"Cats" wrote in message
ps.com...
I am one of those people with ongoing intermittent landing problems. I
have good patches - managed to get solo recently - and then bad
patches. The bad patches probably co-incide with forgetting to look up
as I start the round-out, so there is no hold-off and a rather heavy
landing, sometimes with a bounce.

I've got my own ideas on how to address this, was curious if anyone
else here has had the same problem and if so, how did you deal with it?
Unfortunately I reckon I developed the bad habit fairly early in my
flying, as it was well-established by the time someone pointed out what
was going on. Since I seem to be reasonably good at doing what I'm
told to do, via a route from ears to hands & feet that misses my brain,
I suspect I've flattered to deceive in the front seat.


I am not a CFI or CFIG so claim no authority, but/and can only comment on
what worked for me.

It is said by many that the route to good landings is practice, practice,
practice. The key is not to keep practicing your mistakes. Learning to
land in gliders is difficult because it is hard (and expensive) to do enough
of them. Tows are expensive and we seldom make more than a small number of
landings in a training day. IMHE the best way to learn to land is with a
GOOD CFI, in a light tailwheel aircraft and at a small quiet airport. This
will allow you to make many landings in an hour and is much more cost and
time effective than purchasing tows. Gliders require ground crews for
assistance and it is hard to get more than 4 landings /hr. An aircraft
needs no assistance and can easily make 12 or more landings in an hour, and
the cost per landing will be a small fraction of the cost of gliders + tows.
A winch will change the economics but I suspect that the powered aircraft
will still be much cheaper. My personal favorite trainer is the Citabria
but the quality and experience of the CFI is much more important than the
choice of aircraft.

All students do not have identical learning styles. Some wish only to
memorize the mechanics and procedures, while others require a deeper
understanding of why the procedures function. The penny dropped for me
(after hundreds of just fair landings) after I learned the math and I could
understand WHY the flair required that the AOA be increased at a smooth
accelerating RATE as the aircraft slows in the holdoff (hint, think about
the Vsquared part of the lift formula), in order to allow the increasing
drag to bleed off speed and energy . There is a lot going on in the
roundout and again as an aircraft gets close to quitting to fly and the
control feedback (pressures) and visual perception becomes quite subtle.

IMHO, It is our job as pilots to place the aircraft at the right location
and speed (energy) and altitude and with the right attitude so that the
aircraft can decide when it wants to stop flying and land.

Happy landings to all,