I'm willing to bet you'll get more consistent and good landings by thinking "hold off...hold off" rather than "flare."

 

From my first training days it was "flare" then "hold it off...hold it off... hold it off..."

 

Ozzie, if you had read our posts with any attention at all,

 

Bad habit of mine... some folk I pay complete attention to detail to... others I scarcely read... or pick and chose what I want to hear.

 

:rolleyes:

 

I'm done.

 

Good cause... I get enough grief from my daughter (who thinks she knows it all).

From my first training days it was "flare" then "hold it off...hold it off... hold it off..."

 

 

Yes, same here.

Just to finish this, I understand now you took my words as describing that a good landing on a GA is landing Flat, and no way I would ever say that, that's what caused the confusion. What I was trying to say is exactly the difference between holding it off the ground vs a 737 where you have to pitch a few degrees and let it touch the ground.

 

Wow! LAdamson! I feel sorry that happened to your aircraft. Man, a Vans wouldn't last a day at a Flight School!! The aircraft I fly have taken quite some beating on that nose gear. That should make it clear why having the proper landing attitude on these birds is more important than anything! PIO is a real danger, it started happening to me I think two times, I went around on both if I remember, that thing can destroy even the most robust airplane.

 

I Wish I had this topic when I was struggling to land and trying to get my Solo Check! It's exactly what I learned to do, very good topic! Now I'll read Stick and Rudder once again, as I remembered it's still the best book for understanding how an aircraft flies there is.

 

Thanks all!

Some people hinted at this but the visual clues thing is quite important and, yes, in FSX there are some things that you don't get nearly as well as you do in the RW. The eye picks up on a lot of things RW...a lot of things. Texture of grass, weeds beside the runway...perceived speed at low level. Many, many other things. So, I do find it harder to judge my height in FSX than RW. Still, with a little time and practice you get better given those limitations.

 

As much as part of me doesn't like this idea of FLUSIFIX, it still might help make up for the loss of visual information.

 

One thing I like to do when I'm struggling a bit with an airplane is to save a flight at about a mile final at an airport with VASIs and then keep trying different things. I practice NAILING my final speed...always. Then pick a spot where I'm going to pull power (roughly). Once power is pulled I establish my horizon at a place over the nose. Riiiight there. That's the picture I will use all the way to touchdown. I then monitor my speed and that picture. I might glance at the descent rate needle every so often for a sense of things. If the speed's getting low I lower the nose a tad...small movements and try not to punch in any power. I let the landing happen. (If I land too hard I break open my credit card to get the repairs paid for...oh...wait. LOL.) I keep tuning until I have a good picture and power to land the way I want to. Doing it this way, I'm not so dependent on the visual clues. Sometimes I might do a replay to look at the attitude from the outside. Once I have what I want, practice it four or five times, get a feel for how much I can tweak or adjust and still get a good result I'm done.

What a cracking thread! It started out as an enquiry about landing a SIM aircraft, got wrapped up in landing REAL aircraft and along the way gave SIM pilots (me, anyway) a free lesson. Brilliant! :Applause:

 

Shame about the RV.

In light of Gregg's useful contribution, one thing real pilots are taught is to line up on final and then note where on the windscreen the numbers are. Nail your speed. That's the main thing, as Gregg says. It all starts there. Correct speed is the foundation of a good approach. Adjust speed with pitch. Nose lower to speed up, nose higher to slow down.

 

Then keep an eye on where those numbers are in the windshield. If they are moving "up" the windshield, then you are descending too fast and will undershoot the threshold. Add a little throttle to slow descent and keep the speed nailed with pitch. If they are moving down, then you are going to overshoot. Reduce throttle, or, if you are already at idle, slip. Lower the nose either way to maintain speed. If the numbers stay basically in the same place on the windscreen, but just get bigger :-) then you are on a stable glide slope and will make a good round out somewhere near the numbers and be set up for a good landing. If the numbers keep climbing even at idle and while slipping, you are just too high. Go around.

