Jacobson Flare

[2211race]

This was brought to my attention, The Jacobson Flare. At my flying school I have enquired / mentioned it and, very interestingly, got polarised reactions!
It's fantastic! It's rubbish! OK... black or white views, interesting.
Any topic (aviation or otherwise) where there are these extreme opposite views from what I deem as intelligent, educated, experienced people gets my attention.
What are your thoughts on this, have you heard of it?
Do you instruct or use this technique yourself?
IS it pilot/aircraft portable?

The Jacobson Flare (http://www.jacobsonflare.com/)

Love to hear your thoughts....

[captainabcdefg]

Hi 2211,

I personally believe it's a good thing to use. Just read through it and go in the aircraft and try it for a couple of times and see for yourself.

I guess the best way to describe it is that it takes the guess work out of the equation. If you line yourself up on a 4 degree descent path (if you are flying something GA like a C172 or PA28) on final (eg, 550ft at 1.3-1.4nm from the threshold) and use the techniques of Jacobson flare, you should have pretty good landings.

Hope that helps and happy landings.

[Lodown]

I like the Lodown Flare myself. "Pull back before hitting the ground too hard." Works for all different descent paths and aircraft; long, slow approaches, steep glides, curved approaches around the trees, flapless, power on, power off, nosewheel, tailwheel, single, multi, dodging termite mounds and cattle, skipping over the boundary fence and avoiding mud puddles. Gets the passengers imprinting their fingernails on the armrests at times, but I haven't injured one yet.

Not saying it's good or bad, but if you use the Jacobson flare all the time in a GA job at 550' and a 1.4 mile final for a 4 degree approach, you'll be out of a job after a few weeks and straight into the airlines.

...intelligent, educated, experienced people...

You're at the wrong web address for this.

[rmcdonal]

I just watch the Captain and when he flinches I flare.
Havent figured out what to do by myself yet. Will you keep you posted.

[Grogmonster]

I find it hard to believe that so much scientific jargon can be written about a manouvere that is simple to execute if you have a stabilised approach and the correct speed at the threshold. Does the guy that wrote it work for CASA ????? Thought I would ask because they always write a book when one short phrase will do it.

Groggy

[wateroff]

Complicated means better doesn't it???:ugh: Flown the smallest to the biggest and never thought too damn hard about it. Gives inadequate instructors a clinical reason as to why they can't teach you how to land properly.

[Murray Cod]

Yes Lodown,
I'm also releasing a book called "The Skywagon bounce" I rabbit on about "longitudinal position (pedal you bastard)" etc and a paragraph or two about "runway occupancy times" these occupancy times initially vary between 1 and 0.5 sec but increase as the the aircraft proceeds down the runway .
The cover shows a photo of me ,smiling ,inside the "bus" with the glass cockpit HUD etc in the background.
It's also available on DVD and if you order within the hour you get a free SIDs expired 404 (pick up only).
MC

[Capn Bloggs]

Good in theory, not so practical. In a lighty perhaps it is OK, but in a jet, the "picture" out the front changes too much and too fast to be able to use the JF as the sole means of "arriving". Keeping on the slope (3°, by the way, not 4°!) means the windscreen point that is on the aimpoint won't be for very long, esp in gusty/bumpy conditions.

[Chimbu chuckles]

Good grief...who is this dill?

Somehow I manage to go from B767-Bonanza-C185 without this treatise and you know why?

The same time honoured technique works in all of them.:ugh:

[Pack2]

I not only use it but had the privilage to be taught by the man himself. It works very well on everything I have flown from C152 to the MD83..including a few years flying into PNG airstrips..never once have I thought of the mathematics of it..thats for the classroom..Constant aim point..throttles for speed..Flare when aim point is out of view..new aim point horizzon..result = aeroplane lands itself..I have taught this to many young pilots and everyone comes away happy and more confident.

And for those that dont know Capt Jacobson is a very experienced Airline Training captain..

Now all you GA experts can pull my comments to pieces if you like but the facts remain the same..

