Landing a Mooney

In article ,
wrote:
With the speed of the Comanche (which I've heard is very
similar to the Mooney save for the strut/puck gear differences), all the
flaps are
normally required. It seemed to be a matter of holding the (apparent nose-low)
attitute *by sight* before flaring to let the speed bleed off.

The transition from floating to landing can be abrupt. If you're a few
feet in the air when that happens you're going to plonk down (properly
inflated struts are important for this maneuver!).

If you round out to about 1' up you will have time to sense that final
sink and flare. You'll have to pull more than you think, otherwise
you'll just fall. This was tricky for me to get used to because if you
balloon it's followed abruptly by the aforementioned plonk. If it works
your touchdown attitude will be very nose-high. If you start to balloon
add power immediately. I found that my fly-just-above-the- runway
reflexes from the C172 led to a lot of ballooning early on.

What I prefer to do now is round out very low and fly as close to the
runway as possible so that the final sink/plonk is more gentle. This
is more like my C172 technique, but the results are much different from
a C172. A 172 will go slower and slower and more nose high until you
land. The Comanche will maintain essentially the same attitude until
you settle onto the runway.

Once you're down, either don't brake (you'll just skid) or raise the
flaps first. A lot of people are squeamish about the idea of touching
the flaps on the runway. If you want to stop in the shortest possible
distance you have no choice, IMO.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/