PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - constant speed or variable speed approach
Old 6th Jul 2020, 03:16
  #71 (permalink)  
Agile
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: South East Asia
Age: 54
Posts: 321
Received 32 Likes on 21 Posts
From 60kt and 300', when your aiming point is about 3 finger-widths below the horizon, set the hover attitude and keep it,
Reduce power to make the aim point stay steady in the window - AND KEEP IT THERE,
And the apparent walking pace over your toes will be apparently steady, as the altitude and speed both decrease - You kept it there,
And if the nose tries to kick up as speed changes slowly downwards and power moves upwards, you fix it,
And if the aim point moves (not through attitude, because you haven't let that change) then fix it with power.
And you will get to the hover, with little if any attitude change, but a few inputs from power, pedals, and fiddling with cyclic.

All because "you fixed it."
The quality and finesse of the approach will exactly depend on that: the method above and the rate at witch "you fixed it" until it becomes imperceptible corrections to the observer

there is naturally a lot of practice correcting pedal setting with power setting it is anticipated in motor control for a great part, so the first sign of good pilot is that the tail remain dead steady throughout.
it gets harder anticipating longitudinal attitude change with power setting during the approach, because the correlation lags behind and is oscillatory in nature.

in level flight an exercise consists in holding the longitudinal cyclic firmly at a fixed spot and reduce the collective (while holding the longitudinal cyclic firm)
the attitude will nose down progressively --> the speed will pick up --> flapback will increase --> speed will slow down

that long period oscillation is one I sometime get stuck with at a moderate level at least for one small cycle, and requires full attention to get ahead of.
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