Ground Effect Feeling

David Megginson said:
You'll experience ground effect as an unwillingness of the wheels to settle down if you come in with too much airspeed. If you push the nosewheel down to try to force the airplane onto the runway, very bad things will happen, so don't do that.
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also, when going faster, your pitch is more nose forward. The bounce can be the nose wheel hitting frost and rebounding or it can start with the mains bouncing. Either way, it starts because you have too much energy. As you crest, you run out of energy and on the second one, the nose will almost always touch down first.
 
To the OP - I've 'felt' the ground effect a few times (out of 400+ landings). It helps to have smooth air & light winds, and a low-wing airplane. Your approach has to be nice & smooth also. I really don't notice ground effect most of the time, and have been flying high-wings mostly.
 
Ground effect? Get in a Comanche, full flaps, 2100 lbs and cross the threshold @ 75 knots. Ground effect you will have. ;);)
 
Ground effect has no significant change in the feel of the controls. Rather, it is an apparent reluctance of the plane to settle onto the runway. When you enter ground effect, you may notice a significant reduction in sink rate, without any corresponding control input. You will notice ground effect more in a low-wing aircraft, and perhaps more if your approach speed is too high.

To assure safe, dependable landings, here are two bits of advice:
  1. Fly the approach at the POH airspeed. Faster is not "safer." Indeed, too fast may lead to runway overruns, or pilot-induced oscillations.
  2. Get the plane in a nose-high attitude prior to touchdown. If you are too fast (see #1) you will not be able to put the plane in a nose-high attitude without ballooning. If you try to paste the plane on in a level or slightly nose-low attitude, you will likely start a pilot-induced oscillation. Those often don't end well unless you do an immediate go-around. Get #1 right, and #2 is easier to accomplish. If you land on the mains first in a nose-high attitude, you probably did it right.
In most light singles, you should be able to set it down and come to a stop in 500 feet. For practice fun, see if you can land and stop in 2-3 runway lights. No way you can do that without flying an appropriate approach speed and attitude.
 
For new pilots, landing is a bit like docking a boat — you reduce power to idle (or stop paddling) and then let your kinetic energy decay until — ideally — you run out of energy at exactly the moment the side of the boat touches the dock or the wheels kiss the runway.
 
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