[hoss]

well Dave will be happy to know he has become another aviation acronym, JF.

met him and had it demoed years ago, i respect it and appreciate the effort he has made on the JF. after all an autoland although different shows that it is about numbers and science.

myself, i'm more in touch with my creative side, so an approach,landing and rollout is an art form!

[Mach E Avelli]

Chimbu, me too. Never mattered to me whether it's was a DC3, C310 or hang glider (and yes I have flown all sometimes on the same day) the flare height is simple. Whatever the half wing span - which you can usually see by simply focussing on the wingtip for a few seconds somewhere down final approach - is the height to think about flaring. There is nothing magic about the flare - simply reduce the rate of descent to something that the gear and passengers can stand while simultaneously removing power/thrust. Most aeroplanes are pretty good at landing themselves if not over-controlled. Watch an auto-land sometime - the automatics seem to do very little other than level off and chop the power.
And all this bullsh!t about looking at the far end of the runway? Instead try applying the first principle of motor-cycling i.e. 'you go where you look'. So if you look at where you intend to touch down, that's where you will touch down. Unless you are going too fast or do something silly in the flare like pull the stick back into your guts.

[A37575]

Keeping on the slope (3°, by the way, not 4°!)

A closer study of what he said was that four degrees is for light singles. In fact, a powered approach in a Cessna 150 with 1200 rpm and full flap is more like six degree angle with a glide approach in a Tiger Moth (no flaps)at idle throttle about the same. Mr Jacobson's theory on flare technique was designed to be applicable to jet transports as well as lighties and nothing to do with the actual angle of approach. Three degrees is purely an ILS angle and used by heavier types.

[cogwheel]

Bottom line it works.

You just have to spend the time to read and understand the technique. Having already mastered the art of landing, then the normal human tendency to resist change will probably not embrace learning something new (unless you take the time to work thru it). The author is a very experienced Airline Captain and has presented his paper at many aviation gatherings, tho' I have not seen him about recently.

[TheShadow]

A personally invaluable technique (day only) is to overdevelop the flare into a balloon.

When the flare hits the balloon, the latter explodes, the bottom drops out and a landing "arrival" results. It's quite reliable. I learnt the technique early during my prop-swinging Tiger-Schmidt days. That way I got to call: "CONTACT" both at the beginning and end of each mission. For some reason that was very important to me then ...... and I have been developing my aviation contacts ever since.

"Day only" because the flares at night are quite disorienting - particularly when they interact with the hydrogen-filled balloons. It's only recently that I've been applying thick lube to the spaces between the tyre-treads in an attempt to refine my arrival technique into smooth "greasers".

Everybody thinks that the ever thickening black deposits at each end of the average runway is tyre rubber. In point of fact I believe that it is grease being deposited by some very unoriginal people who are pirating my grease-it-on technique (including John Travolta - the ultimate "greaser").

The technique works equally well with nosewheel and tailwheel, land or seaplane, blimp, dirigible, sailplane, hang-glider or balloon.

The only hazard appears to be when the flare misfires and the balloon deflates, resulting in a divergent phugoid that starts with the nosewheel and develops quite porpoisefully.

For that reason I am thinking of swapping my flare for flair. Please refer to my technique as the Master Chef's flare - only because it is frequently under-cooked, sometimes medium rare and never well-done.

[gassed budgie]

Constant aim point..throttles for speed..Flare when aim point is out of view..new aim point horizzon..result = aeroplane lands itself


When I've had the instructors hat on, that's exactly the way I've taught students to land the aeroplane. A couple of things though.
The new aim point isn't the horizon, it's the end of the runway. You don't have a horizon as such anymore, so that's the reference point (end of the runway) as you holding off/flaring the aircraft.

And all this bullsh!t about looking at the far end of the runway?

