Flight Training - June 2013 - 38

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Your airspeed is

too high.

DIAGNOSIS: You don’t want to limit yourself to runways that are at least two miles
long, and new tires get expensive after a
while. Excess airspeed causes floating—
time spent with wheels not yet on the
pavement, as you watch precious runway
go by. Even a few knots of extra speed will
have you touching down several hundred
feet farther down the runway. Sometimes
after an airplane lands long like this,
brakes are slammed on, and tires squeal.
While it’s not exactly pretty, the aircraft
usually can be stopped in this manner
while still on the pavement and still under
lateral control.

when you get within one wingspan above
the ground. Tempting as it may be, don’t
just stare at your airspeed indicator.
On final approach, your scan should be
mostly divided between the runway and
the airspeed, but you may have to watch
traffic or other factors. If you are musically inclined, pay attention to the sound
your airplane makes when it’s at the right
speed—or too slow, or too fast. Not musically inclined? That’s OK: Watch the angle
of your airplane to the horizon (or trees
and buildings) and feel for the proper
amount of mushiness.
Oh, and watch the airspeed indicator,
too. Pitch up to slow down if you’re too
fast. It should go without saying that the
power is already at idle.

DIAGNOSIS: Landing gear in general and
tires in particular don’t roll very smoothly
when they go sideways. All flat spots
aside, in the worst-case scenario, if you
combine misalignment with too much
speed (and inertia), you will end up off
the runway—or skipping down the runway in a dangerous little dance.
Use your rudder to align the longitudinal axis of the airplane with the runway
centerline. Keep it aligned with the centerline by using your feet. Conventional
airplanes with left-turning tendencies will
show those tendencies to a small degree in
the flare, so don’t be surprised if you need
just a touch of right rudder (gradually
increasing pressure on the pedal as the
speed bleeds off ) at touchdown.

AT LEAST ONE STUDENT LITERALLY HAD TO BE REMINDED
TO BREATHE ON FINAL APPROACH BECAUSE HER
FINGERNAILS WERE TURNING BLUE.
However, even if you never plan to
land anywhere but old B-52 bases and the
Great Salt Flats, you still can end up with
technique-based problems from coming
in too fast. For example, if you try to pitch
the nose up into the flare attitude while
you still have excess airspeed, the aircraft
will balloon. Ballooning is trading off your
excess airspeed for just enough altitude
to make a really uncomfortable drop now
that you don’t have any airspeed.
Possibly worse than either floating or
ballooning, gusty winds or impatience
may force an early touchdown. If the
airplane is too fast and not ready to quit
flying, simply pitching down may cause
the nosewheel to touch first. The nose
strut—and the firewall to which that
strut is attached—are not strong enough
for this. What’s more, you could induce
porpoising (bouncing down the runway)
or wheelbarrowing (rolling on just your
nosewheel).
What should you do differently on your
next landing? Preferably, you should be
at the correct speed before ground effect
makes it harder to slow down. Ground
effect is a reduction in drag that occurs
38 /

FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Your airspeed is

too low.

DIAGNOSIS: The objective of landing is to
bring the airplane down out of the sky, and
then to stop bringing it down. If you time
it right, you stop that downward motion
with lift from the wings before the runway
does. That lift comes from air flowing
over a wing, and when that air moves too
slowly, the wing can’t make enough lift to
stop, say, a downward trend toward the
pavement. You need exactly enough speed
so that when you pitch up (flare), you will
trade the last bit of excess speed for the lift
necessary to stop your descent and cushion
your touchdown. If you are coming in
too slow, there’s nothing left to trade for
extra lift, and the airplane will continue
its earthward trajectory with teeth- and
landing-gear-jarring effect.
What should you do? See the airspeed
and attitude control tactics from the solution to the first problem above.
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Either your longitudinal axis, your direction of flight, or
both are not pointed down the runway.

