Tweaking the throttle on approach

chris writes:

It has retractable gear and variable pitch props, means it's complex.
Not to mention multi-engine.

The FAA seems to have a low threshold of complexity.

You would be very ill-advised to try and start your flight training in
a twin. There's way too much stuff to cope with when you're trying to learn
how to take off, fly s+l and land..

I've heard of other people doing it, although it seems to be rare. If that's
the aircraft I wanted to fly, wouldn't it be more practical to just start with
it to begin with?

Best to learn on something small, slow, forgiving, and you can move up
later. I found even going from a C152 to an Archer, I got way behind
the aircraft - too much happening too fast, and the Archer doesn't
have two engines, CSU's or retract. And the difference in cruise is
only 35kt or so, but enough to get me seriously behind the aircraft!!

What sorts of things were you losing track of in the Archer?

If you are floating you are going too fast or trying to hold it off
too long. From reading your earlier post, you identified the VSo of
the Baron as 75.

That's the lower limit of the white band, which (IIRC) is the VSo with flaps
extended. I usually stay above Vmc (the first red line) on landing, and I
usually won't rotate until I'm above Vyse (the first blue line) at take-off.
The engine-out scenarios I've practiced are harrowing and I always like to be
going fast enough to deal with those. (I haven't practiced engine failure on
landing yet, however.)

My research came up with 69-72 as stall speeds.
Which makes VSo x1.3 = 89-93kt.

That's very often my speed at touchdown. I never try to stall into touchdown,
despite what I've read here. My theory is that being at stall speed gives you
no options, even if it's the slowest possible touchdown speed. In an
emergency, I want to be able to leave the runway again, but I'm not going
anywhere once I stall.

You probably don't want to be going for a full stall landing in a twin,
so come in at about 90kt, raise the nose a bit to flare and let it settle
onto the runway.

That's what I do, more less. I descend until about ten feet or so then hold
the aircraft level and set throttles to idle (they are slightly above prior to
that). That causes the aircraft to settle downwards and as it does so I
flare. If my approach was stable and if it's not too windy I can barely feel
the wheels touch. If I've been crabbing for a crosswind this is also when I
straighten the aircraft out.

Why do you say a stall landing is inadvisable "in a twin"? Would it be
different for a single-engine plane?

Don't try and hold it off, that's what a Cessna pilot should do, but
probably not a twin pilot.

Here again, why the distinction between single and twin?

Just make sure your mains touch before your nose wheel.

That's usually not a problem, although in landings that have collapsed gear,
sometimes the nose gear goes first. It seems that a hard landing in the Baron
tends to pitch the nose downward so that the nose gear hits even harder than
the main gear, and then it breaks. (Incidentally, MSFS doesn't count that as
a crash, but the aircraft is still unflyable afterwards.)

Mind you, I am not a twin pilot so that could all have been
rubbish.

I don't understand why 1 vs 2 engines is such a big deal.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.