Landing Judges wanted....

You shouldn't need power on the approach nor additional power in the
flare.
I fly 180 degree, power off approaches in everything I fly.

I find that once I am in ground effect, if I don't carry some power, the
plane drops like a brick, especially with back seat passengers on my round
out to flare, thus adding 25 rpm power in my flare.

This sounds like you are flaring/rounding out too high.
If your timing is right, you should only be inches above the surface.
The trailing link gear on your aircraft will provide smooth landings.
I have 20-30 hours in a friends A23-24.

On Tue, 01 Nov 2005 03:16:49 GMT, john smith wrote:

The trailing link gear on your aircraft will provide smooth landings.
I have 20-30 hours in a friends A23-24.

You are so right about the above.....

There has been a couple of landings, where I said "I guess I am on the
ground" *smile*.

When you do it right, the gear makes you look like a pro. When you do it
wrong..... well suffice it to say, it ain't pretty.

Allen

In article ,
A Lieberman wrote:

On Tue, 01 Nov 2005 03:16:49 GMT, john smith wrote:

The trailing link gear on your aircraft will provide smooth landings.
I have 20-30 hours in a friends A23-24.

You are so right about the above.....

There has been a couple of landings, where I said "I guess I am on the
ground" *smile*.

When you do it right, the gear makes you look like a pro. When you do it
wrong..... well suffice it to say, it ain't pretty.

It is all about getting used to what the "sight picture" looks like when
you are just sitting on the ground. These are your cues as to how high
above the runway you are.
Learn to use the picture over the nose and your peripheral vision.
Find a runway and a sunny morning or afternoon with the sun behind you
that will project a long shadow that you can see out the side window. It
is easier with a high wing aircraft because you can see the shadow of
the wheel and close it is to the ground.
With a little practice, you will determine the proper wing shadow
placement.

"A Lieberman" wrote in message
.. .
I fly a Beech Sundowner. Down final I fly 68 knots whether I fly by
myself
or have 4 in the plane. My pitch is the same regardless of weight. I
control my airspeed by pitch.

If you always fly the final approach at 68 knots, then your pitch is NOT the
same regardless of weight. At 68 knots, the pitch required at a lower
weight is lower than that required at a higher weight.

IMHO, constant pitch approaches are more useful than constant speed. This
actually means flying more slowly at lower weights than at higher.

I think you will find that the required power doesn't vary so much with
weight if you keep the approach pitch constant, rather than airspeed. For
the same reason that the best-glide airspeed changes with weight, but the
best-glide performance (angle and distance) doesn't, by changing your
approach airspeed you can leave your power settings relatively constant for
a given set of conditions (wind being the most relevant, as you pointed
out).

[...]
I find that once I am in ground effect, if I don't carry some power, the
plane drops like a brick, especially with back seat passengers on my round
out to flare, thus adding 25 rpm power in my flare.

If the plane drops like a brick, you need to fly the approach faster. As
you note, added weight exacerbates this problem. This relates to my point
above: at higher weights, you need a higher airspeed to maintain the same
angle of attack.

Conversely, if you don't fly the higher airspeed at higher weights, then you
will require a higher angle of attack. This results in higher-weight
approaches being done closer to your stalling angle of attack, which leaves
you less time during the round-out for a smooth landing. Even before the
wing stalls, the airplane's descent rate will increase dramatically, if you
don't keep up with the rapidly changing net lift (due to the rapid
deceleration) during the flare (and near the stalling angle of attack, this
can be very difficult, and deceleration rate increases regardless).

You can fix this, of course, by adding power. This compensates mostly by
reducing the deceleration the higher angle of attack causes (and
consequential loss of lift for a given angle of attack), but also does
slightly contribute to lift as well. All of which smooths out the landing.

But you can accomplish the same thing simply by flying at a slightly faster
airspeed for the approach and then beginning your flare earlier. The higher
airspeed gives you more time for the flare, and beginning it earlier ensures
that you will still wind up in the same position for landing and touchdown
as with your current technique.

Pete