SRover40

Always appreciate your sincere replies.....

I'm a A320 F/O and I've flown my acft about 2 years...
This is my first Jetliner and recently I'm experiencing some big
troubling with flare ...
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My problem is " Im most cases (sadly....) I do floating at 5 feet...
always 5 feet ...." consequently, at 5 feet airplane lose airspeed and
approach stall speed, then airplane starts falling down fast ....
The result ===> Not a soft Landing.....
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After setting Thrust idle at about 20~30 feet , I try to look at the end
of the runway and try to get a feeling of going down..down...down....
But it's never easy for me so far....

I'm really waiting for some advices from experienced fellow aviators....

Thx , as always ....

Olendirk

well, 2 years, makes abou 1500h. some people say, between 1000 and 1500h you get a big punch. i had it also, the point is, you cant land anymore. its like youre sitting in the aircraft for the first time. no worries. me it helped to fly the aircraft TO the ground, means start the break or flare very very low. makes noise, but you get the feeling back.

sincerely

sudden Winds

the first thing IŽll tell you is.......RELAX. fly and feel the airplane, donŽt judge the whole flight by how smooth the landing was...

1) make sure youŽre adjusting your seat comfortably, not too high, not too low, about the right distance and about the same everytime.

2) try to fly a stable approach, good landings out of bad approaches are a product of luck.

3) try different things...if you ALWAYS float, it means youŽre flaring a bit high every time, try flaring less, no matter what the ground seems to do on you. If it lands rather hard then next time youŽll pick an intermediate final attitude between the 1st high, prolonged type flare and the no or minimum flare landing you did the 2nd time...you need to know both edges before you know the spot in between.

4) look outside, use your peripheral vision. The end of the rwy is not the best place to look at, especially if the rwy is long. try to look a bit closer, not just off the nose of the a/c but maybe 500 ft ahead...that should be enough.

5) make sure youŽre not approaching too fast for whatever reason that invites floating and floating invites tail strikes, late rejected landings and even runway excursions.

6) make sure youŽre able to maintain rwy alignment and flight path with no major difficulties prior to attempting good landings...if you having a hard time with that you Žll be too worried about not overshooting the rwy and that Žll leave you minimal attention for a good flare.

7) ask your captains what they think, but donŽt ask every single one of them, Žcause theyŽll give you different opinions and youŽll get terribly confused.

8) make sure youŽre not thinking about this too much. Once youŽve landed (good or bad) go home, and donŽt spend the rest of the day regretting your last landing or day dreaming about your next. This is not like dating a nice girl, youŽll get plenty of opportunities here.

Best Regards,
SW.
write if you need anything.

Ashling

I'm not an airbus driver so I cannot comment on the specifics of landing an airbus, for that you need to have a thorough read of your flight crew training manual.

A couple of thoughts though.

Remember what you are aiming for, a positive contact in the right place at the right speed. You want to be able to achieve this every time. Trying to grease it on is a mistake and will lead to trouble in poor weather conditions as you will then struggle to land correctly as you have not been practising it. The passengers and cabin crew are not good arbiters of a landings quality.

Pick your aimpoint and drive the aircraft towards it maintaining the descent path all the way to flare (use Papi, glidesope indications to help) and try to avoid overcorrecting close in. A-lot of people are ground shy and shallow off their approach in the last 50-100' pre flare but then flare the standard amout, result long landing. Scan aimpoint, speed, aimpoint, speed repetitively occasionaly taking in glideslope & power setting as required, you can largely do the later by feel.

Next look to achieve a consistant flare technique. Airbus will detail this. The cadence of your rad alt countdown may well help achieve the correct flare point as will looking ahead. On most types you will want to start reducing power to idle as you flare with the aim being idle as the wheels touch.

Keep flying the aircraft on, don't just flare and wait in hope, if you don't achieve touchdown adjust things.

If you detect a large sink rate developing late on use power to cushion it, just as the power bites take it off again to avoid floating. Avoid overflaring to cushion as this may lead to a tailstrike.

