Until you get your visual sight picture down you might try reducing power to
idle at about 50' and just flying it onto the runway with a controlled
smooth descent, making sure you don't land nosegear first. Then when you
have that down you could use the "normal" procedure of holding it just off
the runway until it plays out and lands. With a low wing you have a little
more ground effect near touchdown.

--

Darrell R. Schmidt
B-58 Hustler History: http://members.cox.net/dschmidt1/
-

"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...
We just purchased a'79 M20J 4443H. I am in the middle of getting my 10
hours with a CFI for Insurance purposes and I have to tell you that this
thing is a lot different to land than a Skyhawk. So far I am glad that
my CFI has been with me because 75 percent of the landings have not been
pretty. They are safe (mostly) but nothing you'd want the wife to film
with the video camera. I've got the speeds down good (100 on downwind,
90 on base and 80 on final) but getting it to the runway smoothly has
been a challange.

I've never flown a low wing plane before the Mooney and I am having a
problem with the sight picture working out for me. Is this a pretty
common issue in transitioning to these planes or should I just resign to
the fact that I'm not going to get as nice a landings in my Mooney as I
did in the Skyhawk .

Right now any stories would help out tremendously!! Thanks.

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
Student Mooney Owner
'79 M20J 4443H @ TYQ