Where else are you going to look? You're not going to be looking at the top of the cowl which might be around six feet in front of you and you're certainly not going to be looking out of the side window.
If you fly a constant attitude apprach with the aim point sitting nicely in the windscreen (in the same spot hopefully), you can't arrive at anything else but the aim point at roundout height.
Once the aim point dissapears under the nose, the aircraft is rounded out to someting like the S & L attitude and you are now looking down at the end of the runway.
And what are we all looking for? ATTITUDE. The aircraft lands in a certain attitude. Just like it climbs in a certain attitude, flys S & L in a certain attitude, it lands in a particular attitude.
Getting that bit right is the key to any successful landing. You get the attitude right and everything else falls into place.

[Lodown]

Where else are you going to look?

Well, actually I have caught myself at times trying to look as far around the left hand side of the cowl at the ground as I can and other times directly out to the side out of necessity. There are many, many visual cues and peripheral vision and aircraft feel and sound is just as important to me as the aim point disappearing under the nose, horizons and the end of the runway. That said, there are 1001 ways to land an aeroplane. Somehow or another, pilots appear to be about 99.999999999% successful at putting the parts of an aircraft that are meant to come in contact with the ground onto the runway prior to any of the other parts of the aircraft.

Jacobson has a valid discussion and has been presenting his technique for years now. It works and it's safe. I just think it's overanalyzing a small, but important part of a relatively straightforward manouevre and ignoring many other cues that other pilots may use for successful landing techniques, but that's how some people like it. I have a friend who can't tell you the time without explaining how the watch works. He would embrace the Jacobson flare with gusto.

[Rich Pitch Power]

I can still hear one of my very first instructors telling me to stretch the nose to the end of the runway upon flaring after looking down,down,down at the runway on the approach and that view slowly changing to looking along at the runway, a very strong landing cue.

I have taught this to my students ever since with little problem however I am open to new ways to skin the landing cat. For example I could flare the Airtourer rather high and it would be forgiving but if I tried the same with a C152 Cessna bounce would likely develop or a heavy landing, aptly demonstrated by a certain MD11 earlier this week although I believe conditions were 'iffy' for that one....

I still feel this is something to be eyeballed and the 'Jacobson technique' in question is likely to be more succesful with slightly larger aircraft than a basic trainer. However I am a 'junior' instructor and open to correction although anything offered/suggested will be discussed at length with my CFI.

RPP

[Steve Zissou]

The Jacobson flare, sounds easy ....:)

[Joker 10]

Principal flare technique, keep your eyes open, hit the ground gently and as slowly as possible.

[smiling monkey]

Good grief...who is this dill?

He has quite an impressive biography (http://www.jacobsonflare.com/biography.htm) if you ask me. I'll give it a shot .. BTW, I find this quote interesting;

On September, 2004, a specifically tailored version of the Jacobson Flare was introduced in the Qantas B737 full-flight simulator syllabus for the revised “all-variant” composite conversion for the B737-300/400/800, as the standard training technique.

So do all QF 737 pilots use this technique?

[flog]

and you're certainly not going to be looking out of the side window.


Tell that to a Pitts pilot...

[Beg Tibs]

So do all QF 737 pilots use this technique?

Hmm...nope, not to my knowledge - I dont even recall it in 737 training to be honest

[Lookleft]

I use a technique taught to me by a great Master "Don't think-DO, use the Force let it flow through you". By the time all that has gone through my mind so have the wheels usually!:ok:

[Mach E Avelli]

Originally Posted by gassed_budgie
and you're certainly not going to be looking out of the side window.


Many taildraggers do require you to look out the side to successfully land (and taxi). Other quite sophisticated types have a nasty habit of windscreen fogging on descent/approach. Then there is the prospect of ice, heavy rain, delamination etc. obscuring forward vision. Lots of times looking out the side window is about the ONLY way to judge the flare.
And what if landing in 800 metres RVR? You won't even SEE the end of the runway. This is where the half wingspan flare height is quite useful, so to make it easy on myself I always use it, plus the technique of simply looking at the spot that I want the aeroplane to be at when it touches down. Assuming that there is enough visibility, keeping the touchdown point pegged to some constant reference point, be it the centre of the windscreen or somewhere to the side (as in a strong crosswind) helps to arrive at the point - going where you look again.
Hey, if the Jacobsen flare floats your boat, go for it.

