I think another thing that is overlooked by many is the fact that you have to enjoy it !
I enjoy the landing more than any other phase of the flight.:ok:

Landing IMO is unique among flying skills in that you get a feeling for it. This after all those seemingly endless circuits and touch and goes during your PPL. Sometimes I am a little anxious when I'm tired at the end of a flight that I will forget how to do it. I needn't be. Even if I don't fly for several months it's the landing which I retain more than anything else. Once you've got it you've got it.

(Having said that note the recent AAIB reports on pilots with thousands of hours collapsing nose wheels on landings which a student on first solo could easily get right!)

The right height is what feels the right height - making adjustments for wider or narrower runways than usual as well as up hill slope (you think you are higher than you are). Looking down the runway and lifting the nose just above the end works for me.

I also like the suggestion made earlier about leaving a bit of power on. There's no need to cut it aggressively as soon as you see the numbers.

I don't think the intense Ts & Gs during PPL training make one land any better. Most people find the stress level too high to absorb anything. Better to have a low-stress flight somewhere, before each landing.

And they encourage you to come in too fast, do a token "touch", and then climb away easily. Personally, I think full stop landings would sometimes be better value for money.

There are pilots who can be taught to land and with practice can do a reasonable job then there are those who have the right makeup.

Hand eye co ordinations, judgement, reactions are all qualities which some have and others dont.

You may get the pilot who has a precise mathematical brain and is great at detail but cannot hack flying skills and visa versa.

IMO geting a greaser or Chairmans landing does have an element of luck involved. You may think you have the perfect approach the perfect profile only to feel a thump on touchdown while other times you get the landing where you dont feel the tyres touch.

I compare handling an aircraft as to Skiing you can train most people to Ski and they will do a reasonable job then you get the downhill racer who has oodles of natural ability and co ordinations.

I am not decrying pilots but neither am I saying that we are all made the same. We have different strenghs in different areas of flight.

That is why you can have a multi houred pilot crash on landing in very strong winds while another lower houred pilot will revel in those conditions.

Finally may I add that too much is put into getting a greaser! the airlines put far more emphasis into hitting the runway touchdown point and passengers judge a landing in good conditions where such a greaser can be made and not where the real skills are shown in bad conditions where they judge a landing as bad because the pilot "puts it down firmly because he has to". When infact putting it down firmly required far more skill and applaud.

Pace

Interesting comments on what I spent most of my PPL training doing! In "The Killing Zone" Paul Craig considers the touch and go to be a dangerous manoeuvre and will not let his students perform them!

Has to be something to be said for that - after all most post-PPL landings take place after a flight somewhere.

T&Gs are a bit like hitting golf balls at the driving range, OK for practice but not really simulating real conditions.

I could not disagree more. T and Gs cover so many elements and will teach a pilot how to handle and be comfortable with handling an aircraft.

Cotton wooling pilots is not creating pilots but airplane drivers. We have the same arguement with stall avoidance and recovery at the incipient stage.
That is NOT training a pilot IMO.

What do you do avoid T and Gs send some V low time student off on circuits on his own then on one of those circuits he is forced to do a T and G or V low go around panics, crashes and dies because he has not been taught to feel comfortable with and to handle the aircraft?

Frankly if the student is too "stressed out" to handle T and Gs he has NO place to be sent off in an aircraft on his own.

That is down to bad training and lack of speed control and poor aircraft handling.

Pace

Hey 100hours,

You got 'em all wound up! Nice going!

Don't pay atttention to the nay sayers, perhaps they're a little jealous of what you have ahead to look forward to! You'll encounter them from time to time in aviation, as well as in life...

As for aspiring to be a really good PPL, nice going, that's what I did. After 33 years of PPL flying, changes in the interpretation of my job a driving me to get a CPL, but I'm still a PPL at heart. I never wanted to fly for hire on someone else's schedule. A tip of my hat to those who do, because you fly me around quite a bit, but it's not for me...

You've got lots of excellent advice here, and I'll not take up everyone's time repreating it. I will add a few observations:

A long time ago, I was told that a pilot can have thousands of hours of flying, and less than an hour flaring. With this in mind, I have always spent time in slow flight, whenever I could, particularly in types new to me. I was satisfied with this, when I had maintained controlled flight with heading changes, with the stall warning sounding. With all the appropriate cautions as to altitude, area, etc, I recommend this to you. Though you still will have to find the ground, you'll feel more confident in the aircraft while you're doing it. 172's are excellent for this.

Open your mind to the fact that different aircraft of different sizes have very different "eye heights". Pay close attention to the view on takeoff, you're going to need to remember it on landing! I have gone from flying my C150 to a DC-3 the same day, and from flying a Lake Amphibian (where you sit in the water) to a Caravan amphibian, which is very much higher. In the case of all of the planes (other than my 150, which I'm fairly used to now), I have to feel for the surface, and make a presentable job out of it. I'm not being asked to do a short landing, so carrying some power, and extending the flare, lets me have more time to feel for the surface gently.

