why oh why does flaring suck the lemon :-(
 

I'm either coming in like a kamikaze and smashing into terra firma or flaring so high that i sink rapidly and smash into said terra firma anyway :ugh::{

Are you looking well ahead, and judging height by peripheral vision?
The idea is not to land, but to keep it flying ever more slowly.

Let me guess - about 20 hours into training? Keep calm, your feelings are alright and we all went through that phase of learning to fly. It just takes until you get it.

Amazing, Yep, just over 18 hours



I guess my judgement of height just gonna take a little longer :ugh:

This is the key.

Arrive over the threshold at about the right altitude, and airspeed, and with everything pretty stable. From there, pretend as though you're in bare feet, and the runway is very cold and wet. You know that you're going to have to put your feet on it at some point, but you'd like to delay that unpleasant experience as long as you can.

To do that, you will not climb the plane, but you will try to prevent it from touching for as long as you can. With the power at idle, it's not going to fly off the end of the runway, so don't worry about stopping, just slow down, and down, and down, holding it off the ground, until it settles on for lack of lift.

Oh, by the way, the stall warning horn will be sounding by then, and that's excellent! And, bonus, as you just stalled nicely onto the runway, the aircraft is very unlikely able to bounce!

The flare seems to be something pilots want to get over with as quickly as possible. Why, it's fun! Play around there, get a few extra seconds of pleasure from it! If you have a nice long runway, you can even feed in a bit of power to hold yourself there. Take the time to look more "around" to get a better sense of the visual cues. The more time you can spend in the flare, the better you'll be at landing. Don't rush to get through it.

For fun, in the winter, I'll fly my C 150 for miles over a suitable (for landing) frozen lake, a foot or two up, with the stall horn screaming - for miles. It's like playing that game with your significant other of getting as close as you can, without touching. See it as being fun to perfect the skill of the flare, and it will come to you easily.

If you've ever seen the videos of one wheel landings, that's exactly what those pilots are doing, holding the plane in a very prolonged flare.

Good luck, you'll get it....

Correct set up when you turn final
right speed on approach - not too fast.
then when you are just off the ground - TRY NOT TO LAND just continue holding it off by pulling slowly back on the stick and you will land without knowing it.

My initial progress was slow (I was learning on a taildragger), hampered by airsickness (esp during stalling) & inability to judge flare height.

Change of instructor: the new chap got me to line up but instead of opening the throttle the following exchange took place:

'Look ahead, note where the horizon intersects the cowling.'
'Okay.'
'Memorise that image. Now, look down a bit, note how high you are above the ground.'
'Okay.'
'Memorise that image.'
'Okay.'
'Right, now fly a standard circuit and don't let the aircraft touch down till the horizon's in the right place and the height is the same as now.'

It worked. I soloed a few circuits later. The aircraft was a taildragger but the same principle applies on a trike. Just get your instructor to demo the landing attitude and then memorise it.

Stay with it! You'll get there!

Arrive over the threshold at about the right altitude, and airspeed, and with everything pretty stable.

*ROTFL* absolutely correct, BUT ... that is not the tricky part, as most training planes will settle almost by themselves, if you are that far. Add headwind, crosswind, a little too fast, a little too low and you get the shaking. What helped me in that days was landing at large airports and asking for a very long final - just playing on long final with the aiming point.

Don't try to learn "the perfect landing", it is an illusion and similar to the wow girl - most probably, you will never met her. Landings are dirty fun instead ... ;-).

Because 'flaring' isn't a single significant action, but a series of very small pitch up movements, separated by small, but varying 'gaps'.

StepTurn is right to say:

It's really important to consistently start the process of landing, over the threshhold, at the correct height, airspeed, and in trim.

Then, smoothly reduce the power to idle, and maintain the correct airspeed by lowering the nose slightly.

When the ground starts to seem to rush up towards you, raise the nose a little, just enough to arrest the descent. As the aircraft slows, and sinks again, keep raising the nose in small increments, adjusting the 'gaps' between them to allow the aircraft to sink as little or as much as you need, but each time just enough to arrest the descent. If you overdo this at any point, DO NOT LOWER THE NOSE, but hold the new attitude for a little longer this time. The aircraft will soon slow and start sinkIng again, then carry on as before, until you reach the LANDING ATTITUDE. THEN HOLD THE LANDING ATTITUDE and let the aircraft sink onto the ground without any further pitch up. At the same time, of course, you must also maintain the centreline with the ailerons, and maintain runway alignment with the rudder.

If you don't know what the LANDING ATTITUDE is, ask your instructor to show you. It's the same as the TAKEOFF ATTITUDE. In most types this is with the nose just on, but not covering the horizon. If you are strugling to recognise the LANDING ATTITUDE, then you are probably sitting too low down and need a cushion to lift you up a bit.

