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#1
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Is every touchdown a stall?
Listening to the radio transmissions of a VFR pilot who had a panic
attack in a cloud of IMC, I heard him mention to a controller that "the stall horn goes off every time I land." I thought that was bizarre. Is a touchdown supposed to be a stall? My stall horn doesn't sound on landing. When I first started landing in the sim (after it had advanced enough to allow realistic landings), I sometimes stalled the aircraft (but without an alarm). Later I came to the conclusion that this might not be good. If the aircraft stalls, you lose control of it right above the runway. You can't pitch down to pick up speed and restore lift, and the engines cannot speed up quickly enough to pull you out of the stall, either. Unless you are inches above the runway, you come banging down onto it, and in my case I've collapsed the gear many times this way. So I figured that stalling on landing might not be the way to do. These days I try to stay above stall speed throughout the landing, even during the flare. The flare arrests my descent, but does not stall the aircraft. I reduce throttle at the same time as the flare so that I naturally tend to begin a gentle descent, and this seems to set me down very nicely on the runway, although it takes longer this way (but small aircraft usually don't need the whole runway, anyway). And if anything goes wrong, I can power up and pull away without delay, since I haven't stalled. So, which is the preferred way to land, and why? -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#2
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Is every touchdown a stall?
Mxsmanic wrote:
You know, you might go out and get a book on actual flying (like Stick and Rudder by Langewiesche or Kirschner's Student Pilot Manual) rather than basing your entire view of aerodynamics on how a game behaves. Listening to the radio transmissions of a VFR pilot who had a panic attack in a cloud of IMC, I heard him mention to a controller that "the stall horn goes off every time I land." The stall horn goes off BEFORE the stall. That's it's whole point. It's a stall WARNING horn. I thought that was bizarre. Is a touchdown supposed to be a stall? Most light aircraft are touched down as close to a stall as you can manage. The idea is to bring the nose up until the lift peters out about the time the wheels touch. My stall horn doesn't sound on landing. You need a better simulator. If the aircraft stalls, you lose control of it right above the runway. Stalling is NOT lost of control. You certainly can control an aircraft in a stall. If you couldn't you would never be able to recover. A stall is the breakdown in lift that occurs when the angle of attach exceeds a critical angle. The airplane is still flying, controllable, and even producing some lift during a stall. You can't pitch down to pick up speed and restore lift, That's the whole point. You need neither speed nor lift at this point. The idea is to land with the minimum energy. The wheels are on the ground so you don't need lift, and any excess speed you have will just have to be bled off with the brakes. This means you need more runway, which you might not have. and the engines cannot speed up quickly enough to pull you out of the stall, either. Engines do not pull you out of a stall. Speed does not pull you out of a stall. Getting the angle of attack below the critical angle gets you out of a stall. Unless you are inches above the runway, you come banging down onto it, and in my case I've collapsed the gear many times this way. So I figured that stalling on landing might not be the way to do. It's a good thing you aren't flying real airplanes. But the trick in learning how to really land is getting close to that. These days I try to stay above stall speed throughout the landing, even during the flare. Aircraft can stall at any speed. |
#3
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Is every touchdown a stall?
Mxsmanic wrote: So, which is the preferred way to land, and why? No, you are landing too fast. A stall is not lose of control. In a real plane you would go up and do all kinds of stalls with your instructor before you soloed. -Robert, CFII |
#4
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Is every touchdown a stall?
it might help if you were to specify what kind of airplane you're
asking about but here i'll guess light single. stall at landing? sorta depends on what the wind is doing. in chop i'll probably hold more speed till i can get a wheel down then unload flap to firm it up. in decent air i usually get just a squeek at touchdown. honestly, i don't really like the horn as i trained a lot without one and got more used to testing the control authority as i went along. you should be able to feel it getting mushy as you get close. i remember one day in my training, in a plane with a working horn, in chop; i knew that i had some time after the horn started so i kept dicking with it and kept listening to the horn till finally, it broke hard. i doubt i was 6-inches but man! i'm also not fond of the fact that the horn sounds like farting thru a cheap clarinet and scares the passengers. dan Mxsmanic wrote: Listening to the radio transmissions of a VFR pilot who had a panic attack in a cloud of IMC, I heard him mention to a controller that "the stall horn goes off every time I land." I thought that was bizarre. Is a touchdown supposed to be a stall? My stall horn doesn't sound on landing. When I first started landing in the sim (after it had advanced enough to allow realistic landings), I sometimes stalled the aircraft (but without an alarm). Later I came to the conclusion that this might not be good. If the aircraft stalls, you lose control of it right above the runway. You can't pitch down to pick up speed and restore lift, and the engines cannot speed up quickly enough to pull you out of the stall, either. Unless you are inches above the runway, you come banging down onto it, and in my case I've collapsed the gear many times this way. So I figured that stalling on landing might not be the way to do. These days I try to stay above stall speed throughout the landing, even during the flare. The flare arrests my descent, but does not stall the aircraft. I reduce throttle at the same time as the flare so that I naturally tend to begin a gentle descent, and this seems to set me down very nicely on the runway, although it takes longer this way (but small aircraft usually don't need the whole runway, anyway). And if anything goes wrong, I can power up and pull away without delay, since I haven't stalled. So, which is the preferred way to land, and why? -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#5
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Is every touchdown a stall?
houstondan writes:
it might help if you were to specify what kind of airplane you're asking about but here i'll guess light single. The ones in the sim, mainly Beechcraft Baron 58 and A36, and a 737-800. I don't know if the principles are different for the different types of aircraft. sorta depends on what the wind is doing. in chop i'll probably hold more speed till i can get a wheel down then unload flap to firm it up. in decent air i usually get just a squeek at touchdown. honestly, i don't really like the horn as i trained a lot without one and got more used to testing the control authority as i went along. you should be able to feel it getting mushy as you get close. i remember one day in my training, in a plane with a working horn, in chop; i knew that i had some time after the horn started so i kept dicking with it and kept listening to the horn till finally, it broke hard. i doubt i was 6-inches but man! That's what I worry about. i'm also not fond of the fact that the horn sounds like farting thru a cheap clarinet and scares the passengers. I think it's designed to do that. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#6
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Is every touchdown a stall?
The question of the landing being a stall just inches above the runway has
been debated for decades. I believe it would be fair to say that the "every landing should be a stall" theory is old school, and more modern training eschews this belief. This may also have something to do with today's reality, where there is a high chance you will be trying to make the best time possible on approach, without getting in everyone's way, so you will not be on two-mile finals at 60Kt with full flaps. As a result, it is likely you will cross the threshold with a comfortable margin above your Vso. As for the stall horn, as posted above, it is set to sound above the actual stall AoA. After thousands of landings in small planes, both by myself and with other pilots, I'd say I hear it about one in three or four landings. If you have it while you're in the flare, close to the ground, it's a gooid indication you're at about the right speed. If you don't have it, but everything else looks good, than so what.... GF |
#7
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Is every touchdown a stall?
Mxsmanic wrote: Listening to the radio transmissions of a VFR pilot who had a panic attack in a cloud of IMC, I heard him mention to a controller that "the stall horn goes off every time I land." I thought that was bizarre. Is a touchdown supposed to be a stall? My stall horn doesn't sound on landing. I gather you are using a toy flight simulator. Okay, in a real airplane the stall warning horn does not go off every time, either, but many pilots consider it the ideal. It means that you are landing at the slowest possible speed. Or it at least is supposed to. My opinion, that of most manufacturers, and of many commercial pilots, is that the stall warning horn is a very poor indicator of proper landing speed. Cessna does not say in their operating handbooks to land with the stall warning horn blaring. It does not say it on their checklists. Cessna says to land at, say, 50 KIAS. No mention is made of the stall warning horn except in the section on stalls. There. I said it. I know it goes against the deepest heart of hearts of some people here, including those I greatly respect or even admire, but there it is. They are wrong. And we would have a lot fewer Cessnas and other airplanes with broken tail cones if they would admit it. You would not believe the number of tail strikes I have seen generated by these guys. And I also think Langewische was wrong about some things. He was not God. Some of the things he asserts in "Stick and Rudder" are downright idiotic. Among other things, he advocates a "stall-proof" airplane, which may not be possible and which certainly is not desirable. He perpetuates certain myths about the cause of lift. I simply cannot recommend this book for the student pilot, although it is a step above "Junior Birdman" kits. Langewische should be used judiciously by flight instructors who have a thorough grounding in the principles of flight, if at all. The ONLY time you should consider it absolutely necessary to land at the slowest possible airspeed is when you are performing short field landings. Higher airspeeds are helpful, and possibly even necessary, in crosswinds, gusty conditions, soft field operations, or when you just want an especially gentle landing and you have a long runway. The best speed at which to land the airplane is the one recommended (adjusted for local conditions) by the manufacturer, who presumably knows something about the airplane's envelope. The manufacturer, after all, designed the plane, did the engineering, and flew the certification tests. The manufacturer knows what angle of attack will cause you to bang the tail on the runway. The manufacturer knows what rate of descent will smash the gear. The manufacturer knows what angle of attack will lift the nose enough to keep you from banging the nose wheel. |
#8
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Is every touchdown a stall?
cjcampbell writes:
I gather you are using a toy flight simulator. It's a program that simulates a toy plane (i.e., a Baron 58). My opinion, that of most manufacturers, and of many commercial pilots, is that the stall warning horn is a very poor indicator of proper landing speed. Cessna does not say in their operating handbooks to land with the stall warning horn blaring. It does not say it on their checklists. Cessna says to land at, say, 50 KIAS. No mention is made of the stall warning horn except in the section on stalls. There. I said it. I know it goes against the deepest heart of hearts of some people here, including those I greatly respect or even admire, but there it is. They are wrong. And we would have a lot fewer Cessnas and other airplanes with broken tail cones if they would admit it. You would not believe the number of tail strikes I have seen generated by these guys. Well, then, I'm not so far off the mark. And I also think Langewische was wrong about some things. He was not God. Some of the things he asserts in "Stick and Rudder" are downright idiotic. I haven't been able to find his book yet, anyway. It may not be findable in Paris. Among other things, he advocates a "stall-proof" airplane, which may not be possible and which certainly is not desirable. Years ago I read of NASA having developed a stall-proof wing, but I don't know what became of that, or if it ever was incorporated into an aircraft. He perpetuates certain myths about the cause of lift. About the same time ago, I recall reading that NASA had found that the standard theory of lift in an airfoil was incorrect (after they came up with a wing that generated the same lift both in its normal position and when flying inverted). I simply cannot recommend this book for the student pilot, although it is a step above "Junior Birdman" kits. Langewische should be used judiciously by flight instructors who have a thorough grounding in the principles of flight, if at all. I've never heard of Junior Birdman kits. The ONLY time you should consider it absolutely necessary to land at the slowest possible airspeed is when you are performing short field landings. Higher airspeeds are helpful, and possibly even necessary, in crosswinds, gusty conditions, soft field operations, or when you just want an especially gentle landing and you have a long runway. That's kind of what I figured. With 11,000 feet of runway and only 3000 necessary to touchdown, what's the rush? The best speed at which to land the airplane is the one recommended (adjusted for local conditions) by the manufacturer, who presumably knows something about the airplane's envelope. The manufacturer, after all, designed the plane, did the engineering, and flew the certification tests. The manufacturer knows what angle of attack will cause you to bang the tail on the runway. The manufacturer knows what rate of descent will smash the gear. The manufacturer knows what angle of attack will lift the nose enough to keep you from banging the nose wheel. I don't have the manual for a Baron 58, although the sim model manual includes extracts from it. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#9
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Is every touchdown a stall?
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#10
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Is every touchdown a stall?
Greg Farris writes:
Toy plane - Baron 58? Yes. You see, real planes have jet engines, and carry 100 or more passengers, and can fly above 30,000 feet. Anything else is a toy. I think some real flying, in a real plane (try a C-152 for starters) would be helpful in correcting your attitude problem. A C152 is no more a real plane than a Baron 58. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
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