Is it normal to still have occasional bad landings as a private pilot?

Lol. My last landing in LGA was horrible. 4500 hours in and I still don’t get it right. I do only have about 200 hours in the 737 and it was my first time in LGA in about 2 years. Those are my excuses and I’m sticking to them!
 
jordane93 said:
Lol. My last landing in LGA was horrible. 4500 hours in and I still don’t get it right. I do only have about 200 hours in the 737 and it was my first time in LGA in about 2 years. Those are my excuses and I’m sticking to them!
Click to expand...

Funny, I was thinking of LGA specifically when I wrote my earlier post. My FO flew in last time. Set it down kind of hard and it was perfect.
 
Rex Kramer said:
Funny, I was thinking of LGA specifically when I wrote my earlier post. My FO flew in last time. Set it down kind of hard and it was perfect.
Click to expand...
Yea mine was firm and right in the touchdown zone. Not much more else you can do when landing on 22. Also forgot how much of a rock the 737 becomes when you reduce power with flaps 40.
 
jordane93 said:
Yea mine was firm and right in the touchdown zone. Not much more else you can do when landing on 22. Also forgot how much of a rock the 737 becomes when you reduce power with flaps 40.
Click to expand...

Fortunately for me the bus is a pussycat for the most part. I routinely get "that's the smoothest landing I've ever seen" from pax. Uhhhh yeah...surely it's all me.. it's not that soft landing gear underneath you... :D
 
I land better with a little bit of gust. Not joking, and the only reason I can come up with is it pegs my internal focus setting to 10.
 
jordane93 said:
Lol. My last landing in LGA was horrible. 4500 hours in and I still don’t get it right. I do only have about 200 hours in the 737 and it was my first time in LGA in about 2 years. Those are my excuses and I’m sticking to them!
Click to expand...

jordane93 said:
Yea mine was firm and right in the touchdown zone. Not much more else you can do when landing on 22. Also forgot how much of a rock the 737 becomes when you reduce power with flaps 40.
Click to expand...

If the engineers didn't want you to use the struts they wouldn't have put them on the airplane.
 
I am a 10,000+ hour ATP and I still have less than perfect landings.

Hard to believe, I know...
 
Dave Theisen said:
What about takeoffs? :)
Click to expand...

Take offs are boring so you gotta spice it up a bit every now and then. For example, you should get in a hurry and fly into someone's wake to practice your low level WT recovery skills, preferably with someone you just met. They'll be impressed and talk about it for years. ;)
 
Last edited:
With 6k hours and around 1900 landings i can tell you the secrets for the perfect landing
1) speed
2) attitude
3) fryiftrttdhiotwsgjr

Especially point 3 is the one that catches out most people.
 
Did the stadium visual to 31 in LGA, 767-300... decided to arrest rate of decent about 10-15 feet in the air and make ONE attempt at a smooth touchdown, then just plant it...

Ok, on speed, centerline, right at the numbers let’s just try this. Pop a little flare, and MUCH to my surprise the spoilers deployed! Wha?!!!

Apparently we landed... had I not decided to flare high... woulda been epic! Just greased it, completely by accident!

jumpseater and capt look at me... kinda shocked. Honestly, I was too! Ha!
 
benyflyguy said:
If you are renting or using a club plane keep in mind seat height/position. That can really affect your sight picture and cause you to flare differently and muff up some landings.
Click to expand...
I had a rash of bad landings a few years ago. Could not for the life of me figure out what was going on. Eventually I realized I had moved my seat forward for a taller person in back and never put it back.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Take offs are boring so you gotta spice it up a bit every now and then. For example, you should get in a hurry and fly into someone's wake to practice your low level WT recovery skills, preferably with someone you just met. They'll be impressed and talk about it for years. ;)
Click to expand...

Crosswind takeoffs can be interesting. Especially when you have full aileron into the wind and need some left rudder to stay straight. (single engine)
 
Timbeck2 said:
Take offs are boring so you gotta spice it up a bit every now and then. For example, you should get in a hurry and fly into someone's wake to practice your low level WT recovery skills, preferably with someone you just met. They'll be impressed and talk about it for years. ;)
Click to expand...


I took off behind a 787 out of SEA. Required spacing and all that. Hit the wake from their left wing at about 800ft or so. It's an unnerving feeling to have full left aileron applied while the airplane still rolls right.

Pitched down to duck out of it and gain some speed and went on our way. Still, an interesting experience.
 
Tools said:
Did the stadium visual to 31 in LGA, 767-300... decided to arrest rate of decent about 10-15 feet in the air and make ONE attempt at a smooth touchdown, then just plant it...

Ok, on speed, centerline, right at the numbers let’s just try this. Pop a little flare, and MUCH to my surprise the spoilers deployed! Wha?!!!

Apparently we landed... had I not decided to flare high... woulda been epic! Just greased it, completely by accident!

jumpseater and capt look at me... kinda shocked. Honestly, I was too! Ha!
Click to expand...



You mean the Expressway Visual? The Stadium Visual is for EWR.