Good luck

FCS Explorer

as written in post#2 FLY the aircraft to the ground. even if "cut-the-power-pull-a-little-and-see-what-happens-next" is considered the same as a flare (and the way i done it in the beginnings, too)
and by the way: even after years, when you have reached a point where landings are good enough not to worry or think about there will be times when you just think you totally lost your landing mojo.

D-OCHO

And remember:


So don't worry

gatbusdriver

When I went mixed fleet, and was flying A330 alot, landing the A320 became a bit trickier. Always get the "five......five.....five.....five...." call out followed by the sound of tyres hitting terra firma.

I had to go back to numbers. At 30' think about flaring, as a result of this I would start flaring at approx 20'.

Happy landings

Mullinax

Regardless of what type of aircraft you fly, the best you'll ever get is 95/5, meaning that 95 percent of your landings will be pretty good and five percent will be down the tubes. I may even be too optimistic with this figure. Most pilots I know also get on "streaks" both good and bad. A great landing is sometimes just as baffling as a terrible landing.

SRover40

You mean start flare at about 20 feet ?

I start reducing descent rate at 50 feet(make v/s 700 --> 400)
, and idle at 30 feet ...

Next time I would try start flare at 20 feet .... ..

Wingswinger

My advice would be don't start to reduce your descent rate at 50ft. It's too soon. Keep driving down at the TD point then, at 30R, look at the far end of the runway. At 20R close the TL smartly and flare (only 1-2 degrees), squeeze the rudder to eliminate the drift angle and use the side-stick as required to hold the wings level. Imagine trying to fly low about 2ft above the runway and just hold the attitude. You need to look at the far-end to do this. The aircraft will just sit down. Don't try to hold off to achieve a gentle touchdown - it doesn't work because A320 series land more smoothly the flatter the touchdown attitude. Make sure the TL are closed as you flare and not later otherwise the auto-thrust will add power leading to a float.

Air of Despair

Hi,
I'm going through a similar phase, just a little less hours and experience. At the start landing was fine, I think at really low hours when everything is new you just rely on what you were taught when you were learning to fly. As your knowledge increases you realise that there are an awful lot more variables than you thought and hence a lot more things go through your mind. I changed companies after about 4 months and to compound the issue the first company I worked for had all rad alt calls down to '5', my new company only have 50, 30 and retard. I know that at the end of the day you should be landing the aircraft visually but as a low houred pilot you like to have things to hang your hat on. Flaring at 20ft worked beautifully until the 20ft call was removed.

I've spoken to a few of the pilots I fly with and they all say the same thing, relax, look out the window and keep it coming down. I think one of the traps you get caught up in, especially after a few crunchers, is getting a little ground shy. Flaring high, chopping the power and not keeping it coming down really isn't pretty and if you try to soften the touchdown by pulling back you're heading into tail strike country. All I can say to help you is what I'm saying to my self. Drive it down to that aiming point, look out and at approximately 20ft close the thrust levers, check back and hold the attitude. I'm not aiming to grease it in, all I want is a safe landing in the right place that doesn't send the wheels through the wings.
The other thing I am trying to learn is that when you do crunch it in don't beat yourself up about it. On the occasions when the Captain has smacked it in it really doesn't bother them. I guess its another one of those things that comes with experience.

Lemper

Hi SRover, and all you guys of goodwill,

Notwithstanding any of the good advices the flying comunity is passing on here, one thing keeps troubling me:

What desperate state has aviation come to, that a young enthusiastic pilot has to ask advice on a basic flying skill on internet!
What kind of instruction, if not instructors, must SRover have been through? With what kind of PIC is he flying, who cannot (apparently) give him some advice, instruction or just coaching?

Gosh, am I happy to retire soon!

Blip

I've said it before and I will say it again, for me the Jacobson Flare technique took ALL the guess work out of landing aeroplanes, from the Cessna 152 that I was flying when I first read about it, to the Piper Seminole, the B737-300/400/800 and B767. It works for ANY aeroplane.