Have fun, and keep improving your skills. None of us will ever be perfect!

... and do lots of taxi-ing....

T&G's are obviously fine for teaching most of the circuit, but I would argue they are not good for the flare and hold-off. If you know you are going around, there is no real incentive to reduce throttle in the flare, and even though the FI may tell you you're too fast, your "punishment" is an easier climbout. Not a good preparation for the throttle work in a real landing, still less for a real landing followed by a real go-around for a real reason.

In a typical "circuits" lesson you might get 6-8 T&G's or maybe 3-4 full stops (depending a lot on the airfield). Once the student is at the "learning to land" stage, I think the full stops are more useful. How much runway gets used is a really objective yardstick, especially with the wind and runway the same for each full-stop landing. In traditional circuit training, each full stop is on a different day.

I'm not an FI and I've never taught a soul, this is just my opinion based on my own learning experience.

The thing about SEP is that the weight/ speed/ stall envelope isn't as small as for bigger aircraft so you can get away with quite a large deviation from the standard speeds.

In a larger aircraft it's very much a case of being within a ~15kt envelope of overstressing the flaps and being under your minimum speed at threshold (stall avoidance)

As soon as you have these sort of limitations hammered into you and you start monitoring your speed more closely for fear of what might happen, you suddenly get better at circuits!

gpn01, you're clearly finding better lift than me; my BGA logbook shows almost nothing but circuits since April!

I'm wondering if there might be some pretty different experiences of T&G - during my training, I wouldn't put the power back on until (1) the nosewheel had reached the tarmac and (2) I'd retracted whatever flaps I'd deployed. But it sounds from some of the comments as if some folk were powering up as soon as the mainwheels touched... or am I misunderstanding?

Two things I learned that were very valuable and are connected.

One was from my helicopter training: When learning to hover, like so many others I stared out to the sides or down into the ground trying to keep the aircraft still. It never worked and by the time you compensated for a drift, it was too late already. My instructor said: look far away - fix on a building, pole whatever in the distance and you'll see it'll become much easier. And that was it - I immediately could hover.

Now, this goes for fixed wing as well: when I started doing night landings it was not only unsatisfactory but downright dangerous judging your flare by looking at the runway below or in front of you (if you could see it). It resulted in some terribly hard landings that shook one's fillings. So once again, by fixating on the end of the runway far away, the red lights and "hinging" on that as a reference, the landings became very docile. And this works for daylight landings, too.

You peripheral vision is much better at judging height and movement than your center vision.

I use the Force. It works pretty good. I have 10% the time AAIGUY has but in a similar vein I have good landings and I have crummy ones. I do a lot of glider towing and I get to land a lot. Like BEAgle, I count two perfect landings in my 800 hours, one in a PA12 as a student, and one in a C172 with my then girlfriend, now wife. Those were cool, I wasn't sure I was down until all motion had stopped.

So the question, do I know how high I am? When I am close I do. I strive to get very close and hold it off, but allow a small descent rate until I touch.

-- IFMU

Hold off
 

as a fresh CPL holder and just about to have the FI(r) issued i find landing the most critical stage of flight and should be taught to be consistant from the beginning of Ex12/13, the student will never pick it up from the first t&g. What i have found while being instructed to be an instructor is using all of your vision to find out how high the aircraft is off the deck with out glancing at the altimeter. Me personally i fly the aircraft to the deck keeping the pitch of the aircraft as level as possible until 5/6 feet of the deck. having flown many types of A/C from Ce150 to Ce421 and Ce208 Grand Caravan, Pipers, Beechcraft and Cirrus which drop out of the sky if you dont nail the speed. I have been told that it is near impossible to teach the perfect landing style but yet it is possible to let the student experiment in trying different techniques in the last few feet to find a technique that allows then to produce a consistent and safe landing.

Judging your height above the ground ( runway ) during the landing including the flare and hold off is accomplished by what you see, not what you feel. ( Except the actual touch down of course. )

When you drive your car down a highway do you stay in the lane you are in by feel or by sight?

Unless you can judge height accurately you will never ever be able to perform consistent safe landings.

I wrote an arcticle about this very subject some years ago and will see if I can locate it if anyone wants to read it. :ok:

Very nice read guys Thanks...

I do:ok:

Yes Chuck always interested in topics such as this.
Seen so many people almost mentally turn off when over the threshold.
Keep flying the aircraft until you touchdown, complete rollout, vacate runway and have taxied safely to a sensible parking space, closed down electrics and engine, made safe and entered the clubhouse.

keep flying till you've stopped
 

Flying taildraggers makes that the only approach that works.

Chuck - I'd also be interested in reading your article.