Yeah sorry for the anal response. I live in the NYC airspace.


Btw the Expressway Vis to 31 has an RNAV... it's damn near boring.



I definitely hear you, though. There are several airports where I basically say "Ok I'm going to count to one while trying to make a good landing then I'm just setting it down."
 
You know how you have to have 3 landings in the past 90 days to have passengers, and they have to be night landings to have passengers at night or tailwheel landings to have tailwheel passengers? Let’s just say I’m glad you don’t have to log 3 good landings in the past 90 days to have good passengers.
 
PaulS said:
Crosswind takeoffs can be interesting. Especially when you have full aileron into the wind and need some left rudder to stay straight. (single engine)
Click to expand...

So, I'd suggest getting the tail up as soon as you can, and keep the mains planted longer than normal. Pull back on the stick just a bit to get in the air, then forward a little bit, to let the plane weather-vane into the wind. Then resume a normal climbout, with your correction angle set. I like crosswind takeoff's, as long as I can taxi in it.
 
I think the nature of the skill set we work to develop has periods of regression in some areas while we focus on other areas. Hence, the comments about struggling with landings during IR training. Similarly, during IR training, once you've got approaches down and working on arcing, or holds, you may find your approaches deteriorate for a period. That's the idea is to become a well rounded pilot. Not a perfect pilot, nor even a "complete" pilot, but a well rounded, proficient pilot. As the saying goes, "A good pilot is always learning." Sometimes, part of the learning process is necessary review of skills that were previously proficient.
 
Ashlyn Maria said:
Really? If that's true, then there's hope for me!
Click to expand...
My t/w instructor said I'd relax after about 100 hours, then I'd scare myself, and then things would get better. Pretty much spot on...
 
approx 11,000 hours - my normally grumpy copilot giggled like a schoolgirl after one of my 'firm arrivals'. Thankfully, that's rare, but it still (sadly!) occasionally happens. Worry not.
 
You are still human, I presume. Humans doing human things. I occasionally trip for, like, no reason at all.
 
Rex Kramer said:
If I see 000/00 on the ATIS I know the landing is going to suck. Way too calm for a nice landing.
Click to expand...
I came home from a cross country last year, with the worst crosswind of my 1000-hour flying life: 18 gust to 35 directly 90 degrees across my home field runway. Somehow, by some miracle, I absolutely greased it in. My flying buddy had been following my progress on flight aware, and a few days later I saw him at the airport. He asked how I was able to get in with such a horrible crosswind, and I bragged that I made a greaser. Later, with 000/00 on the atis he and I flew out for lunch, and I landed with a "crunch" of a drop. We both laughed and he said, "Was that another greaser?"
 
GeorgeC said:
My t/w instructor said I'd relax after about 100 hours, then I'd scare myself, and then things would get better. Pretty much spot on...
Click to expand...

Yeah, that’s the complacency thing. You survive it and you become a bit better.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
In my case, it's more like an occasional really good landing, mixed in with a lot of 'firm arrivals'. And that's with the Cessna Land-O-Matic system. "You can never practice landings too much." (Moving up to my club's Mooney will require stepping up my game!)
 
40YearDream said:
In my case, it's more like an occasional really good landing, mixed in with a lot of 'firm arrivals'. And that's with the Cessna Land-O-Matic system. "You can never practice landings too much." (Moving up to my club's Mooney will require stepping up my game!)
Click to expand...

After getting the occasional greaser in years of flying Cessnas, I found the 201 Mooney a greaser machine. There’s a whole lot of friendly ground effect with that low wing that you never get in a Cessna.

The problem is getting it to touch down where you want it though a 6,000’ runway masks that problem quite well. I found that getting that Mooney below 85MPH (not knots) on final was key to getting it near the spot. YMMV


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
I still consider it a good landing if I’m able to keep it on the asphalt. If you’re standing on the runway when I’m on final, just stand on the center line and you’ll be safe…because evidently that is something that I can’t hit.
 
Nick Kan said:
Im usually a very good lander and I have my PPL with about 80 hours working on my IR. I had a couple of bounced landings yesterday. I just hate having that feeling after that Im a bad pilot or whatever. Is this normal?
Click to expand...
It's possible for ATPs with xx,000 hrs. Don't sweat it and move on.
 
Nick Kan said:
Im usually a very good lander and I have my PPL with about 80 hours working on my IR. I had a couple of bounced landings yesterday. I just hate having that feeling after that Im a bad pilot or whatever. Is this normal?
Click to expand...

Keep practicing, you are very early in your career.

But, one thing that is often overlooked is properly weight correcting your approach speed, and really all your VSpeeds. This becomes more of a factor once you leave the training environment and start flying with varying loads.

In my plane there is a 21 knot variance between MGW/clean and pilot+vapors/full flaps. You can't approach with a single airspeed and expect similar results under varying configurations.

* Orest
 
Last edited:
After 30+ years of flying I’ve never had a bad landing. Nope. Not me. :) The old adage of any landing you can walk away from if fun to quote on those really off days.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top