Aiming points

NealRomeoGolf

NealRomeoGolf

Final Approach
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After 12 years off from training I am now back in an airplane in a completely different part of the country and (obviously) a different instructor. My original training I always had the numbers as my aim point on final. Keep them centered in the windshield. My current instructor does not like me looking at the landing end of the runway. She wants me always focused at the end.

I assume this is just a preference and not an absolute. Aim points are aim points, right? I do like the end of runway method for the round out since I don't have to change where I'm looking so I feel my roundouts are better now than before. But she categorically said that my previous instructor was wrong. Opinions?
 
Technique preference and not absolute. Any instructor who refers to a matter of pure technique as "categorically wrong" is, well, categorically wrong. I've said it before and I will say it again: The single worst thing a CFI can do is to take a pilot's technique that works and push to change it just because the CFI likes another one better.

FWIW, the most commonly-used technique is probably the one you have been using. The numbers or something on the approach end of the runway until the roundout, and then moving vision further out, whether to the far end of the runway or the 10-12 car lengths many use while driving a car.
 
I personally couldn't tell you where I concentrate. I pick a spot to land, but I don't focus solely on that spot. I'm not real sure where, if anywhere, I truly focus. Same with takeoff. I don't really concentrate on any one spot. This largely a function of flying mostly where I am dependent upon peripheral vision more than direct vision.
 
Lie to her. How can she tell what you're looking at?
 
I was taught to land as near to the numbers as possible. This made sense as one might be forced to land in a say, a farmers field, short runway, ( 1000 feet or less say) it seems many learn nowadays on long long runways, 5000 , ten thousand feet. That's too bad. Also important is knowing well what your flying and being able to judge landings by knowing the airplane well. This comes with time, usually no short cuts. Also important to know instructors background including total hours and hours in what your learning. Some have very few hours and are lousy. Don't be afraid to ask. It's your money!
 
From ch8 of the airplane flying handbook. Estimating Height section

If the pilot attempts to focus on a reference that is too close or looks directly down, the reference will become blurred, [Figure 8-5] and the reaction will be either too abrupt or too late. In this case, the pilot’s tendency will be to overcontrol, round out high, and make full-stall, drop-in landings. When the pilot focuses too far ahead, accuracy in judging the closeness of the ground is lost and the consequent reaction will be too slow since there will not appear to be a necessity for action. This will result in the airplane flying into the ground nose first. The change of visual focus from a long distance to a short distance requires a definite time interval and even though the time is brief, the airplane’s speed during this interval is such that the airplane travels an appreciable distance, both forward and downward toward the ground.
 
Rykymus said:
Lie to her. How can she tell what you're looking at?
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You might be surprised but we can often tell. And as a student returning after a 12 year hiatus, the landings may have been interesting enough for the CFI to watch the gaze or ask a few questions.
 
I'm not sure how you'd judge whether you're on your intended glide path otherwise. Maybe there is just a communication disconnect between you and the instructor. At some point you get close enough to your aim point, you have the runway made, you stop looking there and extend towards the end and use peripheral, etc. to gauge height. Maybe she is just talking about at that point, and you're still looking down?
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
After 12 years off from training I am now back in an airplane in a completely different part of the country and (obviously) a different instructor. My original training I always had the numbers as my aim point on final. Keep them centered in the windshield. My current instructor does not like me looking at the landing end of the runway. She wants me always focused at the end.

I assume this is just a preference and not an absolute. Aim points are aim points, right? I do like the end of runway method for the round out since I don't have to change where I'm looking so I feel my roundouts are better now than before. But she categorically said that my previous instructor was wrong. Opinions?
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The landing process is based on energy management. On short final you have a combination of potential energy, based on height above the surface, and kinetic energy, based on mass and velocity. Your goal is to have the least possible total energy as you flare...but that does not mean no energy. Aim about 50 feet short of the threshold and let kinetic energy and ground effect float your plane onto the landing surface. I join the others in questioning your instructor's insistence on a specific method.

Bob Gardner
 
I suspect the OP is misunderstanding the instructor.

Aim point at the numbers when high, is fine. Keep your aim point from rising/falling or sliding laterally.

Is she asking you to transition your eyes further ahead in the level out and while holding the aircraft off until touchdown? That's a reasonable thing to ask, and she's probably doing it because your round-off is a bit "pitchy" or you're "plopping it on" or similar.

Once you're over the numbers you need a new place to look to judge height and sink rate. The numbers just went by under the airplane.

Sometimes this phraseology just confuses people when they don't realize it's part of a smooth transition from descending to flying just a few inches off of the runway and allowing energy/speed to dissipate.

