Originally Posted by mad_jock
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.
I agree. I never understood why some people claimed you can't commence flare before the runway threshold (provided you have adequate obstacle clearance: e.g. no trees etc.) and touch down just at the runway treshold. It's safe to do, if it's done right and you can reduce amount of runway required - I'm deliberately not using terms landing roll and landing distance, since in this case landing distance extends outside of published LDA (landing distance available).
On the comments about correct approachs speeds, it should be noted that most people that fly approaches way too fast (for example 75 kts on a C172), tend to land at very fast speeds (~ 60kts, still some power applied) and they then have trouble with controlling the aircraft, since it still wants to fly - not to mention the amount of braking you then need to use to stop the aircraft. The sad part of this is, when you ask them why they make touchdown at such high speeds, they say and I quote "flying near stall speed is dangerous and should be avoided". Obviously nobody read the aircraft manual, which in most cases suggest that landing should be made with minimum speed possible (in existing conditions) - I believe making touchdown at 60 kts in clear/still air in a C172 is way too fast, the stall warning doesn't even come on yet.
Originally Posted by mad_jock
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".
And it's indeed very good excercise for demonstrating the effects of flight controls at various speeds. For example, you arrive at threshold (of a runway long enough, of course) at height of ~ 10ft, speed is close to Vne. You retard the throttle and maintain height, you have to slowly trim the aircraft to nose up when you loose speed. When at appropriate speed (Vfe or some speed below that in order to prevent such high loads on the flaps), you start extending flaps, which causes quite a balooning (depends on the type flown) and when your speed reduces to something appropriate, you flare the aircraft and touch down close or at stall speed and you've just demonstrated effects of flight controls at the entire range of airspeeds you can expect in normal flight (albeit in ground effect).