As others have said, you will get there with practice, however frustrating it may seem at the moment. Just make sure you have a clear picture of what you are trying to achieve and have everyhing going for you. ;)


MJ:ok:

Herein can be a part of the problem - the "aiming point" must be the first half of an appropriate length runway. Any more particular than that, and you're setting yourself up for trouble in the early phases of flying. With lots of experience, you can pick a point, and gently touch the wheels within a few feet of it. With little experience, just get it on the ground nicely. Work on precisely where you do that as your experience grows.

If you have chosen a runway of suitable length for a modest skill pilot in that aircraft, and you arrive over the threshold at the right altitude, and speed, and gently pull the power off, you're going to stop nicely on that runway, unless you utterly fail to attempt to stop. Focus on your landing flare technique, and staying laterally on the the runway, once the power is off, everything else will sort itself out in terms of runway length.

You are much less safe forcing the plane onto the surface 10 knots too fast, closer to the threshold, than allowing it to slow while still airborne, and overflying a few hundred feet.

All very good points, but even so having flown the perfect approach and having the right attitude doesn't help if you are still 10ft up when you run out of lift.

Even after few years and a few hours I do occasionally for some unfathomable reason misjudge the height and find my self having to add a dollop of power to save my blushes...

practice makes perfect and it will fall into place.

This handout may be helpful - the landing section is at the end. Copyright restrictions are lifted for this publication if you want to make copies. Good luck!

My standard advice is to wait for the moment when you can make out ground texture before beginning the flare.

At that point look at the end of the runway while holding off the a/c with increasing small pitch increments until the landing attitude has been reached -- all the while keeping the fuselage pointed down the runway with rudder.

With xwind you will need bank to control drift.

I prefer a steeper approach as it becomes easier to see where you will hit (if you don't flare:p). Don't forget to maintain recommended approach speed as a steep approach requires sufficient energy to flare.

Hold off on the 3 degree ILS approaches until you are working on your instrument rating;)

I used to find with students having your problem that two things would help them in addition to what has been stated in previous replies.

1/ A thorough re briefing or a session or both on stalling. Pointing out attitudes for a gentle stall but mostly the feel of the controls and their effect on the aircraft as the speed decreases.

2/ Then I would demonstrate on the approach that the flare does not have to happen in one go. If the approach is done at the correct airspeed then you have plenty to spare as you approach the ground. So at about 10 to 15 feet above the ground I would apply a little back pressure ( reminding them that the elevator is sensitive at that speed ). That would slow the aircraft a little but more importantly it would slow down the rate of descent. So now the ground rush is much less severe. Then you can flare at the correct height and again remembering to be gentle at first but as the airspeed decreases to the stall you need to be more positive with the controls.If done right the stall warner will sound and the main wheels will touch. Do not release the (by now) full back pressure or the nose will bang onto the ground.

It seemed to work for me and all my students landed that way and some even progressed onto tail draggers with little effort.

I'm sure in the modern day and age this will not be possible but when I learnt on a quiet country airstrip...

we would takeoff and do a circuit, land, power on and climb to 50 feet, approach, flare and land then up to 50 feet and do it again.
on a typical circuit we would do 6 landings with a takeoff into the overrun area at the end.
obviously we knew the ground conditions at each end.

the technique well and truly sorts out your flare problems in a few hours.

Almost every flight school specifies a too high approach speed. If the aircraft is flown at the correct approach speed then you should be able to slowly but continuously raise the nose to the landing attitude, hold that, and have the aircraft settle on to the ground with no further pitch change required.

What I see far to often is a too fast approach with excessive float as the poor student ballooning on the first attempt to flare followed by a series of divergent pitch and altitude excursions and the student attempts to pitch to a landing attitude followed by either a nose wheel first touch down or a hard landing as the aircraft runs out of speed and falls out of the sky. :ugh:

With 2 up and half tanks, if you are flying your C 172 or Pa 28 faster than 60 kts when you cross the end of the runway you are going too fast. :=

BPF
 

Absolutely bang on. Took me two years in the AA5 to drum that into my noddle. :ok:

It's rare and interesting to see a thread where everybody agrees about the right answer. I'm just going to be another boringly concordant voice, to whit....

- Fly at the approach speed in the manual, adjusted correctly for weight - no faster, and usually no slower. As BPF says, in a PA28 with 2 POB and half tanks, that's a smidge under 60, not the 75kn I've seen in a few schools.

- Don't look down - look at the far end of the runway and position accordingly.

- Don't try and land. Keep trying to stay just above the surface until the aeroplane gives you no choice in the matter and lands anyhow.

- Nobody expects a 20 hour student to be delivering consistently "good" landings. You're not deficient, just still learning.

G

And if its any help to your ego I have over 20 000 landings under my belt and in the works machine the other day I raped the runway. Just didn't time the last bit of the round out and left it what felt like 20mm to low. This was in CAVOK and 4 knots of wind. Its always the good wx days which I produce my worst.

Had to go and do the walk of shame and say sorry to the punters.

Experience just alters the ratio of good -> acceptable -> poor.

It never completely gets rid of the poor ones though. But we keep trying to be perfect but never succeed.

I have posted this before

It was just the bang of impact came before I could tell it what to do :(

Jock, that well was worth posting again.