Landing patterns

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 15:25:55 GMT, m pautz
wrote:

There seems to be a discrepancy between glider landing patterns and
power landing patterns. There is a discussion on the soaring news group
about our 30-45 degree turns vs the power shallow banked turns. The
reason for our bank angle is because we fly close-in/tight patterns.

30 degrees of bank is more than sufficient to fly a power off pattern.
With more than that in a powered airplane the nose will tend to drop
and require a "significant" amount of back pressure to compensate for
which opens you up to an accelerated stall. Not a good thing. Don't
forget we have 3 or 4 hundred pounds hanging off our nose.

I can’t provide input to the power side since my power training is 30
years old and was quite different from today’s power landing patterns.
The first “glider” I ever flew was a Cessna 150 (that’s right, a Cessna
150). My instructor was teaching me to fly a close-in pattern. With
each successive landing, I was stretching out the pattern. The
instructor warned me about stretching out the pattern and told me that
one of the reasons for the pattern is so that I could ‘always’ land at
the airport even with engine failure.
This is how I teach. Once established in the pattern you should be
able to make the field regardless of any mechanical difficulties.
Many instructors think I have a strange approach to this, but whenever
I've been with one in an airplane and we're on base from a long
downwind with 15 or 1700 rpm, and I say "What would you do now if the
engine quit?" they choose somewhere off field because they know they
won't make it. Then I ask how they rationalze this to their students
(since they generally admit they do not teach them to look for fields
during the landing). I have not yet gotten an answer and have done
this with at least 4 instructors. Now if you're flying something
fairly large (T-6, Saratoga, Malibu, Caravan, etc...) you will need to
carry a little power, but not for any light airplane.
He put the plane at the *correct*
IP, turned the engine off (dead stick), and said, “ok, it’s yours”

This I would not agree with at all, but 30 years ago it was not
unheard of. You can very easily accomplish the same thing by not
allowing the student to touch the throttle while executing the
approach.

I landed with no problems. More importantly, I now had the confidence
and skills to land a plane with engine failure. Since then, I see the
power planes landing with stretched out patterns and low-angle final
approaches. The approach angle is so low, that they could not possibly
make it with engine failure. I also hear them compensate on final by
*adding* power.
Yep. I see it all the time and it irritates the heck out of me,
especially when its a 152 or 172 and you know there's someone on board
Teaching this to a student.


So, the question I have for the group is why are power planes taught to
have these wide patterns with low angled turns?
I wish I knew.
Why are the patterns
outside the glide angle of a powerless airplane?
For a normal approach again I don't have a logical answer.
I had a friend who
died because of engine failure. The pilot was within gliding distance
of the airport, but he didn’t know how to fly a power-out pattern. They
crashed short of the runway on final.

I'm very sorry. Your story epitomizes why I disagree with this
technique. Even if only 1 accident out of 1,000,00 flights has this
happen its too much since just by teaching better basics it is easily
avoided.

Hopefully, some CFIs will respond. I am curious about this issue.

I'm sure they will, and I'm sure I'll be flamed by at least a few of
them, but that's ok. I've come to learn that my approach is no longer
the social norm, even though I truly believe it is safer.


Marty Pautz
"promote a society that respects its elders; before it is too late"

Just to be clear, I do not ignore power on approaches. They are
important as well. It's just not how the majority of approaches are
flown.

zatatime wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 15:25:55 GMT, m pautz
wrote:


There seems to be a discrepancy between glider landing patterns and
power landing patterns. There is a discussion on the soaring news group
about our 30-45 degree turns vs the power shallow banked turns. The
reason for our bank angle is because we fly close-in/tight patterns.


30 degrees of bank is more than sufficient to fly a power off pattern.
With more than that in a powered airplane the nose will tend to drop
and require a "significant" amount of back pressure to compensate for
which opens you up to an accelerated stall. Not a good thing. Don't
forget we have 3 or 4 hundred pounds hanging off our nose.

I can’t provide input to the power side since my power training is 30
years old and was quite different from today’s power landing patterns.
The first “glider” I ever flew was a Cessna 150 (that’s right, a Cessna
150). My instructor was teaching me to fly a close-in pattern. With
each successive landing, I was stretching out the pattern. The
instructor warned me about stretching out the pattern and told me that
one of the reasons for the pattern is so that I could ‘always’ land at
the airport even with engine failure.