 

You can practice this just fine in FSX. It does a great job of simulating this aspect.

Don't land on the nosewheel!

 

He was way too fast, no way he could have achieved the proper landing attitude at that speed. That video shows quite clearly what happens when you try to hurry a land that should happen naturally.

I'll have to try landing like that in FSX, trying to set her down about 20 knots above stall speed. Of course with proper technique you'd hold her off, hold her off..., and float down most of the length of the runway. You'd end up having to go around, which would be far preferable to what happened here - ruined nose gear, bent prop, engine disassembly due to prop strike, bent firewall...totalled airplane? Yikes!

I'll have to try landing like that in FSX, trying to set her down about 20 knots above stall speed.

 

20kts above stall speed (V_so) is 85kts... what the manual recommends btw.

 

Of course with proper technique you'd hold her off, hold her off..., and float down most of the length of the runway.

 

Hmmm... not sure what you are trying to say here...

 

Proper technique for the Legacy? Already mentioned that some days ago here:

 

Best thing is to follow the Flying Guide. 100kts on Final and 85kts over the fence.

 

And having just flown it (@ MGW)... those are excellent recommendations (what is written in the manual). You will not 'float and float and float'... in fact, when you pull power out, it's done flying. Spot landings no problemo.

 

Just to finish this

 

I really appreciate your attitude Alex (your willingness to discuss the confusion). Glad we could get it sorted. And very glad it helped you (a little secret... it helped me too).

 

One thing I like to do

 

Good post Gregg.

 

-Rob

Terrible on so many counts, too low on final approach, way too fast, he/she had absolutely no control over the situation. At no point during that clip after 0.02 would I be comfortable applying power to go around such was the loss of control. I hope I never find myself in that situation with my limited RW skills.

 

To the more experienced among us..............how would you recover from that presuming you didn't go-around before the threshold????

.how would you recover from that presuming you didn't go-around before the threshold????

 

Here's a good pdf on PIO from the FAA by Mastery Flight Training.

Here's a good pdf on PIO from the FAA by Mastery Flight Training.

 

Good notes, particularly the bit about the 12 yr old in the last paragraph.

To the more experienced among us..............how would you recover from that presuming you didn't go-around before the threshold????

 

What I see at :02 is a bounce, and not a terrible one, given his speed and sloppy approach technique (looks like some dragging in under power) at that point, but hardly surprising as well because of both. At :03 we see him nose over. This is not going to get any better from that point on, so when he felt the nose fall (or, as is likely, when he realized he had induced it himself as a response to the bounce), the best strategy, I believe, would be to apply full throttle and keep the nose level to build speed in ground effect until at least at Vx, or, if there is enough runway left, as there appears to be here, Vy. Full throttle helps achieve a little pitch up attitude by itself since the wing wants to maintain AOA.

 

The (second) best strategy is to interrupt PIO as early as possible (right behind the best strategy of not getting into a PIO situation in the first place), and good pilots are always thinking "go around" whenever any part of the landing process starts to not feel right. A bounce that places the aircraft in a pitch down attitude is an immediate cue to go around. You are still at minimal flying speed, and the wing wants to fly. Give her power and stay in ground effect and fly.

 

I hate to hangar quarterback what's going on from a video, but the fact that every bounce is followed by a nose down pitching movement even when it appears that it needn't have makes me wonder whether the pilot was trying to "plant it" with some forward yoke pressure. But it could easily just be PIO building after the first porpoising.

 

EDIT: I just read Ozzie's pdf, and it appears my response is redundant. But I'll leave it, as mine is aimed specifically at what I see in that video. And I'll add that landing taildraggers will give one a healthy attitude about "go arounds" after touching down! :-)

Here's a good pdf on PIO from the FAA by Mastery Flight Training.

 

Excellent! Just what I was looking for this past week, material regarding PIO and how to handle it. Thanks!

 

Also glad we got everything straight! This forum is filled with knowledge, we never stop learning here!