We have now arrived at one of the most enduring myths of aviation. Aircraft that glide down a 30 or 40 [degree] angle must be awful to land. Wrong. Totally wrong. They are the easiest of them all so far as the final approach and landing goes.[...] Then pull out of the dive at the last moment and fly level, as low as you dare, until the speed bleeds to the one you want for touchdown.
Interesting thoughts. I kind of like it.
Although I haven't thought about the relationship of the best glide speed and the typical approach speeds specified for aircraft. Someone else can look into that.
Though he exaggerates with a 30 or 40 degree dive, as even a horrible 2:1 glide ratio would be only a 26 degree descent.
And with the caveat that one still has to have a suitable landing spot that is reachable. A good glide ratio might be appreciated at the start, when looking for a usable landing area. Only when close, change to a high drag configuration if achievable.
Aiming downwards steeply certainly does make the point of landing/impact more clear, although I think he glossed over a bit the issue of how far one will travel after the flare, bleeding off extra speed. The distance covered while bleeding off speed may be not excessive in a really draggy aircraft, but a problem with high glide ratio slippery aircraft, for those are the type where if someone approaches 15kts too fast, they end up touching down way late and roll past the end of the runway. Maybe it's all OK if one did reach a long runway, but an issue if trying to belly something into a shorter field.
The pulling out of the dive at the last moment also poses a bit of a challenge if the descent rate is high. Yes keeping extra speed on will allow one the energy to pull out, but does take some judgement and perhaps practice as he does mention.
At some extreme level of dragginess, one will still have problems despite diving it down at the ground. The guys doing the NASA wingless body aircraft flights in the 1960's were running into the issue that if the glide ratio were getting too low (down close to 2:1 I think), it got harder to pull out of the dive and maintain speed long enough to level out at ground level. Normally their craft were OK, I seem to recall from books, but in worse glide ratio configurations things got tougher. (But I'm not sure what kind of approach speeds they used, relative to whatever best glide they had. I should read up more.)
As aircraft get bigger and heavier in general, one is less likely to just chop the power on final and float it on in like flying some Piper Cub -- When the engines are working on the heavy wing loading aircraft, some power is kept on, the approach is flat, and the descent rate isn't too high. So I can see that when there's no power, keeping the same moderate approach speed may result in a high descent rate and less ability to flare out.
All this stuff resonates with me as I come from skydiving, where canopies flying at a high wing loading are deliberately trimmed nose low to dive fast, rather than float along at best glide or something like that. Glide ratios are terrible partially due to the full sized draggy human hanging below the small canopy. Having the extra speed actually improves landings, as there is the extra energy available to apply a little g for the flare, pitching the canopy back to achieve level flight at ground level. With the extra speed, there's time to fine tune the landing, to let down inches at a time until one's landing gear (feet) are ready to run or slide out the landing. Skydivers also will do turning dives to increase speed before landing, as that will prolong the level flight over the ground before touchdown. (It is fun & thrilling & potentially dangerous too, but that's another matter). So my canopy for example, which is moderately high performance (but not at a high competition level), has a glide speed of around 43 mph and 1500fpm descent (25fps), and a 2.3 glide ratio. That speed and descent rate will smash someone up who doesn't flare properly. (Student or novice canopies might come in at only 25 mph and 800 fpm before the landing flare.) If skydiver air traffic allows it, the preferred technique for landing my canopy is to do a steep diving turn to get 60+mph which gives lots of energy for the flare and time to set up the landing just right.
So yes I agree that for a low glide ratio aerial vehicle, carrying extra speed into the flare may make the approach and landing easier in many circumstances.