Teach the CFI - Landings

[memooch]

Fellow Aviators:

I'm a CFI, and I've taught many to do this over the past couple years, but I don't think I necessarily give the best advice to all my students. Some get it quickly; some don't. Essentially, I'm looking for some new ideas to try out.

As experienced pilots, tell me what YOU were taught--at the point when it MADE SENSE to you--about HOW TO LAND (ASEL). I need specifics: where you were told to look, focus your attention, kinethetics, sounds, etc. What made it all "click" for you? Tell me about whatever issues you were able to overcome (flare, x-wind, etc.) and what your CFI told you that made it all make sense (...or what you as CFI tell your students which yields the greatest success).

Many thanks.

 

[great cornholio]

When I was doing the CFI thing I used to break the flare into 3 parts and teach the 3 parts to the students. I did this because the flare is where most will have a problem and of course its the part that really counts. I never really told them where to look although I would suggest looking at the far end of the runway sometimes if all else failed. Anyways here are the 3 parts of the flare which worked good for me.

1. The continuation of the approach down to just a few feet above the runway. This usually has a slight nose down angle in most training a/c.

2. Transition from the approach angle to level flight just above the runway. I would stress a nice smooth transition from nose down angle to a nose level angle and encourage the student to try to hold the plane just a few feet off of the ground. In order to keep the plane from sinking to the ground they would have to add back pressure which would result in a transition to the third part of the flare.

3. Establish a nose high angle so you hit with the mains first. With most training a/c the flare angle is the same as the angle you aimed for when you rotated on takeoff which usually looks like you put the cowling on the top of the trees at the end of the runway. Usually the energy has run out and the student has gotten the plane to this angle and the plane will settle to the runway. Of course now its time to remind the student that they must always fly the plane until it comes to a complete stop.

When I was teaching it seemed like most students would try to go from the nose down angle straight to the flare nose high angle which would result in ballooning and bouncing and all other fun stuff. On the other hand other students would hesitate and hit the nose wheel first which was even more fun. It also seemed like most instructors did not break down the flare into 3 steps.

The best thing about the 3 step flare is that instead of the flare being a new maneuver that has never been seen it is a quick succession of already seen and "mastered" maneuvers. First being leveling off to level flight from a decent and the other being the establishment of the takeoff attitude.

 

[WabiSabi]

Fellow Aviators:

I'm a CFI, and I've taught many to do this over the past couple years, but I don't think I necessarily give the best advice to all my students. Some get it quickly; some don't. Essentially, I'm looking for some new ideas to try out.

As experienced pilots, tell me what YOU were taught--at the point when it MADE SENSE to you--about HOW TO LAND (ASEL). I need specifics: where you were told to look, focus your attention, kinethetics, sounds, etc. What made it all "click" for you? Tell me about whatever issues you were able to overcome (flare, x-wind, etc.) and what your CFI told you that made it all make sense (...or what you as CFI tell your students which yields the greatest success).

Many thanks.

As for the basics of landings (round out and flare points, milking it down etc, I think it boils down to letting the student screw up to the point that is right before the airplane is damaged. I think the most efficient learning is made here.

I think if you get the student to be able to coordinate the touchdown with the stick all the way to the stop (relatively calm days of course) that this will increase their understanding. I think too many students just fly the airplane onto the runway.

don't let them get sloppy on the traffic pattern. i think sloppy patterns means sloppy landings.

That said; slow flight, slow flight and slow flight. climbs, turns descents climbing turns, descending turns, all in slow flight. correlating right rudder application with increases and decreases in power. this demonstrates how sloppy the controls are right at touchdown.

X-wind landings; Fly to a long runway with a xwind. request low approaches for the full length and don't touch down.....just maintain the altitude you choose (I like just a couple of feet) demonstrate the correlation between airspeed and required control input. i.e. on one pass, hold a xwind correction that will line the airplane up with the centerline. then maintain the same correction while slowly pulling the power back and pitching up. of course the airplane will drift downwind. this will demonstrate the requirement for proportional control input as airspeed decreases. with subsequent passes you can demo just a crab and show the student that if a landing is made then there is the dreaded sideload is imposed. another pass can demo how the rudder lines the longitudinal axis with the centerline but will not correct for drift. I think these low passes give very positive visual cues to the student.

there are many demonstrations you can do with this method. I have found that this goes a long way for the student to understand more about xwind landings.