What if you’re tracking parallel to the
centerline but not on it? For airplanes
smaller than the width of the runway, this
is simply bad form, and something for the
local airport bums to rib you about. If the
airplane fills the width of the runway and
you are not dead center, however, you may
have worse problems than airport bums.
What if your longitudinal axis appears
to be aligned with the centerline, yet you
keep getting off track? Then you have a
crosswind pushing you off your intended
course. Push back by banking into the
wind. This bank will accomplish exactly
what banking does in an airplane, which
is to change where the longitudinal axis
is pointed. To understand why this adds
a new problem, see above. The solution is
the same: Use your feet.
“But,” you say, “that would mean I am
banking one way and yawing the other.
That’s uncoordinated!”
Correct. In order to touch down in
a crosswind with the wheels rolling
straight, you will be uncoordinated, and
you will touch down with the upwind
wheel before the downwind wheel. The
degree to which you are uncoordinated


http://FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

Flight Training - June 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - June 2013

Flight Training - June 2013
Contents
Member Benefits
Right Seat
Centerline
Letters
Unique Perspective
Success Story
How it Works
Since You Asked
Tech Tip Abeam the Numbers
Final Exam
Training Products
Flying Carpet
Flight Lesson
Accident Report
STALL+YAW=SPIN
LITTLE FISH IN A BIG POND
TECHNIQUE
Weather
Mother Nature's Tantrums
Career Advisor
Tech Talk
Ready or Not?
Creating Glide Gurus
Advertiser Index
Debrief
Flight Training - June 2013 - Flight Training - June 2013
Flight Training - June 2013 - Cover2
Flight Training - June 2013 - Contents
Flight Training - June 2013 - 2
Flight Training - June 2013 - 3
Flight Training - June 2013 - Member Benefits
Flight Training - June 2013 - 5
Flight Training - June 2013 - Right Seat
Flight Training - June 2013 - 7
Flight Training - June 2013 - Centerline
Flight Training - June 2013 - 9
Flight Training - June 2013 - Letters
Flight Training - June 2013 - 11
Flight Training - June 2013 - Unique Perspective
Flight Training - June 2013 - 13
Flight Training - June 2013 - Success Story
Flight Training - June 2013 - How it Works
Flight Training - June 2013 - Since You Asked
Flight Training - June 2013 - Tech Tip Abeam the Numbers
Flight Training - June 2013 - Final Exam
Flight Training - June 2013 - 19
Flight Training - June 2013 - Training Products
Flight Training - June 2013 - Flying Carpet
Flight Training - June 2013 - 22
Flight Training - June 2013 - Flight Lesson
Flight Training - June 2013 - Accident Report
Flight Training - June 2013 - 25
Flight Training - June 2013 - STALL+YAW=SPIN
Flight Training - June 2013 - 27
Flight Training - June 2013 - 28
Flight Training - June 2013 - 29
Flight Training - June 2013 - 30
Flight Training - June 2013 - 31
Flight Training - June 2013 - LITTLE FISH IN A BIG POND
Flight Training - June 2013 - 33
Flight Training - June 2013 - 34
Flight Training - June 2013 - 35
Flight Training - June 2013 - 36
Flight Training - June 2013 - 37
Flight Training - June 2013 - 38
Flight Training - June 2013 - 39
Flight Training - June 2013 - TECHNIQUE
Flight Training - June 2013 - 41
Flight Training - June 2013 - Weather
Flight Training - June 2013 - 43
Flight Training - June 2013 - 44
Flight Training - June 2013 - Mother Nature's Tantrums
Flight Training - June 2013 - Career Advisor
Flight Training - June 2013 - 47
Flight Training - June 2013 - Tech Talk
Flight Training - June 2013 - Ready or Not?
Flight Training - June 2013 - Creating Glide Gurus
Flight Training - June 2013 - 51
Flight Training - June 2013 - Advertiser Index
Flight Training - June 2013 - 53
Flight Training - June 2013 - 54
Flight Training - June 2013 - 55
Flight Training - June 2013 - Debrief
Flight Training - June 2013 - Cover3
Flight Training - June 2013 - Cover4
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