It is interesting reading my comments and opinions on this subject as the years past and I get further away from flying for a living.
I also sit here now and wonder if any of my comments actually helped anyone improve their way of seeing the picture and made their flying easier.
Reading these pages I noticed I never mentioned my method of actually teaching the picture we see when approaching and landing.
So here is a bit more.
The first thing I do is demonstrate how I do it and where I am looking during the last fifty feet above the ground in the approach and also that I countdown the height to the flare point (The change from the approach path to level flight just above the runway. )
After the flare and during the speed decay and loss of lift portion of the latter stage of the landing I verbalize the height changes every foot of change closer to the runway or a gain caused by ballooning to the final contact with the runway.
Once the demo is done I then have the student fly the airplane as I verbalize the height from fifty feet to the touch down, thus allowing the student to see the picture as they get closer to touch down.
Generally the students get the picture in less than two hours hearing the height above the runway to the touch down....just like Airbus and Boeing do it, except I am not a computer and you can ask me questions.
Time is really going fast now, I will be eighty one in October.
