Hi, I'm a student pilot who just started doing landings on my own. My instructor tells me to hold the nose off longer on the flare, but I'm too scared to, because I feel like I will scrape the tail. By the way, the plane I fly is a Cessna 162 Skycatcher and it has an extremely sensitive elevator. But I also want thoughts on tailstrikes in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk.
Also, I get scared of the ground approaching fast and desperately want to add power because I feel like the gear will break. What should my vertical speed be when landing?
A couple thousand hours in, I've never had a tail strike on landing. I have had a couple on takeoff! But don't worry about it. It would be really difficult to have a damage-causing tail strike on an otherwise normal landing. Maybe even completely impossible.
Ditto those who say to have someone push the tail to the ground while you're sitting in the plane. I'm sure it's quite a bit higher than you'd expect.
You'll also probably not be able to make the landing gear break *if* you land mains first. And don't even think about vertical speed, it's not important at that point - The VSI can take up to 15 seconds to catch up with what's going on, so it'll never be accurate during landing and you're far more likely to damage the plane if you're looking inside the cockpit at that point.
Your instructor is telling you to hold the nose off longer in the flare *so you don't touch nose first and damage the landing gear!*
Normally, the approach speed is about 1.3x the stall speed, which is plenty of momentum and extra energy to flare without adding power.
Think through the physics sitting on the ground - You can't think too much while you're actually trying to land:
1) When you flare, you're arresting the vertical speed. If you don't flare enough and contact hard on the mains, that's OK - They'll take a helluva beating! What you don't want to do is hit the nose gear hard, as it is much more fragile than the mains.
2) If you over-do the flare, you'll "balloon" and go back up a little. DO NOT PUT THE NOSE DOWN, as if you do you'll likely hit nose-first. If you ballooned because you pulled too fast and hard, keep back pressure on the yoke/stick; the plane will slow down and start to come back down on its own. If you don't have enough energy left to keep you flying until you get all the way down, just go around. If you ballooned because your approach was too fast, just go around anyway.
3) If you don't flare enough, you'll also hit nose first. Don't do that. If you do hit nose first, go around! If you don't, you risk a porpoise and a prop strike.
4) Forward speed: You should have just the right amount, every time. If you get to 100 feet AGL and you're too slow OR too fast, go around.
5) Being too fast means you'll need a lower angle of attack for the same amount of lift, and you'll likely hit nose first. Go around. Landing accidents are more likely from going too fast than going too slow.
6) Being too slow can only happen if you're so slow that the flare stalls you. For this to happen, you'd probably need to be within 5 knots of the stall before you flared. Don't do that.
7) If you can't sense the correct way to flare right away, don't worry about it. Focus on having a stable approach at the correct speed first. Then, level off just above the runway and pull the power out. At that point, drag is greater than thrust and you WILL slow down, which is exactly what you want to happen. As you slow down, you'll need a progressively higher angle of attack to keep lift equal to weight. So, if you can't sense the flare right, just level off just above the runway, reduce power to idle, count to two, and just start to slowly pull back. You will slow down, and the plane will settle onto the runway.
8) Don't think you're done when you've touched down. I used to be so focused on the touchdown that as soon as the mains touched I would release all backpressure and the nose would kind of flop down. Unless the winds are really gusty, keep the same amount of backpressure after touchdown and let the nose settle onto the runway on its own. It's way nicer for both the owner of the airplane and for your future passengers.
Good luck!
