I know, and I recognize, that “landing an airplane” is everyone’s point of pride – and everyone has their own technique for getting to that point. So, without trying to step on anyone’s technique (or their pride) I thought I’d offer my version of 2 cents (or pence) on the things that pretty much have to go right as a result of whatever technique applied.
Almost everyone knows about and understands the term, “flare,” when talking about landing an airplane. However, not everyone understands this term in the same way. Basically, the flare is pulling back on the elevator controls to raise the nose (increase the pitch attitude) to “break” or “reduce” the rate of descent prior to touchdown. But, where is that you want the nose to go? Can you put it anywhere? No, certainly not. Well, if that’s true, then you want it to go to some specific spot. What is that spot? It is whatever attitude that is the “level flight” attitude for that airplane, in that configuration, and at that airspeed. What airspeed? The airspeed you have upon completing the flare. What height above the runway should you be at the completion of the flare? Well, the closer to the runway the better, as long as you don’t drive it into the runway before completing the flare. Most people believe that something between 2 and 5 feet above the surface is a good target to shoot for at the end of the flare, just to help ensure that you don’t land before you are ready to land.
By deflecting the elevator and rotating the airplane to the flare attitude, kinetic energy is dissipated – the airplane slows down – in fact, it slows so much that the “level flight attitude” will not keep the airplane in level flight; it WILL descend – unless you increase the attitude to something higher OR you add power. The fact is that if you flared to the level flight attitude and left the power alone (i.e., kept what you had to maintain airspeed on final), the airplane would descend – just not as fast and you’d be much farther down the runway by the time you actually touched down – but you WOULD touch down. If you pushed the power up a bit, you could maintain that level flight attitude AND airspeed and fly at that altitude and airspeed. If you pulled the power OFF, you would descend a bit more quickly than you would without the power reduction, but at a significantly less rate than what you had on final – and this is precisely what you’re trying to do – descend the airplane at a rate that will allow a firm but satisfactory touchdown.
An aside: why you might need or want to I wouldn’t know, and I would never recommend doing this in a transport category airplane, but if you had the runway necessary, you could keep the nose attitude coming up to keep the airplane from descending (because you would need a higher and higher angle of attack to compensate for the slower and slower forward speed) until you get to that point where the wing would stall. If you did this correctly you would have landed the airplane with the least amount of forward velocity. Of course your nose position would be really high and you very well may not have enough forward velocity to keep the elevator effective, and, as a result, the nose would likely fall.
So, as we said, you have to pull back on the elevator control to arrest your rate of descent – the flare. OK. You pull back on the controls to raise the nose to the level flight attitude. THIS is the attitude in which you want to touch down. However, from this point the airplane is going to slow – and more so as you pull the throttle(s) to idle. This will cause the airplane to want to pitch down. Why? Because you would have had the airplane trimmed for the final approach – configuration, airspeed, power, and rate of descent. You’ve now changed this. You now are at the level flight attitude and probably beginning to reduce power (if you haven’t started already). The airplane will want to pitch down, but you must not let it. To keep the airplane from pitching down, you would need to pull back on the elevator control. Notice, this “pull” is to keep the nose of the airplane in the level flight attitude; it is NOT to bring the nose any higher than what is necessary to maintain level flight. If you do bring the nose any higher, while you may continue to descend, you will increase the likelihood of touching down and “skipping” back into the air – sometimes before the signal to deploy the spoilers is generated; and sometimes just after – meaning that you might get airborne a bit, have the spoilers deploy – and drop whatever distance you’ve managed to skip to! Not very pleasant!
This may seem to be a rather small point, but it is significant in landing the airplane. Normally, it should take a pilot between 1½ and 3 seconds to flare the airplane – and the airplane should not be held in the flare (off the ground) for more than 3 seconds … this means reaching the level flight attitude and saying “thousand one, thousand two, thousand three, touchdown” (uh … I’d do this to myself or in a whisper if there is someone else on the flightdeck with you). This is true in no wind, headwind, tailwind, and crosswind conditions. And, also importantly, at the end of that 3 seconds, I’d recommend PUTTING the airplane on the ground, now! You chew up a good deal of runway while in the air, giving you less and less concrete on which you can count for good surface contact and good brakes to get you stopped.
There are several techniques regarding the retardation of the throttles – and each airplane requires that you become familiar with the technique that best fits the way you fly and how the airplane responds. Some pilots will start retarding the throttles over the runway threshold; others will wait until level flight attitude is achieved. The speed at which the throttles are retarded will be directly dependent on where you start to reduce power and how quickly the airplane will decelerate in this configuration and in ground effect. The throttle(s) should be in idle at, or just prior to, touchdown.
Every airplane I have flown lands best from the level flight attitude. When I teach, to help my students to understand, for themselves, what this attitude really is, I have often asked them to make an approach to land the airplane, except that when they complete the flare, I ask them to continue to fly down the entire length of the runway AT THAT ALTITUDE and AT THAT AIRSPEED, without climbing or descending; and without accelerating or decelerating. The height I ask them to shoot for is something less than 5 feet. As you would understand, no doubt, in order to do this, the pilot MUST achieve, and keep, the airplane at “the level flight attitude;” or the height would not be maintained. This practice helps to “fix” the level flight attitude picture for them. If we are fortunate enough over a several-day period to have varying weather conditions, I’ll ask them to do the same thing in each of those different conditions. This allows them to see that level flight attitude is the same (as long as the weight and configuration of the airplane is the same) regardless of the weather conditions; and, most importantly, it allows them to find what cues they want to use to determine that the airplane IS in that level flight attitude; i.e., they are not dependent on what someone else has used and likes … they can “do it for themselves.”
(This can also be done very satisfactorily in a properly qualified flight simulator with sufficient motion, sound, and visual cues.)
Why do I recommend this approach? It’s my opinion that landing an airplane is anything BUT a mechanical exercise. In my years of doing this, I have found that by asking my students to do something “the way I do it” works only for a small fraction of my students. But when I describe what I want as an “outcome,” and let them determine, on their own, “how” to do what I’ve asked them to do, they normally learn it better and learn it faster, because it’s something with which they feel comfortable, and it seems more “natural” for them. Therefore when I say, “flare the airplane to achieve a level flight attitude a small distance above the runway surface,” it makes little difference to me what technique they use to achieve that specific goal (within reason, of course) – as long as that goal is achieved.
The biggest reason landing “mechanically” won’t work, is that none of us humans are as precise and as capable of repeatable performance as we would like to think we are. Remember, when we depend on the autopilot to land, we usually rely on 3 of them, at least two of which must be in agreement – and as you all know, “George” is a lot better at doing things precisely and repeatably. The only thing that shouldn’t change from landing to landing (and the thing that “George” gets right all the time) is that the airplane lands from the level flight attitude – for that configuration and that airspeed and that gross weight.