Why is landing the bloody plane so hard?!
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One word.... experience.
It'll come together - don't worry about it.
But even the most experienced and 'good pair of hands' pilots occasionally do a landing that they are not particularly proud of.
As has been said, it's like that.
It'll come together - don't worry about it.
But even the most experienced and 'good pair of hands' pilots occasionally do a landing that they are not particularly proud of.
As has been said, it's like that.
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the key thing is to have a well established approach, and that's much easier if you start it from a known point at a known configuration.
, what a thousand feet looks like.
Landings can catch you out - no matter what the experience level.
Was Pax on a BA 757 into Manchester a few years ago. PF did a full on carrier landing, smashed it in with no flair/flare, two overhead bins popped open, as hard a landing as I've ever done in much smaller craft.
During the usual BA "we've landed music" whilst Taxiing to the ramp, the FO came on the PA and said "I'd just like to apologise for the 'harder than usual' landing tonight <pause>
that last 10 feet or so always takes me by surprise...."
Laughs and smiles in the cabin but sure there was at least one very red face in the cockpit
Mac
Was Pax on a BA 757 into Manchester a few years ago. PF did a full on carrier landing, smashed it in with no flair/flare, two overhead bins popped open, as hard a landing as I've ever done in much smaller craft.
During the usual BA "we've landed music" whilst Taxiing to the ramp, the FO came on the PA and said "I'd just like to apologise for the 'harder than usual' landing tonight <pause>
that last 10 feet or so always takes me by surprise...."
Laughs and smiles in the cabin but sure there was at least one very red face in the cockpit
Mac
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Flying is basically a procedural thing and so practice makes perfect and relaxation and concentration on following procedure will help enormously.
As others have said the critical part is the approach not the landing. So when flying a conventional circuit you should arrive in the final approach at about the right altitude and you should pick an aiming point near the start of the runway, but beyond the threshold, often that's the numbers, and position it about 1/3 the way up the windscreen and then keep it there. As you pass over the threshold you should round out into straight and level flight and move your gaze to the end of the runway, then close the throttle and pull slowly and steadily back on the yoke or stick and if you've done it right the aircraft will settle gently but firmly on the main wheels as the stall Warner starts chirping merrily and the yoke or stick meets your tummy!
That will work for most training aircraft and many more sprightly light aircraft, in my experience.
As others have said the critical part is the approach not the landing. So when flying a conventional circuit you should arrive in the final approach at about the right altitude and you should pick an aiming point near the start of the runway, but beyond the threshold, often that's the numbers, and position it about 1/3 the way up the windscreen and then keep it there. As you pass over the threshold you should round out into straight and level flight and move your gaze to the end of the runway, then close the throttle and pull slowly and steadily back on the yoke or stick and if you've done it right the aircraft will settle gently but firmly on the main wheels as the stall Warner starts chirping merrily and the yoke or stick meets your tummy!
That will work for most training aircraft and many more sprightly light aircraft, in my experience.
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@Andrew: I know this is not going to make it better for you, but remember LLAP -> To boldly go, where every pilot has gone before (and no, I don't mean the blond stewardess ... ok, I take the red chauvinism card for now).
There is one single advice for this part of the training, stop thinking and just do, do, do so many landings until you feel the little “click" in your head understanding how landings work. Nobody was able to fetch the ingredients for this click, neither did anybody fetch the parameters, nor was somebody able to get a recipe how to train it and in the end every pilot has her or his own "landing".
There is one single advice for this part of the training, stop thinking and just do, do, do so many landings until you feel the little “click" in your head understanding how landings work. Nobody was able to fetch the ingredients for this click, neither did anybody fetch the parameters, nor was somebody able to get a recipe how to train it and in the end every pilot has her or his own "landing".
Lots of good advice here.
Knowing the control response when you're close to the ground is key -- not too much, not too little.
With some people I would take them up the TV antenna mast so they would see the height where they could make out individual stems of grass.
When you can distinguish surface texture is the time to flare.
We're talking about 3-5 seconds in ground effect with the inevitable crosswind while making fine adjustments to pitch, bank and yaw. A very efficient circuit would be some 6 minutes; so, there's barely 1% of the flight in the flare regime.
