Humble Pie

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Joe Williamson

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Well 7 hours into my flight training I was feeling pretty good. Doing well on my maneuvers, really controlling the plane in the air. Communicating well with ATC. Today I said let’s practice touch and go’s. My flight instructor said sure and off we went. Well holy **** did I get slammed with some humble pie. I have some well on landings at the end of my lessons but this was totally different. Working the pattern and handling everything needed while in the pattern is tough but fitting some big gusts of wind while trying to do it was definitely overwhelming. I was sweating trying to handle it all and after we finished I was pretty down on myself. My instructor said I did fine, no rough landings, no failed landings. A couple of bounces and a lot of crabbing. But I thought I would do better in my head. Anyway tomorrow is another day just looking for some encouragement. Thanks everyone.
 
If you reach perfection on every flight your a better pilot than myself. Flying is supposed to be fun,loosen up a little. Enjoy.
 
Silvaire said:
I've been flying for over 50 years and still, every once in awhile, I'll make a landing that after which someone will come up and ask "Wow, are you okay?"
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It's even more humbling when tower asks you that question over the radio. And you have passengers on board. (It was ok, but certainly qualified as "an arrival".)
 
Hmmm… Navy guy here. Soft squishy Air Force landings are lost on me. Someone complains about a “hard” landing to me, am I a navy guy or something.. I smile and say “yes, thank you, AND you’re welcome.” And wait for the next nice compliment.

I get lots of compliments. Must be doing something right! Ha!
 
No landing is ever exactly the same. Wind shifts, no wind, headwind, tailwind. Weight of airplane isn't going to be constant. Runway environments at different airports, trees, hills, etc. You just gotta do the best you can do with all the variables thrown at you and hopefully be able to do it again.
 
Thanks everyone. I didnt expect perfection but it was definitely a lot harder than i expected. The wind was brutal. I know that i need to learn how to land in wind i just wish it wasnt while i was learning everything else about pattern work. I am feeling better and am hoping for less challenging wind in my next lesson.
 
Get out of your comfort zone and expand it. Have you heard the phrase “calm seas don’t make good sailors”?

sort of the same thing.
 
Joe Williamson said:
Thanks everyone. I didnt expect perfection but it was definitely a lot harder than i expected. The wind was brutal. I know that i need to learn how to land in wind i just wish it wasnt while i was learning everything else about pattern work. I am feeling better and am hoping for less challenging wind in my next lesson.
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I'll be doing a 'calm dance' for you:). Hang in there. I've heard people who are where you are say that all of a sudden one day it just kinda like all clicked.
 
All my landings are butter. Can’t even tell when the wheels touch. Hahahaha. Yeah. Maybe two out of the last fifteen.

Bounces happen. The important thing is what do you do about it? Can you add some power and salvage them? Or add full power and try next time? Was in a 182 with my wife last month. Couldn’t get the plane to settle where I wanted so opted for a go around. On the second attempt she commented that she didn’t feel it “touch”. And she was right. Total butter. If I had forced the first approach it would have definitely not been butter. And in any case most are not. There was one “landing” where she commented “well, at least we didn’t crash”. Yeah that wasn’t my proudest moment.

Landings are difficult and no amount of training will prepare you for future challenges. Don’t accept the last 10 feet if it doesn’t look good. You can always go around and nobody will criticize that.
 
Domenick said:
What is a "failed landing?"
Death?
Destruction?
A go-around?
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This may have sounded like sarcasm, but it was a serious question.
Is "failed landing" terminology your CFI is using?
 
Domenick said:
This may have sounded like sarcasm, but it was a serious question.
Is "failed landing" terminology your CFI is using?
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No not at all, my CFI said i did fine. We landed multiple times without breaking anything or anyone. They were just rough landings and they were harder than i thought they would be.
 
There are tons of YouTube videos of Oshkosh arrivals, watch some of them for awhile or on those days with brutal winds watch others landing at your own airport. You may be surprised at how squirrely and unsettled other people's landings can appear under those conditions. An airplane can be a fantastic flying machine but a cantankerous beast of a contraption rolling across the ground on shopping cart wheels and making that transition can be one of the most challenging tasks involved in flying. But it's one you can't avoid, it is mandatory on every flight.
 