Another way to make problems magically disappear is to nail the approach airspeed all the way to the runway and then smoothly transition to level flight at a foot or less off the runway and simultaneously and smoothly removing any remaining power.

(And this technique may be different when attempting a "spot" landing where power may be more in control of sink rate and you may be behind the power/drag curve. But that's a different lesson.)
 
If I'm going into an airport with precision approach markings (i.e., the big fixed distance aim points at 1000' I use that). If I'm going into a small field, I aim just short of the runway so that I round out over the threshold.
 
I don't think I'm misunderstanding her. When we turn from base to final she says "now look at the far end of the runway" all the way to the roundout. She wants me to use the end of the runway as my guide. I think this explains why I don't pitch down enough on final and start erroring on the side of being high at the threshold. I prefer my aiming point the old way.
 
Your initial aim point should be just before you want your wheels to touch, once youre just off the deck THEN you transition your sight picture all the way down and past the end of the runway.

How many hours does your CFI have?

I don't understand how she could have passed the precision landing PTS stuff to become a PPL let alone the CPL without understanding this.
 
her ideas are wrong. bob and denverpilot have said it. its about energy management, you first adjust for your aim point on final managing the energy to get you there at the energy state you need to be at and then, getting to the flair you need to be looking farther down the runway to judge the flair attitude.

bob
 
Make it a game. Say hey, let's do it your way and give it a few tries. Do a few tries your way. If you can grease it at the threshold on the numbers you win..simple as that.

Loser buys the winner a beverage of their choice.

You are paying for your CFI, aside from doing anything unsafe or screwing up whatever lesson plan he/she had for you, where's the harm in doing things your way (especially if they lead to superior results)?

If the CFI is THAT much of a control freak, time to find someone else..

FWIW I always aim where Bob and others have already said, about 50 ft or so short of the threshold. Round out and float, touchdown on the numbers or after if you're fast.

Make every landing a short/soft if you can.
 
Does she teach the same thing regardless of runway length and slope? Is she teaching you to scan the entire runway and include the far end, or just stare at the far end of the runway for the entire approach? I can understand including that as part of what you reference, I can't understand using it as your only reference.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I don't think I'm misunderstanding her. When we turn from base to final she says "now look at the far end of the runway" all the way to the roundout. She wants me to use the end of the runway as my guide. I think this explains why I don't pitch down enough on final and start erroring on the side of being high at the threshold. I prefer my aiming point the old way.
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If this is accurate, the ask her how this technique of hers will work on a 15,000' runway or a dry lake bed with no markings further downfield whatsoever. How about a runway with a slope or a hump or convex shape? Those all exist in the real world.

I've already been warned by one of my mentors that sometimes instructors learn things they thought they knew were wrong, when a student starts asking questions. You never really know something until you have to teach it.

I'm fully expecting to have my butt handed to me by a student sooner or later, once I have my CFI. Probably more than once.

So... Ask some pointed questions. The above ones are a good "aiming" point for those. Heh. Maybe you'll be "that student" that gets her to talk to another instructor about the technique and realize she missed something in it along the way.

I can't see how teaching someone to be consistent about a glide path angle works geometrically, if you're having them look at the far end of something that can vary in length, when trying to build a common sight picture that they should see every time, even if the runway is three miles long. The angle changes with each new runway if you're looking at the far end from pattern altitude on down.

Again if not a misunderstanding, it almost sounds like someone admonished her to use the "spot-then-transition" method and explained it poorly and she assumed it was meant to be "always transitioned" and it stuck with her, but she's somehow compensating for it, either via VSI or other glide path indications (even just a solid airspeed in a particular configuration, will yield a perfect glide path with no or little head or tailwind) and it "makes sense" to her.

Ask her how she'd shoot the visual approach and get a consistent glide path with a jacket thrown over the entire instrument panel. Eyeballs outside.

I had an instructor who was exasperated with me and my "you played with too many flight sims as a kid, look outside, listen to the engine note for RPM, and forget about the instrument panel completely" habits, who ultimately did exactly that. Jacket went over the panel and I couldn't lean on the instruments as a crutch for visual flying. (Or course later, in the Instrument ticket the complete opposite is true. Haha!)

It also happens quite a bit in sailplanes when you're sharing a thermal with more than one other aircraft -- you don't have time to be peeking inside at the airspeed indicator... Just listen and watch out the canopy to change pitch. (Of course that leads to the popularity of audible VSI indicators in soaring, but one can fly a glider without one.)
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
After 12 years off from training I am now back in an airplane in a completely different part of the country and (obviously) a different instructor. My original training I always had the numbers as my aim point on final. Keep them centered in the windshield. My current instructor does not like me looking at the landing end of the runway. She wants me always focused at the end.