15 landings gives you just 1 minute's experience of the flare.
It's going to take 900 to get an hour's worth
So yes, the advice to find a long runway and flying just above it could speed up the learning considerably.
Knowing the control response when you're close to the ground is key -- not too much, not too little.
With some people I would take them up the TV antenna mast so they would see the height where they could make out individual stems of grass.
When you can distinguish surface texture is the time to flare.
We're talking about 3-5 seconds in ground effect with the inevitable crosswind while making fine adjustments to pitch, bank and yaw. A very efficient circuit would be some 6 minutes; so, there's barely 1% of the flight in the flare regime.
15 landings gives you just 1 minute's experience of the flare.
It's going to take 900 to get an hour's worth
So yes, the advice to find a long runway and flying just above it could speed up the learning considerably.
Allow me to go back to the opening phrase
It seems to me that the o/p's real issue is in considering the plane bloody. Obviously she/he hasn't come to terms with the plane, yet. Nothing wrong, there, as pointed out many times.
But really, the plane isn't bloody. Or, if it really is, only a fool would persevere in training in it - a student pilot with any bit of common sense would move on to a training environment with less bloody planes.
Why is landing the bloody plane so hard
But really, the plane isn't bloody. Or, if it really is, only a fool would persevere in training in it - a student pilot with any bit of common sense would move on to a training environment with less bloody planes.
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When you think you've got it nailed following the dozen or so perfect landings you soon find you haven't on the next one !
There are some sound words above from massively experienced pilots.
For my part I try and remember that the plane 'knows' how to fly, provided she is given enough energy. The plane doesn't know how to land. That is your job as a pilot, to gradually deprive her of just enough energy (a trade off of speed, power and attitude) that she touches the ground without sufficient energy to bounce up again.
Get the equation wrong (which we all do from time to time !) and she either doesn't touch the ground or does so too heavily with consequences that vary according to the landing gear strength.
Good luck
There are some sound words above from massively experienced pilots.
For my part I try and remember that the plane 'knows' how to fly, provided she is given enough energy. The plane doesn't know how to land. That is your job as a pilot, to gradually deprive her of just enough energy (a trade off of speed, power and attitude) that she touches the ground without sufficient energy to bounce up again.
Get the equation wrong (which we all do from time to time !) and she either doesn't touch the ground or does so too heavily with consequences that vary according to the landing gear strength.
Good luck
Last edited by 150 Driver; 4th Mar 2015 at 16:58. Reason: spelling
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Good point.
I go even further. The plane has no own thinking or mind, it is not a sailship ;-) ... So, the one being bloody could be the pilot and most probably, he is not treating the plane as simply being the sensible butt-extender of himself?
Switching the brain from "you can fly the plane by numbers and your brains thinking capability" to the real world "I have no clue why this piece of **** is flying, but my intuition enables me to bring it and me down in one piece" is the major breakthrough - long version of "click".
My 5 cents.
But really, the plane isn't bloody. Or, if it really is, only a fool would persevere in training in it - a student pilot with any bit of common sense would move on to a training environment with less bloody planes.
Switching the brain from "you can fly the plane by numbers and your brains thinking capability" to the real world "I have no clue why this piece of **** is flying, but my intuition enables me to bring it and me down in one piece" is the major breakthrough - long version of "click".
My 5 cents.
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I have no clue why this piece of **** is flying
I've just thought of an analogy. If you play golf, you start off uniformly pretty poor. Then you get a bit better by degrees until you might string four or five pars together with maybe even a birdie. Then on the next hole you hit four over par. No rhyme nor reason for it, it just happens.
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Just re-read the OP
"still on track to get to test standard in 45 hours."
When I had my first lesson (about 5 years ago) I read '45 hours' and treated it like a checklist. Every hour flown was an hour closer to the magic 45 and the licence. Nobody corrected me.
45 came and went. And because I 'knew' that was 'all' you needed to do I started getting agitated, frustrated that my Instructor was still saying I needed more hours, annoyed that the bank balance kept going down and that the magic finish line kept being moved back. It didn't help that I'd told the family that it was 45 and there was only £X more to spend to get there.
In the late 60's the magic day came and I was deemed good enough to hold a licence. But to me that was a disappointment because I obviously wasn't a good pilot, otherwise I'd have got it in 45 like everyone else does. Right ?
It wasn't until I started talking to others and reading forums like this that I realised how few (if any ?) people get there in 45 hours. If I'd known this I'd have taken a whole load of pressure off and I'd have enjoyed those last few pre test hours a lot more.
So, whilst I'm not out to puncture any bubbles, personally I'd treat a "still on track to get to test standard in 45 hours" comment with a pinch of salt.
Enjoy, after all, flying is flying whether or not the seat beside you is empty or with an Instructor.
"still on track to get to test standard in 45 hours."
When I had my first lesson (about 5 years ago) I read '45 hours' and treated it like a checklist. Every hour flown was an hour closer to the magic 45 and the licence. Nobody corrected me.
45 came and went. And because I 'knew' that was 'all' you needed to do I started getting agitated, frustrated that my Instructor was still saying I needed more hours, annoyed that the bank balance kept going down and that the magic finish line kept being moved back. It didn't help that I'd told the family that it was 45 and there was only £X more to spend to get there.
In the late 60's the magic day came and I was deemed good enough to hold a licence. But to me that was a disappointment because I obviously wasn't a good pilot, otherwise I'd have got it in 45 like everyone else does. Right ?
It wasn't until I started talking to others and reading forums like this that I realised how few (if any ?) people get there in 45 hours. If I'd known this I'd have taken a whole load of pressure off and I'd have enjoyed those last few pre test hours a lot more.
So, whilst I'm not out to puncture any bubbles, personally I'd treat a "still on track to get to test standard in 45 hours" comment with a pinch of salt.
Enjoy, after all, flying is flying whether or not the seat beside you is empty or with an Instructor.
No rhyme nor reason for it, it just happens.
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Andrew, I don't want to repeat my excellent advice on landing given on a very recent thread, HELP PLEASE, on page two, post number 22.
Instead I am going to bring the whole thread back in to your possible notice, by posting on it again! You may find the reference to the average elephant helpful, when judging the start of your flare....
Happy arrivals!
Mary
Instead I am going to bring the whole thread back in to your possible notice, by posting on it again! You may find the reference to the average elephant helpful, when judging the start of your flare....
Happy arrivals!
Mary
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As to the question "Why"....
Because landing an airplane demands rather complex and well-coordinated skills. In the landing phase, the events happen very quickly (cannot slow down), while the margins for error are the lowest. Due to the weight and momentum, whenever you move control surfaces, it takes some time (delay) for the aircraft to find its new aerodinamic balance. So steering the plane by trial-and-error doesn't work in this phase of flight, you have to make the right control inputs IN ADVANCE, or in other words, in your mind, you have to be 10-30 seconds ahead of your plane, in order to pilot it, rather than being a passanger in it.
To achieve this, you "only" need to
- coordinate your 2 arms and 2 legs
- use your central and peripheral vision to judge distance, height and angle
- use your ear to listen to airspeed changes
- use your inner ear to keep wings level
- feel side-slipping in your stomach
- feel engine RPM via the seat of pants
- use your skin to feel control surface stiffness and loseness (as speed increases or decays)
- put all this information into your brain to predict what is the next best control move on the yoke, stick, pedals, throttle or spoilers
- make the control inputs you feel necessary
- check that it didn't utterly screw up the the approach or landing
- do the above cycle again...
That's a whole lot of information to process and a lot of practice is required to build these skills and then co-ordinate them. Moreover, they are built in parallel, some from scratch, and only at the end, when all of them are relatively well developed, they "click" together into a solid skillset, which makes your landing more consistent and reliable. That is why it is so hard to land airplanes in the beginning. Or when you are tired after a long XC flight.
