QDM:
There is only one " SURE " " SAFE " method to learn the flare height point visual clues and that is with a competant instructor who will demonstrate the manouver over and over until the visual picture is imprinted in your memory bank.
Trying to explain the visual impression that the mind retains will vary from person to person.
However once the student learns the clues by repetitive lessons the picture for that person is printed in the brain.
As I have previously stated I use a camcorder and we replay the lessons after the flight. The beauty of this is the ability to freeze the picture and discuss exactly what the student was "seeing" and what the mind was "Visualizing " at that precise moment in time. There is quite a signifigant difference between what the eyes see and the mind visualizes.
Lets think a moment about where an airshow pilot is looking during a ribbon cut pass.
From the decending approach the airplane is flared to parallel the runway and then rolled to the inverted position once the flare to level flight is finished the ribbon is now kept in sight as the target. From that point to the cut you can bet your ass the pilot is using the ribbon as the target aim point and height judgement will be judged by pereferial vision.
The reason that I use this very unusual example is only to point out that to judge where any target is we look at the target.
Landing an airplane is no different, to judge how close you are to your target ( The flare point ) you keep the intended point as the center of focus.
Naturally once flared we look ahead to a point where we can see our height change as we lose speed and lift to just prior to runway contact and at that height "about one foot" we stop the airplane from losing any further height and it will finally quit flying and land. Looking into the distance such as the far end of the runway is not the way to judge height during the latter part of the landing, about five hundred feet ahead is where to look.
Now I have probably really fu.... it all up by using the ribbon pick up as an analogy for landing............ hopefully everyone will get the point I was trying to explain....you cannot judge height looking into infinity.
Jeeesus I may have really muddied the water this time.
If there is confusion with the ribbon pick up explination let me know and I will edit it.
Cat Driver: