Landing skills

On Jun 27, 2:50*am, a wrote:
OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

I suggest you need to try aim to hold off only 6" above the runway
until the plane won't stay off. I suspect you are just too high/slow
in your roundout/flare. By the way, I don't close the throttle
slowly, I closed it completely as soon as soon as I've committed to
the landing -otherwise I go to full power as I know I'm going around
to try again. With an instructor, try flying the plane down the the
runway at just 6" altitude with say 1700 RPM (your instructor should
know the throttle setting for this exercise). It will get you the
picture and teach the more delicate touch you need (it worked for me).
Also the 'perfect' landing starts on final, you must _nail_ speed and
profile early (not late final) and the plane should fly all the way
down with almost no adjustments -use the trim and you should be almost
hands off all the way down. All the way down final, keep saying
AIRSPEED, AIM, ATTITUDE and get them right. Finally, get used to
braking as this needs practice too.

Good luck.

On Jun 27, 8:47*am, a wrote:
On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:





On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.
I will work on those, but I'm not sure taking cues from beside the
airplane is a good idea: my guess is just when you're looking to the
side is when a deer will decide the grass is greener on the other side
of the runway.

As someone else mentioned, the low wing Mooney, especially when landed
with full flaps, likes to float, so energy/speed control is pretty
critical -- get close to flare altitude 5 knots fast and you've just
lengthened flare to stop distance by 500 feet or more. I think very
smooth landings in the M20 would best be done with minimal flaps --
that trapped air under the wings and ahead of the flaps just has no
place to go! In really short field practice I know the center of lift
really moves aft with full flaps -- and for short fields I like to
bring the flaps up in the very late flare to get weight on the gear as
soon as possible. As they go up I need increasing back pressure
because the center of lift moves forward.

It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down

No, that should only happen in a tail dragger during a 3 point. You
need to fix that error.

Cheers

On Jun 26, 4:38*pm, "Flaps_50!" wrote:
.................................................. ................................................
It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down

No, that should only happen in a tail dragger during a 3 point. *You
need to fix that error.

Cheers

Hey, wait just a minute, I saw "Top Gun", and .....................

:-)

On Jun 26, 7:38*pm, "Flaps_50!" wrote:
On Jun 27, 8:47*am, a wrote:



On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make..
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.
I will work on those, but I'm not sure taking cues from beside the
airplane is a good idea: my guess is just when you're looking to the
side is when a deer will decide the grass is greener on the other side
of the runway.

As someone else mentioned, the low wing Mooney, especially when landed
with full flaps, likes to float, so energy/speed control is pretty
critical -- get close to flare altitude 5 knots fast and you've just
lengthened flare to stop distance by 500 feet or more. I think very
smooth landings in the M20 would best be done with minimal flaps --
that trapped air under the wings and ahead of the flaps just has no
place to go! In really short field practice I know the center of lift
really moves aft with full flaps -- and for short fields I like to
bring the flaps up in the very late flare to get weight on the gear as
soon as possible. As they go up I need increasing back pressure
because the center of lift moves forward.

It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down

No, that should only happen in a tail dragger during a 3 point. *You
need to fix that error.

Cheers

We're going to disagree, Flaps. It doesn't happen often, but if I need
a minimal ground roll I get behind the power curve, hang that sucker
by its prop, minimum air speed, and the skid is going to touch down
first. It lands at a very slow speed over the ground, and can be
stopped will short of the book distance. Don't try this at home, this
demonstration is being done by an expert* under carefully controlled
conditions (smile).

I have not landed the Mooney on a soft field, but given at normal
rolling attitude the prop can be a weed whacker, I'd do the same thing
then.

There are times when an excessive nose up attitude landing is good
airmanship (groundsmanship? and if I screw up a landing in that way I
can call it practice, can't I?).

*expert, best understood by taking the word apart.An ex is a has been,
a spurt is a drip under pressure.

On Jun 28, 5:15*pm, a wrote:
On Jun 26, 7:38*pm, "Flaps_50!" wrote:





On Jun 27, 8:47*am, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.
I will work on those, but I'm not sure taking cues from beside the
airplane is a good idea: my guess is just when you're looking to the
side is when a deer will decide the grass is greener on the other side
of the runway.

As someone else mentioned, the low wing Mooney, especially when landed
with full flaps, likes to float, so energy/speed control is pretty
critical -- get close to flare altitude 5 knots fast and you've just
lengthened flare to stop distance by 500 feet or more. I think very
smooth landings in the M20 would best be done with minimal flaps --
that trapped air under the wings and ahead of the flaps just has no
place to go! In really short field practice I know the center of lift
really moves aft with full flaps -- and for short fields I like to
bring the flaps up in the very late flare to get weight on the gear as
soon as possible. As they go up I need increasing back pressure
because the center of lift moves forward.

It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down

No, that should only happen in a tail dragger during a 3 point. *You
need to fix that error.

Cheers

We're going to disagree, Flaps. It doesn't happen often, but if I need
a minimal ground roll I get behind the power curve, hang that sucker
by its prop, minimum air speed, and the skid is going to touch down
first. It lands at a very slow speed over the ground, and can be
stopped will short of the book distance. Don't try this at home, this
demonstration is being done by an expert* under carefully controlled
conditions (smile).

I have not landed the Mooney on a soft field, but given at normal
rolling attitude the prop can be a weed whacker, I'd do the same thing
then.

There are times when an excessive nose up attitude landing is good
airmanship (groundsmanship? and if I screw up a landing in that way I
can call it practice, can't I?).

*expert, best understood by taking the word apart.An ex is a has been,
a spurt is a drip under pressure.

I'm assuming you know this already but I'll throw it out there just as
a general comment.
Landing behind the curve can indeed be done but within a VERY strict
area of the backside curve. You have to keep the aircraft from sliding
too far behind the curve into the area where power alone isn't enough
to hold the altitude or sink rate. In fighters we call this the
"coffin corner", and it's not related to the common reference that
usually defines "coffin corner" at altitude. Coffin corner in this
context defines the line on the curve where you've run out of
available power and now HAVE to decrease the angle of attack to either
hold the altitude or stop the sink. No room to decrease the AOA and
you're in a world of hurt!
This is a much misunderstood area of performance when pilots start
discussing landings behind the curve.
In other words, you can drag it in behind the curve and plonk it down,
but ONLY TO A POINT behind the curve. It's a dangerous practice and I
would never recommend doing it to pilots who's skill levels were
unknown to me personally.
Dudley Henriques

On Jun 28, 5:31*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
On Jun 28, 5:15*pm, a wrote:



On Jun 26, 7:38*pm, "Flaps_50!" wrote:

On Jun 27, 8:47*am, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.

On Jun 28, 5:39*pm, a wrote:
On Jun 28, 5:31*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:





On Jun 28, 5:15*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 7:38*pm, "Flaps_50!" wrote:

On Jun 27, 8:47*am, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.
I will work on those, but I'm not sure taking cues from beside the
airplane is a good idea: my guess is just when you're looking to the
side is when a deer will decide the grass is greener on the other side
of the runway.

As someone else mentioned, the low wing Mooney, especially when landed
with full flaps, likes to float, so energy/speed control is pretty
critical -- get close to flare altitude 5 knots fast and you've just
lengthened flare to stop distance by 500 feet or more. I think very
smooth landings in the M20 would best be done with minimal flaps --
that trapped air under the wings and ahead of the flaps just has no
place to go! In really short field practice I know the center of lift
really moves aft with full flaps -- and for short fields I like to
bring the flaps up in the very late flare to get weight on the gear as
soon as possible. As they go up I need increasing back pressure
because the center of lift moves forward.

It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down

No, that should only happen in a tail dragger during a 3 point. *You
need to fix that error.

Cheers

We're going to disagree, Flaps. It doesn't happen often, but if I need
a minimal ground roll I get behind the power curve, hang that sucker
by its prop, minimum air speed, and the skid is going to touch down
first. It lands at a very slow speed over the ground, and can be
stopped will short of the book distance. Don't try this at home, this
demonstration is being done by an expert* under carefully controlled
conditions (smile).

I have not landed the Mooney on a soft field, but given at normal
rolling attitude the prop can be a weed whacker, I'd do the same thing
then.

There are times when an excessive nose up attitude landing is good
airmanship (groundsmanship? and if I screw up a landing in that way I
can call it practice, can't I?).

*expert, best understood by taking the word apart.An ex is a has been,
a spurt is a drip under pressure.

I'm assuming you know this already but I'll throw it out there just as
a general comment.
Landing behind the curve can indeed be done but within a VERY strict
area of the backside curve. You have to keep the aircraft from sliding
too far behind the curve into the area where power alone isn't enough
to hold the altitude or sink rate. In fighters we call this the
"coffin corner", and it's not related to the common reference that
usually defines "coffin corner" at altitude. Coffin corner in this
context defines the line on the curve where you've run out of
available power and now HAVE to decrease the angle of attack to either
hold the altitude or stop the sink. No room to decrease the AOA and
you're in a world of hurt!
This is a much misunderstood area of performance when pilots start
discussing landings behind the curve.
In other words, you can drag it in behind the curve and plonk it down,
but ONLY TO A POINT behind the curve. It's a dangerous practice and I
would never recommend doing it to pilots who's skill levels were
unknown to me personally.
Dudley Henriques

In my case I have a few thousand hours in the airplane and know its
habits well (except in terms of having the sink rate only inches a
minute at touchdown) , and the few times I carry power into the
landing it really isn't much -- at even 2100 RPMs in slow flight the
Mooney has a pretty extreme nose up attitude. I can appreciate your
concern and am sensitive to the issues.

I understand.
Sounds like a Mk21?
DH

On Jun 28, 5:42*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
On Jun 28, 5:39*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 28, 5:31*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 28, 5:15*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 7:38*pm, "Flaps_50!" wrote:

On Jun 27, 8:47*am, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know.. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway.. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent.. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway.
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.
I will work on those, but I'm not sure taking cues from beside the
airplane is a good idea: my guess is just when you're looking to the
side is when a deer will decide the grass is greener on the other side
of the runway.

As someone else mentioned, the low wing Mooney, especially when landed
with full flaps, likes to float, so energy/speed control is pretty
critical -- get close to flare altitude 5 knots fast and you've just
lengthened flare to stop distance by 500 feet or more. I think very
smooth landings in the M20 would best be done with minimal flaps --
that trapped air under the wings and ahead of the flaps just has no
place to go! In really short field practice I know the center of lift
really moves aft with full flaps -- and for short fields I like to
bring the flaps up in the very late flare to get weight on the gear as
soon as possible. As they go up I need increasing back pressure
because the center of lift moves forward.

It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down

No, that should only happen in a tail dragger during a 3 point. *You
need to fix that error.

Cheers

We're going to disagree, Flaps. It doesn't happen often, but if I need
a minimal ground roll I get behind the power curve, hang that sucker
by its prop, minimum air speed, and the skid is going to touch down
first. It lands at a very slow speed over the ground, and can be
stopped will short of the book distance. Don't try this at home, this
demonstration is being done by an expert* under carefully controlled
conditions (smile).

I have not landed the Mooney on a soft field, but given at normal
rolling attitude the prop can be a weed whacker, I'd do the same thing
then.

There are times when an excessive nose up attitude landing is good
airmanship (groundsmanship? and if I screw up a landing in that way I
can call it practice, can't I?).

*expert, best understood by taking the word apart.An ex is a has been,
a spurt is a drip under pressure.

I'm assuming you know this already but I'll throw it out there just as
a general comment.
Landing behind the curve can indeed be done but within a VERY strict
area of the backside curve. You have to keep the aircraft from sliding
too far behind the curve into the area where power alone isn't enough
to hold the altitude or sink rate. In fighters we call this the
"coffin corner", and it's not related to the common reference that
usually defines "coffin corner" at altitude. Coffin corner in this
context defines the line on the curve where you've run out of
available power and now HAVE to decrease the angle of attack to either
hold the altitude or stop the sink. No room to decrease the AOA and
you're in a world of hurt!
This is a much misunderstood area of performance when pilots start
discussing landings behind the curve.
In other words, you can drag it in behind the curve and plonk it down,
but ONLY TO A POINT behind the curve. It's a dangerous practice and I
would never recommend doing it to pilots who's skill levels were
unknown to me personally.
Dudley Henriques

In my case I have a few thousand hours in the airplane and know its
habits well (except in terms of having the sink rate only inches a
minute at touchdown) , and the few times I carry power into the
landing it really isn't much -- at even 2100 RPMs in slow flight the
Mooney has a pretty extreme nose up attitude. I can appreciate your
concern and am sensitive to the issues.

I understand.
Sounds like a Mk21?
DH

M20J, and it's a mind reader -- think the thought and the airplane
does it. Love the pushrod linkages between the cockpit and the control
surfaces. The downside of the airplane is draining fuel when it's
raining (most times I am wearing a suit -- that I both sail and play
golf means I have the vocabulary for draining fuel after someone did
not replace the fuel caps correctly. It's also a chore getting into
the airplane more or less dry when it's raining. and blowing. But once
inside? Well, Mooney pilots do smile a lot even if the tail is on
backwards.

On Jun 28, 10:39*pm, a wrote:
On Jun 28, 5:42*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:



On Jun 28, 5:39*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 28, 5:31*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 28, 5:15*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 7:38*pm, "Flaps_50!" wrote:

On Jun 27, 8:47*am, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:30*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 12:08*pm, a wrote:

On Jun 26, 11:46*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

On Jun 26, 10:50*am, a wrote:

OK, we've all heard the "It's a good landing if. . ."
a -- you can walk away from it,
b -- the airplane can be used again.

When the several of us do proficiency rides with each other, we try to
refine that a bit.

My working definition is

c -- if both throttle and yoke move back monotonically from abeam the
numbers onward, and you make the planned turn off without touching
your brakes

I was introduced to a different definition by a guy new to our group
who flies a 182. He has a much better feel for his airplane than I do
for mine -- if I'm *wearing a noise canceling headset I can't hear OR
FEEL (caps intentional) some of his landings when the mains touch the
surface. I know we're down when he lowers the nose wheel, *I tell him
it's easier in a high wing airplane, but later I went out in the M20
alone and did 5 touch and goes, and felt the mains touch down each
time. It's going to take some work to get the rate of descent close to
zero at an altitude of an inch or so.

For the record, my new friend did not land hot -- the stall warning
was chirping.

Anyhow, he can 'grease it on' better than anyone I know. Ideas on
technique to do that are welcome. Yeah, other than practice practice
practice

Actually, practice is the answer as opposed to defining any one thing
that constitutes a good landing.
One of the first things I do with a new instructor is to get them
thinking in terms of teaching flying as a constantly changing dynamic
as opposed to reducing things down to common denominators where "doing
this accomplishes that".
I think it's human nature to attempt to define one act or action that
stands out above all others to make defining a complex act more simple
to understand. A certain amount of this in flying is acceptable, but
the better approach I think is to define all flying as doing whatever
is necessary based on constant motion in a constantly changing 3
dimensional environment to put the airplane where it has to be at any
given moment in time.
This is especially true of landings, where the aircraft is being
operated in that constantly changing environment to ever decreasing
error correction parameters.
Dudley Henriques

Next time I do this, it'll be called *touch and goes but I'm going to
try to not touch -- maintain landing attitude and speed, low but not
touching for a couple of thousand feet along the runway. I'd think the
ground effect in the Mooney would make a gentle touch down easier,
ground effect induced lift increases pretty quickly as the wing to
ground spacing gets small.

I remember now that my friend was glancing to the side as opposed to
looking ahead, that contributed to his sense how high he was. *When
I've committed to touching down I'm more apt to be looking at the
centerline and the turn off, what's to the immediate side doesn't
matter as much.

In terms of visceral sensations, his really greased on touchdowns were
delicious. He, like me, tended to hold whatever backpressure he had at
touchdown until the nose wheel made contact with the runway. A nicer
touch might be to relax some of that pressure until the nose wheel was
close, then increase it again to reduce its rate of descent. It would
be really neat, but unimportant, to get all of the wheels rolling
without the usual sensation of touching down.

What you are describing, holding the airplane off just short of
touching down, is a very good practice procedure that I used all the
time. One thing that will help you tremendously is to taxi into
position on an uncontrolled runway somewhere where you can relax for a
moment in position. Make sure your seat height is correct and relaxed
and that you are sitting in your normal flying position. Take a moment
and just LOOK ahead of the aircraft and to each side diagonally
through the bottom of the windshield. Make a mental note of these
visual cues. They ARE your touchdown cues!
On all your landings, don't fixate on any one cue but keep your eyes
moving all the time scanning forward and back on the runway..
Match your control pressure input in all axis to your "touchdown"
visual cue, and you have the makings of a good landing.
The Mooney sits low so you might have a tendency to flare a bit high
but recheck those "touchdown visual cues" on each and every takeoff
and I think you'll be surprised at how much better your landings will
become as you unconsciously match those cues on each landing you make.
DH

For the most part I can put the airplane down pretty much where I want
to: what I was shown is the softest "greased - on" landings I'd seen.
I will work on those, but I'm not sure taking cues from beside the
airplane is a good idea: my guess is just when you're looking to the
side is when a deer will decide the grass is greener on the other side
of the runway.

As someone else mentioned, the low wing Mooney, especially when landed
with full flaps, likes to float, so energy/speed control is pretty
critical -- get close to flare altitude 5 knots fast and you've just
lengthened flare to stop distance by 500 feet or more. I think very
smooth landings in the M20 would best be done with minimal flaps --
that trapped air under the wings and ahead of the flaps just has no
place to go! In really short field practice I know the center of lift
really moves aft with full flaps -- and for short fields I like to
bring the flaps up in the very late flare to get weight on the gear as
soon as possible. As they go up I need increasing back pressure
because the center of lift moves forward.

It is kind of fun to have the tail skid be the first thing that
touches down

No, that should only happen in a tail dragger during a 3 point. *You
need to fix that error.

Cheers

We're going to disagree, Flaps. It doesn't happen often, but if I need
a minimal ground roll I get behind the power curve, hang that sucker
by its prop, minimum air speed, and the skid is going to touch down
first. It lands at a very slow speed over the ground, and can be
stopped will short of the book distance. Don't try this at home, this
demonstration is being done by an expert* under carefully controlled
conditions (smile).

I have not landed the Mooney on a soft field, but given at normal
rolling attitude the prop can be a weed whacker, I'd do the same thing
then.

There are times when an excessive nose up attitude landing is good
airmanship (groundsmanship? and if I screw up a landing in that way I
can call it practice, can't I?).

*expert, best understood by taking the word apart.An ex is a has been,
a spurt is a drip under pressure.

I'm assuming you know this already but I'll throw it out there just as
a general comment.
Landing behind the curve can indeed be done but within a VERY strict
area of the backside curve. You have to keep the aircraft from sliding
too far behind the curve into the area where power alone isn't enough
to hold the altitude or sink rate. In fighters we call this the
"coffin corner", and it's not related to the common reference that
usually defines "coffin corner" at altitude. Coffin corner in this
context defines the line on the curve where you've run out of
available power and now HAVE to decrease the angle of attack to either
hold the altitude or stop the sink. No room to decrease the AOA and
you're in a world of hurt!
This is a much misunderstood area of performance when pilots start
discussing landings behind the curve.
In other words, you can drag it in behind the curve and plonk it down,
but ONLY TO A POINT behind the curve. It's a dangerous practice and I

...

read more »

Never had a chance to fly the 20J. Had a Mk21 on our line years ago
and loved flying it for charter. Very fast and economical. I liked the
Mooney design concept quite a lot.
Even the little Mite was a kick to fly.
Your bird sounds like a fine airplane. Glad you enjoy flying it so
much.
Best to you,