How to perfect rudder work in the last 10 feet?

bobmrg said:
Second thoughts: As an instructor and DPE all I expected from a private pilot student/applicant was a safe landing. Commercial students/applicants were held to a higher standard. I can't find anything in the ACS that requires a private pilot applicant to land on the centerline, and if during a checkride an applicant failed to land on the centerline I would be at a loss as to how to write up the pink slip.

I once had an 80-year-old "student" who had received a 150 as part of a real estate deal. I never soloed him, and I'm sure that he could not have passed the knowledge test, but he did teach me something: During pattern work I was doing my instructor thing, talking, talking, talking..."Do this," "don't do that," "watch your (whatever)." He finally told me that if I would just shut up and let him fly the plane he would do just fine. I did and he did. You might suggest this to your instructor.

Bob
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Well, I have no problem with my CFI holding me to a higher standard that was is the min necessary, I prefer it even. There is some truth to the last bit though. Yesterday we did 11 landings, they were all safe, but I would say ~2 of them were perfect (nose bang on centerline, smooth even flare and wheels touching down evenly and smoothly just as the stall horn chirps), and those were the ones were he stopped telling me what to do and just let me fly. Overall though he is an excellent pilot and CFI so if he thinks this is what I need to be doing, I trust that he's right.

EDIT:
Flying a 172, since others asked.
 
Hit the center line, or straight? I don'T mind missing the center line by a foot or so, but being straight down the runway is more important.
 
Tantalum said:
Only thing in my life that has ever made me genuinely motion sick.. I can read below decks on swaying sailboats, do crossword puzzles in cars, fly around in steep turns all day, etc., but put me in one of those motion simulators... forget it. Don't know why.
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I had that in the Redbird, too. It's because your inner ear is sensing something other than what your eyes are sensing, and the brain gets confused and you get nauseous. The Redbird produces the sense of sideways force (as in a skid or a turn on the ground) by tilting left or right; your inner ears sense that rotation but the eyes don't see it on the screen. And in that taxi turn, there's no yaw rotation generated by the sim but the screen shows it. In Redbird flight, an aggressive slip would get me sickened real quick. The near-180° display adds to the effect.

I used to just turn the motion off.
 
JulietSierraBravo79 said:
That's the thing, my CFI says I am GOOD with the pedals when we are dealing with a crosswind. We have gone up a few times with very heavy winds just to get an idea of what it's like and what my personal limits should be. I am talking days when it was like 16-18 gusting 24-26. The aforementioned gripe he has with my lack of "dancing" on the pedals is when we're on short final/flaring on calm days. He says the ailerons are good and we're lined up properly over the runway, he just wants "more" movement on the pedals. I am having a hard time figuring out what exactly he means, because as noted we look lined up to me in my sight picture. Really i'm wondering if it is ALWAYS necessary to be hard on the pedals in the last 10 feet, or if sometimes in calm conditions, if you're lined up, you're lined up and limited rudder input is needed to stay on centerline. Thx.
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That’s common with a lot of things. Harder it seems the harder you concentrate. The easier it seems the less you concentrate. Happens to me in a lot of things-golf, billiards, flying
 
JulietSierraBravo79 said:
EDIT:
Flying a 172, since others asked.
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The 172 has no fin or engine offset to control the left-turn tendency under power, so there will be only a little right-turning effect as you close the throttle in the roundout.
 
Dan Thomas said:
The 172 has no fin or engine offset to control the left-turn tendency under power, so there will be only a little right-turning effect as you close the throttle in the roundout.
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May vary by the model, but the 172N I flew definitely had a tail offset to do so. If you sighted down the fairing from the vert stab you see the tip of it was way to one side of center.

Anyhow for the original poster, here's an exercise that I got from John King for situations like this. Find a medium long runway somewhere (5000+). Fly your approach the roundout but stay about 10' above the runway. Work at maintaining the centerline. Then do it again using the rudders to hold the longitudinal access down the runway and the ailerons to control drift. If you can do this in a variety of winds at 10' landing will never be much of a problem.
 
flyingron said:
May vary by the model, but the 172N I flew definitely had a tail offset to do so. If you sighted down the fairing from the vert stab you see the tip of it was way to one side of center.
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Never worked on or flew an N model, but plenty to do with those up to M and those built after 1996, and none of them had fin offset. The 172N POH three-view shows no offset, and I could find no mention of the feature being added to that model: https://takewingaviation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/N739EF_172N_POH.pdf

I suspect that, if that airplane did indeed have an offset fin, repairs made to the airplane might have been botched. The best way to find offset is to look over the airplane from the front, on centerline. Need a ladder for that. The thickness of the fin and its airfoil curve make it hard to accurately assess from the rear.

The 172N maintenance manual also makes no mention of it, in the general description, the section on empennage (section 4) or the section on structural repair (18).

And finally, the TCDS makes no mention of it, and the rudder movements are still symmetrical (they're measured from a streamlined position):
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G...3357f6c86257ea4004e8ae6/$FILE/3A12_Rev_84.pdf
 
GRG55 said:
Log 2 or 3 hours of dual in a small tailwheel airplane. That'll make it abundantly clear why you need to be on the rudder.

P.S. You might even get hooked! :)
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THIS, THIS AND THIS,PERIOD, EXPLANATION POINT
 
I'm a student myself. Every time I come across a situation like this, I hire another CFI to get a different perspective. So far, it has worked for me.
Best,
Mark
 
I adjusted my seat positioning a bit to get a slightly different sight picture down the cowling (raised the seat a bit), and apparently that sorted it. CFI told me today it looks like everything has "clicked" now and he is very pleased with all of my landings and i'm putting them dead on the center line. Hopefully this trend continues :cool:
 
JulietSierraBravo79 said:
I adjusted my seat positioning a bit to get a slightly different sight picture down the cowling (raised the seat a bit), and apparently that sorted it. CFI told me today it looks like everything has "clicked" now and he is very pleased with all of my landings and i'm putting them dead on the center line. Hopefully this trend continues :cool:
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Wear a tee shirt that can be cut on your next flight.
 
Congratulations!!! You are on your way!


Edit, bummer about the no tee shirt cutting, I still have mine, tell them you feel ripped off.
 
Mine had pretty much the entire back cut out.. I was left w/ two sleeves, a collar, and the front... and my CFI kept the piece he cut out. I liked the tradition.. but would have liked to have kept the cut piece as a display item just for fun. What was left of the shirt wasn't worth keeping. The tradition is pretty cool.. I like it.
Congrats on the solo! Feels great, don't it? I still remember mine, 15 years ago, like it was last week.
 
JulietSierraBravo79 said:
The aforementioned gripe he has with my lack of "dancing" on the pedals is when we're on short final/flaring on calm days. He says the ailerons are good and we're lined up properly over the runway, he just wants "more" movement
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Some instructors are fixated on this idea that you have to be constantly shuttling the petals back and forth. Those who teach tailwheel seem particularly prone to this.

While dancing back and forth probably does make one a bit faster to react to a change, the average effect of the rudder whether applied in an oscillation or just the proper average is going to be the same.

I had an instructor like this and just had to ignore that advice and learn to apply the proper average rudder deflection. It is a bit harder to anticipate in a tailwheel but can be done.

Like the advice to do some dual in a tailwheel if the issue persists.
 
benyflyguy said:
I know and had that done...what’s the basis or history behind it though??
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My understanding is that it comes from the days of teaching before intercoms with tandem seating. The instructor used to pull on the student’s shirttails to get their attention or provide a command.

After solo, the shirttails weren’t needed so much anymore. Might be apocryphal - I’ve not seen a definitive source.
 
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