There was a thread about this topic last year, and it was apparent to me from the comments made that most of the people that dispapproved simply didn't understand what it was.

Here is the thread...

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...light=jacobson

What it does is it allows you to determine WHEN to flare by reference to a point on the runway which is a precalculated distance short of your aiming point. When you see this point on the runway pass below the glareshield, it is time to begin the flare manoeuvre.

Now before anyone attemps to shoot me down, that is the BASICS of it. There are some "if's" and "but's" that allow for heavy/light, fast/slow, etc. and this is explained in detail.

Once the flare is commenced, there is another technique that I read about which eliminates overcontrolling, floating, and crunching. Again, the guess work is gone. Doubt, anxiousness, and vague contol input is replaced with confidence, consistency and positive control input.

Anyone who would like a copy please PM me.

haughtney1

Blip, whilst I'm sure you fell Mr Jacobson has a point...the technique you describe complicates what in reality is a simple yet misunderstood maneuver.
Heavy 747/777/767/757/737 behave VERY differently to the lightly loaded versions...therefore a fixed reference point for the correct flare height is only a small piece of the puzzle.
The key component to a reasonable landing is the ROD that the aircraft experiences on touchdown...and this is as variable as the surfaces and surface conditions that we all land on.
All that the Jacobson technique proves is that he understands geometry far better than the average line pilot

Tree

Hire an instructor on a taildragger. Ask him to teach you the "wheel landing" technique ("flying" it on in a nose level attitude main wheels first). Use the same technique on any transport category type except bring the thrust to idle as you begin the flare. I believe Boeing recommends "flying it on". Nothing to it unless you are depth perception challenged (and some people are). In that case you will have to rely on the rad-alt callouts. If you wear glasses/sunglasses make sure they are not interfering with your depth perception. I have observed students with cheap sunglasses that caused perception problems.

ElNino

Set your seat so that you can only just about see the top of the glareshield.

If you are floating at 5ft, slightly release the back pressure on the stick and it should touch down.

Try flying the approach in manual thrust, it's easier to control the power as required in the flare and it avoids the autothrust adding power and causing a float.

Blip

I give up.

How can anyone debate an issue when others don't read what is written.

Haughtny1 said Oh the irony! Would you please explain how waiting for the 500 ft markers (for example) to pass under the glareshield is complicated.

Haughtny1 also said I thought I covered that bit and explained that other bits are covered as well.

Tree said No depth or height perception required. In my opinion having to rely on a rad-alt callouts to land an aeroplane is completely unacceptable! It's very much like having to rely on an ILS and PAPI to make a visual approach!

Dream Land

Ok, I have two techniques, one for long runways when you are in no big hurry to vacate, the other for single runway airports like in Europe. My suggestion for the first condition:
1. Auto brake LOW
2. Stay on G/S
3. Thrust Levers abruptly to idle 30-40ft (not slow like a DC3).
4. Slow down your normal flare a bit.
5. As soon as you reach the end of flare, start lowering the nose.
If it's too hard for you to slow down your flare rate, stop your flare prior to completely stopping the sink, wait one second and then lower the nose, this technique may also keep you from having problems lowering the nose during spoiler deflection pitch up, good luck.
D.L.

haughtney1

Because blip you ASSUME that one size (technique) fits all.........

Certainly.......plenty of airports I fly into DONT have 500ft/1000ft markers
Its what papi's are for , if they are there USE them! thats the point...

Back to the flare/landing technique...if was a 100% repeatable technique..then maybe blip you'd have a more valid argument..but its not, it never was..and it never will be

FlexibleResponse

Some great advice above.

The flare manoeuvre is not a one-shot effort.

If you turned your car into a parking slot between two other cars, you don't just wrench the steering wheel once and hope for the best? Of course you would make corrections according to the crossing/closing speed and also the achieved vehicle path, would you not?

If it looks like heading for a hang-up at 5 feet, make a goddam timely correction. Relax! Don't try and turn it into rocket science!