 

[nosehair]

That said; slow flight, slow flight and slow flight. climbs, turns descents climbing turns, descending turns, all in slow flight. correlating right rudder application with increases and decreases in power. this demonstrates how sloppy the controls are right at touchdown.

I will echo (reinforce, repeat, say-it-again-for-emphasis) what WabiSabi says here. Flying into and out of stalls in slow flight straght ahead and in controlled turns teaches how the controls respond during the landing flare.

Along with the low passes, I also like to do long slow finals. 2 or 3 miles if you can, so the student has a couple/few minutes getting the feel of control deflection so that he can have it somewhat under control as he approaches the flare and can continue this feeling of control throughout the flare until achieving a controlled touchdown.

A really lot of the landing problems come from a too-tight pattern. The student is behind the airplane and has not caught up with it when it comes time to flare.

Of course, it becomes a traffic problem if everyone else wants a 'normal' pattern, but the nature of primary flight training means that we sometimes need to break down a maneuver into seperate elements for a beginner to master one at a time.

That means we should find an airport where we can have a long 'training' final, or...pick a long road/railroad/powerline and assign it as a runway and fly long, descending-on-final approaches with a significant crosswind. Slowflight.

Slowflight is the key. Flying the airplane at cruise speeds comes naturally - we don't need practice at that - what we need to feel is how the airplane responds at touchdown speeds.

 

[Amish RakeFight]

How about an exercise in flying in ground effect down the length of a long runway.

 

[memooch]

Thanks to all so far--much sound advice!
-mm

 

[SPilot]

For some time, in my very early days, I was afraid of well, hitting the ground, and so I was scared the last second of the flare before hitting the ground...kinda the same scare people have with firing a gun...pulling the trigger; will it hurt...
Just doing it multiple times, and getting more comfortable flying close to the ground solved it in time.

 

[pilotyip]

Not the way

When I was doing the CFI thing I used to break the flare into 3 parts and teach the 3 parts to the students. Anyways here are the 3 parts of the flare which worked good for me.
.

I did that on my landing with an instructor in Navy flight training. Here is what he told me, flaring is for sissy's, like only drinking beer from a glass, plus other unprintable things. Real pilots never flare, just fly a the first 500'. Getting ready to land on a boat from flight #1. Never flared an airplane again until I starting flying the P-3.

 

[OrionFE]

I did that on my landing with an instructor in Navy flight training. Here is what he told me, flaring is for sissy's, like only drinking beer from a glass, plus other unprintable things. Real pilots never flare, just fly a the first 500'. Getting ready to land on a boat from flight #1. Never flared an airplane again until I starting flying the P-3.

It was fun flying with a young "Nugget".....good approach until Land Flaps selected at about 150-200' then balloon up, re-trim and all hell broke loose all down the runway to a nice stiff touchdown! I actually do not miss those days!

OrionFE

 

[ALIMBO]

Im not a CFI but what I think helps the most is go out to the practice area and do slow flight into a power off stall. That way there getting a feel for how control effectiveness lessons with airspeed. Then once your into the power off descend 100 feet at 65kts (172 approach speed) and at a 100 feet call that the simulated ground and start flaring as if there was a runway that way they can see what the flare is like and how to properly do it ie. some people flare to much or not enough and land flat. So if they can get the slow flight and stalls down they have a great chance of getting the landings down.

 

[great cornholio]

I did that on my landing with an instructor in Navy flight training. Here is what he told me, flaring is for sissy's, like only drinking beer from a glass, plus other unprintable things. Real pilots never flare, just fly a the first 500'. Getting ready to land on a boat from flight #1. Never flared an airplane again until I starting flying the P-3.