PS. I know, because I managed to damage the gear of the training airplane with a botched landing (too high flare, big drop to runway). As I walked to the instructors office, in obvious dispair, one of them told me "Don't be sad. We will have the plane fixed, and you will continue practicing. One such incident happens every 5000 training hour. You are protected now for 5000 hours, so relax".
"Ah, so. Thanks for the comforting words, but what will you say, when you fix the plane and then I come and crash-land it again?" - I asked.
"I will say you are protected for 10.000 hours from that point in time".
There was so much powerful confidence in those words, that I didn't give up the training, and yes, it all clicked one day!
Because landing an airplane demands rather complex and well-coordinated skills. In the landing phase, the events happen very quickly (cannot slow down), while the margins for error are the lowest. Due to the weight and momentum, whenever you move control surfaces, it takes some time (delay) for the aircraft to find its new aerodinamic balance. So steering the plane by trial-and-error doesn't work in this phase of flight, you have to make the right control inputs IN ADVANCE, or in other words, in your mind, you have to be 10-30 seconds ahead of your plane, in order to pilot it, rather than being a passanger in it.
To achieve this, you "only" need to
- coordinate your 2 arms and 2 legs
- use your central and peripheral vision to judge distance, height and angle
- use your ear to listen to airspeed changes
- use your inner ear to keep wings level
- feel side-slipping in your stomach
- feel engine RPM via the seat of pants
- use your skin to feel control surface stiffness and loseness (as speed increases or decays)
- put all this information into your brain to predict what is the next best control move on the yoke, stick, pedals, throttle or spoilers
- make the control inputs you feel necessary
- check that it didn't utterly screw up the the approach or landing
- do the above cycle again...
That's a whole lot of information to process and a lot of practice is required to build these skills and then co-ordinate them. Moreover, they are built in parallel, some from scratch, and only at the end, when all of them are relatively well developed, they "click" together into a solid skillset, which makes your landing more consistent and reliable. That is why it is so hard to land airplanes in the beginning. Or when you are tired after a long XC flight.
PS. I know, because I managed to damage the gear of the training airplane with a botched landing (too high flare, big drop to runway). As I walked to the instructors office, in obvious dispair, one of them told me "Don't be sad. We will have the plane fixed, and you will continue practicing. One such incident happens every 5000 training hour. You are protected now for 5000 hours, so relax".
"Ah, so. Thanks for the comforting words, but what will you say, when you fix the plane and then I come and crash-land it again?" - I asked.
"I will say you are protected for 10.000 hours from that point in time".
There was so much powerful confidence in those words, that I didn't give up the training, and yes, it all clicked one day!
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To achieve this, you "only" need to
- coordinate your 2 arms and 2 legs
- use your central and peripheral vision to judge distance, height and angle
- use your ear to listen to airspeed changes
- use your inner ear to keep wings level
- feel side-slipping in your stomach
- feel engine RPM via the seat of pants
- use your skin to feel control surface stiffness and loseness (as speed increases or decays)
- put all this information into your brain to predict what is the next best control move on the yoke, stick, pedals, throttle or spoilers
- make the control inputs you feel necessary
- check that it didn't utterly screw up the the approach or landing
- do the above cycle again...
- coordinate your 2 arms and 2 legs
- use your central and peripheral vision to judge distance, height and angle
- use your ear to listen to airspeed changes
- use your inner ear to keep wings level
- feel side-slipping in your stomach
- feel engine RPM via the seat of pants
- use your skin to feel control surface stiffness and loseness (as speed increases or decays)
- put all this information into your brain to predict what is the next best control move on the yoke, stick, pedals, throttle or spoilers
- make the control inputs you feel necessary
- check that it didn't utterly screw up the the approach or landing
- do the above cycle again...
Would you mind if I e mailed it to a lady who I take flying on occasion to whom the phrase 'Shut the f*** up when I'm landing' has no apparent effect? (I couch it in a more gentlemanly manner but that's what I really mean...)
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If you believe looking at the far end of the runway is the way to judge your height above the runway you will never be accurate in height judgement before wheel contact.
Of all the bad advice pilots get with regard to landings this has to be the worst in my opinion.
Of all the bad advice pilots get with regard to landings this has to be the worst in my opinion.