I assume this is just a preference and not an absolute. Aim points are aim points, right? I do like the end of runway method for the round out since I don't have to change where I'm looking so I feel my roundouts are better now than before. But she categorically said that my previous instructor was wrong. Opinions?
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If you cannot land a 172 or a 182 in 2000 feet of grass or hard surface, you are not properly trained. Towards the end of your training she should be able to cover up the dials one at a time as you enter downwind so that you have to land by outside observation and sound of the airplane. ( you should have plenty of the runway left as you stop. ) you should touch down either at or just after the numbers which is why your attention should be there. As somebody mentioned.......energy management!
 
exncsurfer said:
Maybe there is just a communication disconnect between you and the instructor.
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This is my guess. Looking at the aiming point while you are still on final is different than looking further down the runway in the flare.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
After 12 years off from training I am now back in an airplane in a completely different part of the country and (obviously) a different instructor. My original training I always had the numbers as my aim point on final. Keep them centered in the windshield. My current instructor does not like me looking at the landing end of the runway. She wants me always focused at the end.

I assume this is just a preference and not an absolute. Aim points are aim points, right? I do like the end of runway method for the round out since I don't have to change where I'm looking so I feel my roundouts are better now than before. But she categorically said that my previous instructor was wrong. Opinions?
Click to expand...

I tend to have an aim point that's short of my intended touchdown point. It's usually the threshold or even before it if the runway is pretty short. But I' not looking at it anymore by the time I'm in the groove and getting ready to flare. By then I'm looking farther in the distance.
 
Everskyward said:
This is my guess. Looking at the aiming point while you are still on final is different than looking further down the runway in the flare.
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It's also possible the instructor doesn't have a lot more time than the student and is simply building time. Better to be sure who's training you and how long they have done it.if you want to flare shortly after the numbers on a 2000 ft. Runway then that's where you better be looking. In a mooney for instance , I would be nose high , doing around sixty over the numbers on a 2000 foot runway, full flaps , touching down shortly. I've watched an aerostar pro use this same runway over and over over thru the years, always has a little to spare. Energy management.
 
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Jimmy cooper said:
If you cannot land a 172 or a 182 in 2000 feet of grass or hard surface, you are not properly trained. Towards the end of your training she should be able to cover up the dials one at a time as you enter downwind so that you have to land by outside observation and sound of the airplane. ( you should have plenty of the runway left as you stop. ) you should touch down either at or just after the numbers which is why your attention should be there. As somebody mentioned.......energy management!
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Actually lots of "old school" CFIs do this before the first solo

As someone who soloed in a 7AC on 2,500' of grass, I think I would have never been able to solo safely with this CFIs advise.
 
If the instructor is "aiming" at a point at the far end of the runway, she is missing by a whole lot if she lands at the close (proper) end. I still think it's a communication problem.
 
Recently on the same 2000 ft. Runway I've seen a turbo Piper chyanne twin land using half the runway and over the years I've watched the same aerostar land there over and over again. Years ago, We used to have mooney contests landing on the numbers. Same pilot, He always won those too.
James331 said:
Actually lots of "old school" CFIs do this before the first solo

As someone who soloed in a 7AC on 2,500' of grass, I think I would have never been able to solo safely with this CFIs advise.
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this fellow was a former Stearman instructor and a p47 ground school pilot who also flew them " back then" this was the late fiftys and I soloed an 85 hp aeronca.
 
So maybe I am interpreting it wrong. Maybe it means this: setup for the approach aimed correctly (at the numbers or threshold), but fly the rest of it with the end of the runway in a fixed spot on the windshield and keep your focus there?
 
Perhaps you could ask her "when do you suggest transitioning my focus from my touchdown spot to the far end of the runway?"
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So maybe I am interpreting it wrong. Maybe it means this: setup for the approach aimed correctly (at the numbers or threshold), but fly the rest of it with the end of the runway in a fixed spot on the windshield and keep your focus there?
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The fixed spot on the windshield that only grows and doesn't appear to have any relative motion, by simple geometry, is where you are headed.

So no. You can't hold the other end of the runway fixed and land on this end. It's going to appear to rise considerably as you angle down toward the end closest to the airplane. And then it will fall rapidly as the nose is brought up for the round-out.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So maybe I am interpreting it wrong. Maybe it means this: setup for the approach aimed correctly (at the numbers or threshold), but fly the rest of it with the end of the runway in a fixed spot on the windshield and keep your focus there?
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Check out this video. Its not the best landing, but what I like about it is how it shows you the aiming points and how they transition out to the end at various points in the landing:

 
Read the applicable section of the Flight Training Handbook...when you understand that, take it to your instructor and have her explain the apparent discrepancy.
 
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