[-438]

It all comes down to skinning cats.

[Captain Sherm]

Now I feel terrible. 8 years on the wonderful 777 and I simply landed it without thinking of Dave J. what an ace I could have been.

Alternatively....what if he's just a self important jerk who has added nothing to aviation except to keep the rest of the world happier by crossing the picket line back and staying home?

I need to study more. I was taught that landing was what you did to keep the passengers happy after you'd passed 200 ft on approach and before you taxied in.

[rajsingh0621]

I was having a little trouble understanding the final parts of the Jacobson flare. I would greatly appreciate if you can help with the last few points of your lesson. So after you have passed the cut off point, (approx 90 feet before your aim point for C172), you begin to flare, and then it looks like you're focusing on aim point 2. But now what are you doing in regards to aim point 2 during your flare. Are you trying to slowly bring the nose to touch aim point 2 line of sight? Are you trying to keep the same distance between the nose and the aim point 2? Does your aircraft nose ever go above aim point 2? It also looks like the aim point 2 was closer first & than it moved farther, which you explain that fly your eyes to aim point 2 in 3 to 4 seconds. Can you please elaborate.

[Sunfish]

Once your flare point (about 90 feet before the aim point) has disappeared under the aircraft nose, you select your new aim point which in "The Gentle Touch" method of flaring, is described as the centreline at the farther end of the runway. That is where your eyes should be looking as you smoothly reduce power, keep bringing the yoke back as if to try and make the aircraft stretch the glide to that new aim point.

What, in my opinion, Capt. Jacobsen, has done is systematise the visual cues and thus where the pilots eyes and attention should be concentrated on during the each phase of the landing up to wheels on.

When I learned to land, the whole process was taught by the South Park Elves method.

1. Aim point, airspeed, aim point, airspeed.......

2. ?

3. Smoothly apply brakes and taxi to ramp.


I would arrive over the FAA standard tree at the nominated airspeed with no problems. What happened next was a blur; "Touch main wheels first with full back stick and the stall warning sounding", "Don't flare too high", "don't flare too low". Sure, but how?

After a series of especially traumatic arrivals, I was eventually introduced to haptic learning (ie: by feel and do) by a senior instructor who simply stuck a piece of paper over my instruments at about One hundred feet and thereby gave me nothing to look at but what was outside.

I suspect that all of us use Jacobsens technique without realising it, we just learn "the picture' of when to flare by trial and error.

Hope this helps.

[PA39]

The jake flare works for some and not for others. i seemed to find that students who worked in an industry where perception of height was essential (crane operators etc) were somehow pretty good at the jake flare.

For the hard gainers i always taught to bring the aircraft to a level attitude and as the speed reduces to graudally adopt a half climb attitude. Didn't lose anyone! :)

[VH-XXX]

I've been using the XXX flare for over 10 years now and never had a hard landing or single bounce.

You can read about it in my new book titled "The XXX Flare." Only $19.95 at all good book stores or at your local flying school.


------
On a side note, spoke to a CPL recently whom until about hour 120 of his CPL course used to flare at Moorabbin based on his indicated altitude, at which point he went out for a nav then came back only to find that it was over-reading by around 50 ft so his landing was very hard. I can't believe he made it into his CPL that far and lived.

[megle2]

The Jacobson technique gets a gong of sorts in current Aviation Business mag
Many years since this thread had any comment

[Ultralights]

seams an awful lot of overthinking a maneuver that all of us just do. not something i would want to show to a student ab initio.

[Al E. Vator]

For goodness sake.

This is making something easy complex.

Many years ago there was a book written by Kermode called "Flight Without Formula". No reason why the concepts discussed in that book don't still apply.

This technique, whilst maybe sensible in some context, is typical of what's happening in this industry. It's become bloated by clingons (people and concepts peripheral to the fundamental act of aviating).