I was just saying how easy my Deb is to land to another pilot, took him up flying the other day and sure enough my first landing was my worst one yet in the plane lol, dropped it in from 2 feet or so up.
Happens to everybody but man it sure is frustrating. Stick with it and don't sweat a few ****ty landings, any landing that doesn't bend metal is good enough.
 
I would say that you're right where you're supposed to be. You seem to have the mental part down. You can probably whiteboard the process perfectly. But when it comes to actually performing it, well, you're not quite there yet. Take heart, all pilots have been there. It gets better with practice.

Soon you'll be greasing every landing, greasing most landings , regularly greasing landings , able to not bounce most landings.

Good luck with the rest of your flight training.

If you havent already, this might be a good time to record your training, via a notebook. Something to look back on later. It can make for fun reading later in your aviation career.
 
what airplane are you flying and was it a bit windy that day?...can make a notable difference
 
Did you have the same number of wheels at the end vs when did the preflight?
Carry on
 
I’m at something over 850 landings. Yesterday I went up in a 172 to get single engine passenger current again. Since April I’ve flown commercial maneuvers and Checkride in DA-40, then ME in DA-42NG and checked out in a Seminole. I did one flight in a 182 and then took a month off. My first landing yesterday was a 3-4 bouncer. Caught me off guard when it hit the first time (sight picture is different). And it was smooth air.

I did 7 more including two power off 180s. Several were chirping tires. But the first one! Oh my!
 
Justin Brady said:
I was just saying how easy my Deb is to land to another pilot, took him up flying the other day and sure enough my first landing was my worst one yet in the plane lol, dropped it in from 2 feet or so up.
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That's when you excitedly announce "See what I mean!"

Just saying that confidence in your skill is better than demonstration skills.
 
GaryM said:
Maybe the first two qualify. Let's not stigmatize go-arounds. A successful go-around is a good result!
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True. Seems many failed landings could be/have been prevented by pouring on the smash and getting away from a situation that is not getting better as a pilot seeks to place the plane back on terra firma ...
 
GaryM said:
Maybe the first two qualify. Let's not stigmatize go-arounds. A successful go-around is a good result!
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I agree.
I was fishing for whether the CFI or student regarded a go-around as a "failed landing."
 
I've told this story before, but on one of my solo cross-country flights, I had to go around twice at one of the airports, and when I told my instructor that, he said, "GOOD BOY!"
 
I went out to practice touch and goes 2 weeks ago and my cfi said I'll show you the 1st one then it's your turn. his landing was hard...he said that was one his bad ones in a while. lol. ok my turn. I nailed 7 in a row. we land and he told everyone at the fbo I did really well.

today, we did some touch and goes and holy cow I was awful. flat out awful.

some days it's just not your day.

keep working at it. you'll get there.
 
Tools said:
Hmmm… Navy guy here. Soft squishy Air Force landings are lost on me. Someone complains about a “hard” landing to me, am I a navy guy or something.. I smile and say “yes, thank you, AND you’re welcome.” And wait for the next nice compliment.

I get lots of compliments. Must be doing something right! Ha!
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When I was doing some work for a company at Love Field, there was a "vulture's row" deck overlooking one of the runways. Watching Southwest come in, you can tell the difference between Navy and Air Force pilots. A Navy pilot comes in exactly on speed, touches down exactly on the markers and gets off at the first taxiway. An Air Force pilot touches down somewhere between the target and 1000' further and rolls to the end. All the rubber on the runway past 1500' was left there by an air force pilot.

That's the difference between pilots who are trained to land on a 500' pitching runway and one that is trained to land on a 10,000 ft runway.
 
I have literally 1000s of landings in everything from a Cessna 120 to an MD11. Some approaches and landings are perfect, most are good, some are just okay, and a few are plain awful. It’s part of flying. A go around will save you from making a bad landing or worse out of an unstable approach. Fly Safely
 
Plane is reusable without maintenance = acceptable landing.

Some days the weather doesn't want you to make smooth, pretty landings. There will be many sweaty palm days during crosswind training, which will help you build skill and confidence in control.
 
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I dropped one in hard enough to find any loose fillings. I made some dubious excuse to my wife blaming something other than me.
A week of so later I made one that was so smooth that you couldn't tell when the wheels touched. I asked my wife "how'd ya like that one?" "I don't know" she said "my eyes were closed."
 
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