This is how I teach. Once established in the pattern you should be
able to make the field regardless of any mechanical difficulties.
Many instructors think I have a strange approach to this, but whenever
I've been with one in an airplane and we're on base from a long
downwind with 15 or 1700 rpm, and I say "What would you do now if the
engine quit?" they choose somewhere off field because they know they
won't make it. Then I ask how they rationalze this to their students
(since they generally admit they do not teach them to look for fields
during the landing). I have not yet gotten an answer and have done
this with at least 4 instructors. Now if you're flying something
fairly large (T-6, Saratoga, Malibu, Caravan, etc...) you will need to
carry a little power, but not for any light airplane.
He put the plane at the *correct*

IP, turned the engine off (dead stick), and said, “ok, it’s yours”


This I would not agree with at all, but 30 years ago it was not
unheard of. You can very easily accomplish the same thing by not
allowing the student to touch the throttle while executing the
approach.


I landed with no problems. More importantly, I now had the confidence
and skills to land a plane with engine failure. Since then, I see the
power planes landing with stretched out patterns and low-angle final
approaches. The approach angle is so low, that they could not possibly
make it with engine failure. I also hear them compensate on final by
*adding* power.

Yep. I see it all the time and it irritates the heck out of me,
especially when its a 152 or 172 and you know there's someone on board
Teaching this to a student.


So, the question I have for the group is why are power planes taught to
have these wide patterns with low angled turns?

I wish I knew.
Why are the patterns

outside the glide angle of a powerless airplane?

For a normal approach again I don't have a logical answer.
I had a friend who

died because of engine failure. The pilot was within gliding distance
of the airport, but he didn’t know how to fly a power-out pattern. They
crashed short of the runway on final.


I'm very sorry. Your story epitomizes why I disagree with this
technique. Even if only 1 accident out of 1,000,00 flights has this
happen its too much since just by teaching better basics it is easily
avoided.


Hopefully, some CFIs will respond. I am curious about this issue.


I'm sure they will, and I'm sure I'll be flamed by at least a few of
them, but that's ok. I've come to learn that my approach is no longer
the social norm, even though I truly believe it is safer.



Marty Pautz
"promote a society that respects its elders; before it is too late"


Just to be clear, I do not ignore power on approaches. They are
important as well. It's just not how the majority of approaches are
flown.

Thanks Zetatime & C J Campbell,

I say thanks because you confirmed that you teach patterns the way I had
been taught 30 years ago.

To eliminate any confusion for other posters, please ignore what I said
about 30-45 degree banked turns. My issue was not with the bank of the
turns. I agree with C J that a pattern with shallow banked turns can be
made and still be within glide distance; the pattern simply has to be
flown higher and wider. My point was not really about the bank angle,
but rather being in a pattern that would enable you to get to the runway
even with a power failure.

What I often see (from the ground) at our airport is an announcement of
turn to final with no plane in sight. Sometime later, I will see a
plane come from over the trees with power. The power is sometimes
increased on final approach to make the field and is not cut to idle
until over the threshold. Although power failure is not likely, the
loss of power would result in a crash.

C J, you said, "Finally, I get a sense from your query a desire to have
everybody in the pattern doing the same thing." No, you misunderstood.
There is a King Air flying with us. His pattern is much wider,
higher and faster than ours. However, he is still within glide distance
of the airport once he enters the pattern. If he has engine failure, he
will still make the field.

Pete, I understand that airplanes spend most of their time out of glide
range of airports; so do many gliders. You mentioned that, "It's
much more important that one be able to make a gliding power-off
approach and landing to *somewhere*" That is my point exactly. My
point is that the power pilots of today are not being taught a valuable
safety feature, how to fly a pattern without power. I am not making a
judgment call on what should or should not be done as a matter of
course; that is up to you power guys. What I am saying is that it
should be taught and regularly practiced.

Pete, it is obvious that I did not expound adequately on the crash that
I referenced. You used my example as proof that being within gliding
distance of the runway was no panacea. Let me further explain: When he
lost power, he was within gliding distance of an airport, he glided
there, setup a standard landing pattern, and crashed short of the runway
on final because he never learned to fly a power-off landing pattern.
His turn from base to final was too far out and low. Both the pilot and
the passenger died.

Pete, you asked if I checked Google Groups. My apologies to the group; I
see that this was covered in the group 6 months ago. I just entered the
group for the first time today. My compliments to the group. You guys
have wealth of information.

Marty Pautz

In article urJzc.46043$0y.44191@attbi_s03, m pautz
wrote:

Pete, I understand that airplanes spend most of their time out of glide
range of airports; so do many gliders. You mentioned that, "It's
much more important that one be able to make a gliding power-off
approach and landing to *somewhere*" That is my point exactly. My
point is that the power pilots of today are not being taught a valuable
safety feature, how to fly a pattern without power. I am not making a
judgment call on what should or should not be done as a matter of
course; that is up to you power guys. What I am saying is that it
should be taught and regularly practiced.

It is not "required" until the Commercial checkride. The standard that
took effect last year is a 180 degree, power off abeam the approach end
of the runway, landing.

