Originally Posted by
Italianinfrance
Hello,
I ask to many more experienced people like you. During my first 500hrs I always did what the textbook says. Approaching the threshold look away. My flare has always been quite average, because as soon as I looked away I was tempted to break the attitude so I had to consciously avoid.
recently I flew with an instructor that told me that looking away is definitely non sense and normally those people that teach this don’t do this when they land themselves. The idea is too keep looking towards the fat markers aiming point because in this way you are able to assess closure rate and height properly. Looking away is good only to destablize the approach. My flare has improved I see. Do you agree with his words?
I would say do what suits you in most of conditions, but be adaptable. There are pros and cons of both “techniques”, I personally combine a bit of both strategies but of course there are situations where I can’t even judge where I was looking
Another question is, what does it mean your flare was average. Many (too) many people still judge a landing by its smoothness (or hardness we can say) and it doesn’t really depend on experience. Of course, if you go to 3500m runway in cavok with nothing but headwind, you can go for a butter smooth landing not only to please your pax but also pilots ego however if you go for a short wet runway with crosswind+tailwind while being close to performance limited nothing wrong in doing positive touchdown. It’s about if you have control over what you do, if you float on a short wet tailwind runway, you know you could probably handle it differently you know what I mean.
TLDR. As long as you have control over what you do, Its consistent and within all the envelopes, do what you find most comfortable