I was flying with a new FO a few months ago who plowed it on the runway pretty good and a passenger asked if he had just quit the Navy and was new to the airlines... He was new to the airlines, but with 250 Total he sure wasn't from the Navy. I've always thought it would be fun/scarey to try to land on the boat.

 

[DrewBlows]

Trim, trim, trim!

A good approach leads to a good landing.

The traffic pattern isn't a great place to learn about pitch attitudes. Take your student to the practice area, where there isn't the pressure of hitting the ground, and show him the proper attitude, with the proper trim and throttle setting for approach. Then let him practice. Once he has the proper approach attitude have him practice the transition from level flight to the proper pitch attitude. When he has that down, show him the proper touch-down pitch attitude and let him practice the transition from the approach attitude to the landing attitude. When your student is comfortable with these basics in the practice area it's time to go to the traffic pattern. When your student can set up a proper approach attitude he can concentrate on making the corrections he needs to put him where he needs to be at the runway.

One last thing, make sure your student always has the airplane in trim. Some instructors say "don't trim after you pull the power out", this is terrible advice. You should ALWAYS be in trim, right up until the flare. In an airplane with a manual trim wheel it doesn't make sense to trim in the flare, but for heavier airplanes it might. When I instructed in Mooneys some students landed fine without trimming in the flare, but some couldn't get the proper attitude without flaring. It's a matter of preference at that point. Any other time the aircraft must be properly trimmed.

 

[MauleSkinner]

I will echo (reinforce, repeat, say-it-again-for-emphasis) what WabiSabi says here. Flying into and out of stalls in slow flight straght ahead and in controlled turns teaches how the controls respond during the landing flare.

...

Slowflight is the key. Flying the airplane at cruise speeds comes naturally - we don't need practice at that - what we need to feel is how the airplane responds at touchdown speeds.

I'll re-echo this from another perspective...as an occasional tailwheel instructor, I find it a LOT easier to teach pilots landings in the taildragger if I wait until after they can accurately control the airplane through slow flight, stalls, and configuration changes. If they can't do this, they certainly won't be able to land the airplane well.

Fly safe!

David

 

[skyaddict]

Tons of good, specific tips on this thread, and I haven't instructed in 7 years, but I found that some students become fixated on trying to find an exact technique that they can replicate again and again, only to be frustrated by their perfectionism. What I found helped solved the problem with those sort of students was to teach them a grab bag of recovery techniques to build their confidence and help them relax... That is, while the textbook gouges get them into the proper "funnel" (or window or gateway or whatever you want to call it) for a proper flare, there is lots of slack built in to the funnel from which you can draw on a recovery/correction tool kit. So make the student very comfortable recovering from every extreme corner of the funnel in terms of position, speed and energy- e.g. a much too high round out, or a late one, or being too fast or slow, ballooning, etc.. I'm not at all suggesting to let them get sloppy, nor am I discouraging a pro-active attitude towards going around when things are outside of the acceptable funnel. But I tried to drill into my students that, once inside the funnel, a good landing is just a bunch of constant little corrections from that recovery toolkit, and if they have practiced and developed confidence at the edges of what would ordinarily force a go-around, they develop nimbleness and lose the uptightness.

Naturally, the student's leeway on practicing a correction vs. a go-around should be much smaller when he's solo vs. with the CFI there guarding the controls.

 

[Amish RakeFight]

It's important to remember the building blocks of instruction like rote coming before understanding. Show them where the nose should be just before the wheels touch down. This way they can rotely (sp?) place the nose on this point in relation to the horizon. Call out the approximate flare height.

Basically, keep things very standardized. They will need to go through the rote phases before they acquire the "seat of the pants" feel for what a good landing should feel like; along with the proper techniques and timing of the flare based upon wind conditions.

You'll want to control and stabilize as many variables as possible fo the student so that they may attempt/ practice the motions over and over to get the correct feel.

One other thing, make sure you're working the rudders during the landing. Primary students aren't able to handle crosswinds (even minor ones) when they are focused on learning to just land, let alone incorporating the x-wind technique.