Throttle technique during landing

[mad_jock]

Pilot Dar I do agree with your points about using power to polish and keep safe until you have your eye in with a particualr type. And the human factor point is very well made I hadn't thought of that. And I also fly a type that if your even slightly off profile pulling the power off will result in a quite spectacular arrival.

I don't know much about floats but I seem to remember Chuck had some strong views on power settings on landing a float.

The half the gust thing is utterly wrong for GA types it is a high momentum aircraft type rule of thumb which is defined in the relavent POM (Which is Pilot operating Manual in big types) It takes into account the momentum of the aircraft and also the time it takes to spool the engines up. ie you are flying a puddle jumper like a Jet if you use it.

I think people forget that energy is a squared factor of speed even small increases can cause a dramitic increase in the aircrafts energy state. Try working out adding 15 knts to the approach speed of a Vs 55knt Vapp 70knts and see what I mean with how much extra energy you have.

Then work out how many seconds it takes you to decrease to Vs from the 2 approach speeds.

Then stick that back into s=Vs*t +0.5*A*t^2 you can use what ever you like for A just make sure its A is constant for both times you run it. It doesn't take much increase in t (time in the flare) for you to double your distance used. And S is meant to be distance if you haven't seen newtons laws of motion before and use SI units ie meters, meters per second and meters per second per second.

And BTW I am not such a pratt to not admiting that I do fly the occassional approach at Vne and go to flight idle and flare all the energy off configuring as I go. But its always because I have something up my chuff and I know I will be exiting at the far end of a huge runway. And I might add I will use more runway than a 737 doing it as well. But I am fully aware of what I am doing and I can do it properly when things are "normal".

There is nothing wrong with doing things outside normal techniques as long as you understand the implications of doing so. In fact some would say its good airmanship to get to a skill level where you can. But it shouldn't be "normal" to not do the proper technique.

And to add whats all this pish about 50ft barriers!!! your not flying an IFR approach 3 deg glide you are flying a light aircraft not a pref A machine. The instructors teaching instrument approaches have an excuse for doing it. I can't think of one for anyone else.