...and I can just see Bob Hoover in WWII looking out of the side of a Mustang when landing after combat saying "now what is it again.. 4 times the square root of my wing span divided by the radius of the earth......".

Pull back a bit near the ground. Works every time.

[scavenger]

If you had to jump off the first floor to escape a fire, would you look at the ground 1000 m away to break your fall? If you wanted to avoid broken legs, I'd suggest you'd look straight down.

The point of looking at the ground in the landing is to judge the height. Looking straight down in the landing to judge height doesn't work because the ground is blurry due to the forward movement, so you must look further ahead. The point at which the ground ceases to appear to move towards you, and so gains texture, is the correct place to look. This is roughly 50 - 100 m ahead at light aeroplane speeds.

Looking further ahead reduces the accuracy of the judgement of height, just the same as looking straight down. You want the closest point where the eyes can effectively focus to judge the height.

The reason it's harder to judge height above ground at night is that you can't see the ground close to the aeroplane like during the day, but you can still see the end of the runway!

This look at end of runway bull**** is lazy or ignorant instructing. Most people I have challenged on this in their renewals readily admit they don't look there themselves after I point out I can see they're looking closer in the roundout.

Yeah sure, you can teach this end of runway crap and people will learn to land. The brain is very good at compensating, but it will be a slower rate of learning and progression.

[pukua]

A kid learning to ride a bike looking at the ground will fall off, a kid looking further ahead will learn how to ride a bike!

[PW1830]

Height above the ground is only one part, closure rate just as important -can only be assessed by looking toward end of runway - not necessarily the end.Then there's closure rate of thrust levers to consider to fine tune height and closure rate. There is no magic solution.

[The Green Goblin]

It's about using your peripheral vision to judge sink rate and your forward vision to judge flare and drift.

It's just something that can't be taught, it's something you figure out with much encouragement along the way.

[Al E. Vator]

"This look at end of runway bull**** is lazy or ignorant instructing".

My goodness I've been doing it wrong all this time!

These Boeings and Airbuses and Cessna's and Douglas's in snow and sandstorms and typhoons must all land themselves. Lucky I've been educated about the error of my ways...

[Con Catenator]

If you don't look at the other end of the runway, depth perception tends to be lost and that's a recipe for a hard landing.

Jake's method seems a very complex way to put an aircraft on a runway.

But then again, I have only been doing it for 50 years and still going strong, so I'll stick with what I have been doing if that's OK :ok:

[glekichi]

I've seen some that can flare 'OK' without looking to the end of the runway, but I tell you what, they're all hopeless in a crosswind.

During the flare its all about controlling attitude - looking at the horizon is the best way to control the attitude and if you do what comes naturally to point the aircraft straight down the centreline i.e. nose straight then naturally you HAVE to give it a little bank, just a little, to stop it drifting.

Jacobsen is just an mathematical representation of the above.

Mach E Avelli's description on page one (motorcycles - look where your want to go) actually would work well for a carrier arrival I'd say :}
I prefer to look and go more or less parallel to the runway for the last couple of feet, not straight at it!

[Al E. Vator]

"I've seen some that can flare 'OK' without looking to the end of the runway, but I tell you what, they're all hopeless in a crosswind".

Seriously, why make such stupid comments?!

Somehow people have managed to land very successfully and smoothly for decades (yours included) in all manner of crosswinds and different aircraft types.

Making a statement as definitive as that above is foolish.

It's not that hard.

Go put some thought in how to land a manned vehicle on mars or something because this little mystery of aviation was adequately solved by Wilbur and Orville some time ago.

[glekichi]

Just an honest observation.

I agree with you about not overcomplicating things; not advocating the mathematical flare at all. Just saying you've got to look, no, SEE, where the aircraft is going to control it in all 3 dimensions and that involves not staring at the aiming point or the ground just in front of it, but rather, the far end of the runway or the horizon.

AFAIK this is the way its been taught since pre WWII so that may explain why everybody has so many successful landings as you say!

[Pinky the pilot]

This thread reminds me of a poster I once saw on the wall of a Pilots Room somewhere. It read;

"There are three secrets in how to make a good Landing.
Unfortunately, no-one knows what they are!"

