Mother's Day Flight

Yup. Just out for some VOR practice, and then some brush up on the
landings. Still stinking on my landings, will it ever get perfect?!?!

Just when you think they are perfect.. the God of Perfect Landings will
introduce something new.. like a sudden shift in wind direction, speed, or
from all wind to none...

remember the decreasing performance wind shear.

BT

Just when you think they are perfect.. the God of Perfect Landings will
introduce something new.. like a sudden shift in wind direction, speed, or
from all wind to none...

Boy, ain't it the truth?

Every landing is different.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

It gets irritating. CFI in the plane, all goes well... He sends me
off for some practice and I am certain the ATC guys/gals were laughing
at me. I think I got credit for 4 landings on one approach. Out of 4
attempts, only one was decent (landing #3.) I am getting extremely
frustrated with the whole landing thing. I think I just need to take
the plane for a few hours and learn to tame the beast. Today, it
showed me who is the true master. I do not know what I am doing
different when I am alone as opposed to with the CFI.

I do the standard procedure, 1500 RPM abeam point, bleed speed to 80,
10 degrees flaps, turn base, 20 degrees flaps, trim for 70 knots, turn
final drop to 30 degrees flaps. All is well until it is short final,
speed drops, nose goes down a bit, speed increases, time for flare and
BOING.... bounce... OR I pull back too much (to avert the bounce) and
the plane rises and floats then stalls out about 2 feet off the runway
then bounces a couple of times.

Any tips for me?


On Sun, 9 May 2004 19:32:11 -0700, "BTIZ"
wrote:


Yup. Just out for some VOR practice, and then some brush up on the
landings. Still stinking on my landings, will it ever get perfect?!?!

Just when you think they are perfect.. the God of Perfect Landings will
introduce something new.. like a sudden shift in wind direction, speed, or
from all wind to none...

remember the decreasing performance wind shear.

BT

Any tips for me?

Get used to it? ;-)

Seriously, landing is like having a problem with Windows XP -- you can do
the exact same thing ten times in a row, and get ten different results. It
makes trouble-shooting difficult, to say the least, but it does get better
over time. Eventually you get more consistent, and have more greasers.

Try to keep your eyes focused on the far end of the runway as you round out
your flare, and don't get discouraged. In 9 years, almost 900 hours, and
over 1400 landings, I can count the number of truly "perfect" landings on
one hand. All the rest have been "salvaged" -- although (so far) I've
always been able to use the plane again!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Any tips for me?

Get used to it? ;-)

Haha, I am about used to it now, but it is helluv ugly. I always
pictured myself landing gracefully. My landings are anything but
graceful.


Seriously, landing is like having a problem with Windows XP -- you can do
the exact same thing ten times in a row, and get ten different results. It
makes trouble-shooting difficult, to say the least, but it does get better
over time. Eventually you get more consistent, and have more greasers.
A day or two of solo practice landings should help me then. I stopped
today before I killed myself trying. Every landing I was getting more
and more frustrated. I knew it was time to park it and go home.


Try to keep your eyes focused on the far end of the runway as you round out
your flare, and don't get discouraged. In 9 years, almost 900 hours, and
over 1400 landings, I can count the number of truly "perfect" landings on
one hand. All the rest have been "salvaged" -- although (so far) I've
always been able to use the plane again!

This may be my problem. I tend to focus just off the nose of the
plane, for fear of flaring to late and plowing the nose wheel into the
ground. Next time out, I will focus at the end of the runway and see
if it improves this landing mess I have gotten myself into.


:-)

Flyin'8 wrote:

Any tips for me?

Perhaps it's because the plane behaves differently without the CFI's 180 pounds or so
in there with you. If so, you'll get it with practice.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

Maybe... My CFI is a big dude. 6'4 and about 240+ Maybe that is the
difference. I need to boot him out and go practice.

On Mon, 10 May 2004 04:17:57 GMT, "G.R. Patterson III"
wrote:



Flyin'8 wrote:

Any tips for me?

Perhaps it's because the plane behaves differently without the CFI's 180 pounds or so
in there with you. If so, you'll get it with practice.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

In article , Flyin'8
wrote:

Maybe... My CFI is a big dude. 6'4 and about 240+ Maybe that is the
difference. I need to boot him out and go practice.

There's the rub, as the saying goes.
you are flying too fast for your landing weight.

Recalculated the final approach airspeed.
1 - divide the actual landing weight by the gross weight
2 - take the square root of that number
3 - multiply by the max gross aft cg stall speed
4 - multiply by 1.3
this is you actual final approach speed

I do not know what I am doing
different when I am alone as opposed to with the CFI.


The weight distribution is different. Try putting a hundred pound sack of
potatos in the front seat. When you master your landings with that, tell your
fl ight instructor that he can be replaced by a sack of potatos.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)