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 00:56:11 GMT, EDR wrote:

In article urJzc.46043$0y.44191@attbi_s03, m pautz
wrote:

Pete, I understand that airplanes spend most of their time out of glide
range of airports; so do many gliders. You mentioned that, "It's
much more important that one be able to make a gliding power-off
approach and landing to *somewhere*" That is my point exactly. My
point is that the power pilots of today are not being taught a valuable
safety feature, how to fly a pattern without power. I am not making a
judgment call on what should or should not be done as a matter of
course; that is up to you power guys. What I am saying is that it
should be taught and regularly practiced.

It is not "required" until the Commercial checkride. The standard that
took effect last year is a 180 degree, power off abeam the approach end
of the runway, landing.

:-)) On my last bi-ennual check ride we did a bunch of instrument
work and then the instructor said "as this is your airplane I'd like
you to simulate an engine out in what ever manner you are most
comfortable." I pulled it back to idle. He then said, "OK we've had a
power failure, how about finding a place to land.

We were over 4 miles...I think close to 5 miles west of the airport.

Having just come out from under the hood I had a good idea of our
location. I established best glide while "looking for a spot" which in
this case was the airport. We were at 4000 as I recall.

At any rate, at best glide we were *high* when we reached the airport.
I actually flew the pattern (more or less) with a steep slipping
U-turn to the end of the runway. We were down and stopped in about
900 feet. He commented that from our altitude he thought I'd never
get it on that 3000 foot runway let alone stopped in the first 900
feet.

I do this in a 3100# high performance retract and the flight schools,
or instructors drill it into to the students in the trainers.

My point is although not called that, the emergency procedures are
exactly that... Power off landings to a particular spot and they are
often far more than just doing the pattern. I see a lot of power off
landings in the trainers at 3BS. Normally the ones with the wide
patterns are the pilots who have been flying a while, who don't like
stalls and haven't done one since the last bi-ennual flight review.
They don't like anything other than something close to a standard rate
turn and when landing add 10 MPH for safety, 5 for the kids, 10 for
the wife and at least the full gust factor if not more. Oh, and they
rarely fly with an instructor except for the dreaded bi-ennual flight
review.

Perhaps other areas are not doing so, but I see both power and non
powered landings. Every few weeks I pull the power abeam the
numbers on the way out just to keep in practice.

However I would point out that a so called "normal, by-the-book
landing" in mine is carrying quite a bit of power. No, that is not a
shallow, dragging it in final, it's steep! Far steeper than a power
off landing and quite a bit slower. It varies between 75 to 80 with a
power off landing being at 90 MPH. That extra 10 to 15 MPH uses a
*LOT* of runway.

The real eye opener is to do a power off, "no flap" landing. You
will use most of the 3000 foot runway even with heavy braking and the
nose is so high you can only see the runway through the side windows.
I have to admit though, you can barely even tell when the mains touch
down. :-))

Of course the real ego deflator is landing in a gusty wind only to
find 6 or 7 pilots standing by the gate holding up signs to grade the
landing snicker

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
...

Of course the real ego deflator is landing in a gusty wind only to
find 6 or 7 pilots standing by the gate holding up signs to grade the
landing snicker

No snicker about it; I had three line boys in Hays, Kansas do that to me
several years ago.

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 08:21:38 -0700, "Tom Sixkiller"
wrote:


"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
.. .

Of course the real ego deflator is landing in a gusty wind only to
find 6 or 7 pilots standing by the gate holding up signs to grade the
landing snicker

No snicker about it; I had three line boys in Hays, Kansas do that to me
several years ago.

I was speaking from experience:-)) I have been on both ends of the
grading from being the grader to the gradee.

I've stopped over in Hays due to haze (for real) to and from BJC when
taking the southern route to keep out of the storms.

Man, there ain't nuthin between Salina and Hays. Not much more to
Goodland. The one thing I remember about Hays (after the haze lifted)
was seeing what appeared to be a bluff way off to the west. It's
really a series of hills, but from the airport it darn near looked
like a cliff.

Well, time to close the windows. There's another storm headed this
way.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Gee .. that requirement was there back in the 70s. Did they
remove it at some point?

"EDR" wrote in message
...
In article urJzc.46043$0y.44191@attbi_s03, m pautz
wrote:

Pete, I understand that airplanes spend most of their time out of glide
range of airports; so do many gliders. You mentioned that, "It's
much more important that one be able to make a gliding power-off
approach and landing to *somewhere*" That is my point exactly. My
point is that the power pilots of today are not being taught a valuable
safety feature, how to fly a pattern without power. I am not making a
judgment call on what should or should not be done as a matter of
course; that is up to you power guys. What I am saying is that it
should be taught and regularly practiced.