[slamer.]

Jacobson flare .. made me laugh then .. makes me laugh now... :p

[Cloud Cutter]

You don't need to have the aim point in the centre of your vision to be looking at it!!! I thought it was common practice to transfer your focus to the far end of the runway when entering the flare - it's far easier to judge your round-out and touch down if you use peripheral vision.

Also, for those of you denigrating the Jacobson Flare (and some of you even the man himself) for being too academic - maybe you need to be reminded that different people learn differently. If you don't like a highly engineered approach like this, that's your prerogative, but there are some who prefer a more articulate description of what is both a beautifully simple and incredibly complex maneuver.

[Capn Bloggs]

I'm going to add that to my approach brief this arvo... "I will be performing...what is both a beautifully simple and incredibly complex maneuver.
and therefore I won't predict the outcome!" :} :ok:

[Cloud Cutter]

Yip, that's my version of a bob each way ;)

[Sunfish]

I bought the Jacobsen Flare article some years ago and it helped me improve my landings at the time - especially the "flying to the end of the runway" instruction. I had earlier had very effective help from an instructor regarding eye usage in the form of a A4 bit of paper and four globs of blue tack over the instruments to keep e looking outside. The aim point/airspeed mantra on approach. followed by flying to the horizon seems to work for me even in a crosswind. The time to flare? I learn that by braille

From my own experience landing is about muscle memory and sight picture. On a good day for me, everything is nice and smooth. A bad day, not so much. I have yet to determine exactly what critical personal judgements are stuffing up my landings or making them acceptable and I think my only hope is practice, practice, practice.

In a yacht, I can open a can for someone, scratch my ear and have a conversation while standing backward steering with my bum when docking in 30 knots without cracking the proverbial egg because Ive been doing it for Sixty years. I hope to attain similar capability in an aircraft one day like some of the posters here.

[Cloud Cutter]

Sunfish, if you're anything like me, the day after you thought that day had come, you'll be scratching your head :8

[Mach E Avelli]

Glekichi, looking where you want to plant it may well work for carrier arrivals - I dunno because the closest I ever came to a carrier landing was watching 'Top Gun'.
But it definitely works a treat on rough, unmarked, irregular, one way bush strips and those with obstacles all around which can create illusions if you look anywhere other than where you want to go. Some PNG strips slope up so steeply that if you looked at the far end, chances are you would be flaring at 100 feet.
As for whether those of us who did our early few thousand hours on tailwheel Cessnas and DC3s and the like are "all hopeless in a crosswind" - we would not still be here if that were the case.
The Jacobsen Flare has its place, and we were taught more or less this technique (long before Jacobsen published it) for night landings on a flare path with no glideslope information at night.
But how about we accept that other techniques work better for some of us?

[FoolCoarsePitch]

Just put the aeroplane on the runway like a normal person would. My 5c.

[pulse1]

I often think that landing is like making a golf stroke. They both require hand/eye co-ordination and timing. The best instruction I had from a golf coach was "Just hit the bl**dy thing".

I'm not very good at golf either:{

[Roller Merlin]

This technique and variations of it has been taught in RAAF pilot training since Dicky Williams first lapped a box kite around the flagpole. Perhaps if he had thought it to name it the 'Dick Flare', the name might have caught on!

[Centaurus]

Many years ago at Avalon I was an observer on the jump seat of a Qantas 707 when the captain (I think his surname was Harding?) was conducting left seat training on a first officer. I remember it well because I have never seen a F/O physically sweat so profusely as he flew the circuit. He sure was tensed up.

