clearly articulate not only how the misuse of "three point landing" is technically incorrect, but is conducive to negative learning and perhaps unsafe. I wholeheartedly endorse his approach to the subject.

...as do I. and the whole point of these discussions is to encourage articulation so that information is better understood and distributed. See, even Dimwit gets it.
​

 

[the_dimwit]

See, even Dimwit gets it.

Hey...careful. It's just a nickname...