It is not "required" until the Commercial checkride. The standard that
took effect last year is a 180 degree, power off abeam the approach end
of the runway, landing.

In article ,
"OtisWinslow" wrote:

It is not "required" until the Commercial checkride. The standard that
took effect last year is a 180 degree, power off abeam the approach end
of the runway, landing.



Got my ticket in '76. The first landings I was taught in a C-150 were no
flap, no power landings. Pulled the power abeam the numbers and set up a
glide at 70 mph.

Edward

Edward Todd wrote
Got my ticket in '76. The first landings I was taught in a C-150 were no
flap, no power landings. Pulled the power abeam the numbers and set up a
glide at 70 mph.

And there is a good reason to learn that way - it reduces complexity.
You don't screw around with anything after the downwind abeam point.
You set throttle to idle, pull carb heat, trim to the correct
airspeed, and after that all you do is fly the airplane. Obviously
your instructor understood the concept of starting simple and moving
to the complex. I'm sure you learned to do full flap landings at some
point - but flaps are additional complexity you don't need while
learning to fly a pattern and land. On top of that, the flare becomes
less critical since the sink rate is reduced.

Unfortunately, most of today's instructors don't really understand
this. They start the student doing landing procedures that involve
multiple power, flap, and airspeed changes in the pattern. Each of
those changes requires a change in trim. The result - the student has
too damn much to do. His airspeed control goes to hell (because with
all those configuration changes the plane is perpetually out of trim)
and he just doesn't have enough time to simply fly the plane.

So what happens? Power is added and the pattern is made wider to slow
things down and give the student more time to do everything that he
doesn't really need to be doing yet. Accelerated stall becomes a
concern because the student may not be able to tell that he is pulling
back too much - he's gotten used to flying out of trim. On top of
that, the student is still fumbling for throttle, flaps, and trim -
and is late making power reductions and flap additions, so the pattern
gets even bigger. The instructor spends his time reminding the
student to perform the "procedure" instead of watching his flying.
Everything is worse.

Michael

On 16 Jun 2004 15:42:24 -0700, (Michael) wrote:

Edward Todd wrote
Got my ticket in '76. The first landings I was taught in a C-150 were no
flap, no power landings. Pulled the power abeam the numbers and set up a
glide at 70 mph.

And there is a good reason to learn that way - it reduces complexity.
You don't screw around with anything after the downwind abeam point.
You set throttle to idle, pull carb heat, trim to the correct
airspeed, and after that all you do is fly the airplane. Obviously

Wellll, it's not quite that simple. This is where you learn to correct
for wind such as how much to lead a turn or how much to shorten down
wind (how close in to fly base) In some planes this can make a big
difference. Still, this is where to start the stabilized pattern and
I think most do.

your instructor understood the concept of starting simple and moving
to the complex. I'm sure you learned to do full flap landings at some
point - but flaps are additional complexity you don't need while
learning to fly a pattern and land. On top of that, the flare becomes
less critical since the sink rate is reduced.

At this point I was taught to hold it off till it stalled. To this
day I still normally make full stall landings even in the Deb.


Unfortunately, most of today's instructors don't really understand
this. They start the student doing landing procedures that involve

I really don't see that around here and I'd be surprised if it were
true except in isolated instances.

multiple power, flap, and airspeed changes in the pattern. Each of
those changes requires a change in trim. The result - the student has

Again, I was taught to trim for airspeed on final. Adding or reducing
power did not require trim changes in the 150s, 172s, or Cherokees.
Changes is speed did as did changes in the flap settings.

too damn much to do. His airspeed control goes to hell (because with
all those configuration changes the plane is perpetually out of trim)
and he just doesn't have enough time to simply fly the plane.

That is why the basic pattern is the "stabilized" pattern. *Most* of
the instructors I know start with the stabilized pattern. Learn the
airplane, learn the speeds and power settings, learn to adjust for the
wind. THEN work with power such as short and soft field landings.

Once the student/pilot learns "the numbers" the rest is easy. Well...
more so than if they didn't start out with the stabilized pattern.


So what happens? Power is added and the pattern is made wider to slow
things down and give the student more time to do everything that he
doesn't really need to be doing yet. Accelerated stall becomes a
concern because the student may not be able to tell that he is pulling
back too much - he's gotten used to flying out of trim. On top of
that, the student is still fumbling for throttle, flaps, and trim -
and is late making power reductions and flap additions, so the pattern
gets even bigger. The instructor spends his time reminding the
student to perform the "procedure" instead of watching his flying.
Everything is worse.

I'm sure this must happen on occasion, but I've not seen much
indication of it being common place. OTOH any pilot, be they student
or old timer can slip up and get behind the plane for any number of
reasons.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Michael