As he flared for landing the instructor reached over and put his hand over the eyes of the "student" and said "hold it there and do nothing and the aircraft will land itself"

Sure enough it greased on and the instructor removed his hand and they did a touch and go. Maybe that was a Harding flare as distinct from a Jacobson Flare of another era. :E

[glekichi]

Sorry Mach E, it's half tongue in cheek but I do find it interesting that you say look where you want to go, which I honestly believe works, like you, from a mix of aeroplane and motorcycle experience.
Thing is, to flare, you can't be looking at where the aircraft was going a moment before. The mains, assuming we are talking about tricycle aircraft, are going to be some way behind you, as should be your aiming point, at the moment of touch down. Should they not?
If one keeps a constant flight path towards an aiming point and keeps going where they're looking and that does not change for the flare, there is no flare, which would then equal a carrier arrival, although, like you I have no experience post Top Gun and for all I know there could even be a little flare involved in those too but lets not let the truth get in the way of an attempt at a good story.
Ive done my share of bush flying too but it's the number of transport category multi crew aircraft pilots that have average crosswind technique to which I refer. Seems to be an inability to see/read the aircraft trajectory well and very much related to where they're looking.

[gerry111]

There was an occasion when a then young RAAF 36 Sqn C-130H Hercules copilot had a load of Army troops on board. After a couple of missed approaches into a very tight ALA, as handling pilot he heard a command to "Put the f*cker down". Thinking that the command came from his Captain, he did. Then only to find out later that an Army guy had a headset...


That's a true story.

[mattyj]

Flying isn't a science, it's an art form..just use the force

[Mach E Avelli]

Some pilots of large transport aircraft probably lose crosswind skills over time - if they ever had them in the first place. Depends on the type and whether it is tolerant to landing with drift on, and factors such as typical operating environment where crosswinds may be infrequent. Quite likely the latter is what causes crosswind skills to degrade.

Back in the day when simulators did not do the ground handling bit as well as some now do, it was common to have a period of base training circuits in the actual aircraft prior to going to line training.

Some pilots coming up from bugsmashers would have problems with the flare. A useful technique that worked when I was base training was to have them fly down the runway as close to the ground as they could get, all the while controlling speed at V approach and laying off drift to maintain the centreline. Occasionally the wheels would touch, which told them they were too low - "late on the round-out Hoskins". The aim was to get the wheels within a metre or two of the ground and just hold the aircraft at a constant height. The only way they could maintain height accurately so close to the ground was to look down and slightly ahead, certainly not at the far end of the runway which would be rapidly changing in aspect at over 100 knots of ground speed. After a few such passes, all they had to add to the skillset was to remove the drift and select idle thrust while holding the pitch attitude. As good as any autoland but more fun.

[HarleyD]

The HDAg approach and flare:

At end of last top dressing run for the load, spreading lever to closed while hard descending turn back to strip keep MAP up, pull prop back a couple of 100 rpm

Keep speed for the 1 minute transit to strip, as wingtip just misses the funny shaped branch on the second tree up from the dam chop power, hard left descending turn, look through roof window at 300 m strip aim for the point beside the fence post with the old tyre hanging on it about 100 metres short of the loader check long grass out side window for local wind strength and direction, slip into cross wind, level wings full flap adjust aim point to the big thistle just up from the tyre clear hopper gate by slamming the dump handle once or twice hold slip right into flare boot straight just before touchdown look up hill at the loader truck dump flap as wheels hit the grass right beside the thistle hard brakes both feel right up to the loader take one brake off for 180 turn miss loader by at least one foot (30.5cm) stop exactly 45 degrees to truck, open hopper lid nod him to move in point one (index) finger in the air for extra hundredweight of fertiliser due to slight increase in tailwind for landing prop fine check fuel re trim set take off flap control check as truck backs out after dumping one and a quarter tons in the hopper close lid look ahead for stock full power 30 seconds after stopping release brakes point of no return down hill a bit more flap to break ground and jump fence accelerate and shallow turn toward next spreading run keep wingtip clear of ground clean up some flap look for the wires. Repeat a hundred times or more each day for a few years.

Sooner or later you get reasonably good at it.

3 degree stabilised approach

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HD

[Cloud Cutter]

I've thought more about this looking at the end of the runway business (and actually taken notice of what I do when landing). I think transferring your central vision to the far end of the runway is more useful for student pilots, but as you gain experience you are able to look more directly at your aim point and use your peripheral vision to take in the horizon and runway perspective. This is definitely true for chopper pilots - start by looking at the horizon, then, as you gain experience, look at the spot and use your peripheral to gauge the horizon. I guess the main thing is that you are getting all the visual information to your brain in a way it can be processed and used to good effect, and yes, there will be various different ways of doing that. I actually tend to 'scan' between the touchdown zone and runway end. It is interesting to break down into its parts a maneuver that we stopped thinking about long ago and just 'do'.

[Clare Prop]

I was given the task to brief and teach this for an instructor rating renewal with CASA. I was sceptical, but it does work.

The mathematics are silly as it went from accurate measurements to rules of thumb such as 1:60 and some of the trig was actually incorrect but the visual part of it really works and I've been teaching it that way ever since.

Although the end of the runway should be in your peripheral vision and eyes about 15 deg above the horizon for the best results.

[Capn Bloggs]

eyes about 15 deg above the horizon
That's how I do it...stare into space! :}

[Mach E Avelli]

At some stage our student may go on to fly in the world of hard knocks. Like where manual landings in 800 metres visibility with a low cloud base and no visible horizon is expected, or else you don't get to keep your job.
So why not teach pilots to look at the ground just ahead of the aeroplane from day one instead of all this exotic theory which won't work if you can't see the horizon or far end of the runway.

[Cloud Cutter]

So why not teach pilots to look at the ground just ahead of the aeroplane from day one instead of all this exotic theory which won't work if you can't see the horizon or far end of the runway.

In order to do that well, with consistent results, most people need a degree of experience to draw from. Teaching a student to look at the end of the runway and judge the touchdown using peripheral vision is like teaching them to swim in the shallow end of the pool - it's less likely to go wrong, and allows them to build confidence. By all means, once they've got the gist they should make up there own mind, but this is really the accepted practice for teaching someone to land an aeroplane (or hover a helicopter). Someone didn't just pluck this idea out of thin air - it's an application of what we know about visual perception, and it works!

[ChrisJ800]

Throw away the Flare book and learn to fly in an old glider with no suspension on the mono wheel or on a tail dragger piston that forces good landing and taxying techniques!

[Derfred]

Mach E Avelli,

At some stage our student may go on to fly in the world of hard knocks. Like where manual landings in 800 metres visibility with a low cloud base and no visible horizon is expected, or else you don't get to keep your job.
So why not teach pilots to look at the ground just ahead of the aeroplane from day one instead of all this exotic theory which won't work if you can't see the horizon or far end of the runway.

I think the point you are missing is that the reason the author developed his technique was to provide a simple framework of instructional steps for a instructor to use to teach a newby how to land. In other words, it was more aimed as an instructor's tool rather than a pilot's tool.

In the absence of a clear and consise methodology such as this, it is difficult for an instructor to teach exactly "when" to flare and "how much" to flare, other than by letting the student work it out for themselves after a succession of thumps and balloons... "Ok, so that one was too late, do it a bit earlier next time..." Every bad landing reduces the student's confidence, so a few early acceptable landings help enormously.

Once the student has got the feel for it, they are free to use other triggers and perceptions to land the aircraft - such as may be required for your low vis example. Once your confidence builds, your field of vision expands from beginner's tunnel vision, so it doesn't matter so much where you focus your eyes.

At least, that's how the author described it to me a long time ago over a beer.

I think he found that there was a lot of opposition to the technique over the decades and that is why he has gone to so much effort with mathematics and trigonometry to "prove" that, at least in theory, it works.

I think there are still some theoretical holes in the mathematics, which explains why it doesn't always work as well as it should, but the idea still should hold well enough for acceptable landings. Holes that I have identified include no accountability for ground effect, prop wash over wings, thermalling in hot weather, and wind gusts causing increase or decrease in IAS during the flare. These holes can be corrected by the experienced pilot during the flare through perception of the sink rate from peripheral vision and the G-forces through the seat of pants, for example. Hard to teach, but...