Tips for Smooth Landings and Community Insights

fly4fun89

fly4fun89

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Nov 10, 2023
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Lansdale, Pennsylvania
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Display name:
Jeremy V. Marin
Hey fellow aviators,

I'm , a commercial pilot with 10 years of experience, and I wanted to start a thread to share tips and tricks for smooth landings. Whether you're flying a Cessna 172 or a Boeing 777, the principles of a good landing remain the same.

1. Speed Management: Always keep an eye on your approach speed. Too fast, and you'll float. Too slow, and you risk stalling.

2. Flare Technique: Timing your flare is crucial. Start the flare just above the runway, and adjust based on your aircraft's response.

3. Crosswind Landings: Practice makes perfect. Use the crab or sideslip method depending on your preference and aircraft type.

I'm also curious to hear about your experiences. What tips can you share for smooth landings? Have any interesting stories or challenges you’ve faced recently? Let’s make this a place for learning and camaraderie!

Blue skies and smooth landings,
 
Feel free to add your own experiences, questions, and tips to keep this thread lively and informative. Happy flying!

fly4fun89
 
Don’t aim for the runway. Aim for the center line at a specific point.

I see too many pilots letting the plane decide where it’s going to land.
 
Focus on the far end of the runway. Not hard on a 3000' runway. Might be an issue on a 13,000' runway. Focus far down the runway.
Rudder, rudder, rudder ...
Always plan for a go-around.
If the nose wheel is first contact--immediately go around. Do not try to salvage it. Letting it porpoise twice will likely bleed off to too much airspeed to immediately take off.
A bounce on the mains is a judgement call. If in doubt, go around.
 
Domenick said:
Focus on the far end of the runway.
Click to expand...

For me it works better to focus a few hundred feet in front of the plane until I’m well into rounding out. I can’t judge height above the runway while looking at a point a mile away. Once I have the nose coming up, it obscures the near point and forces me to focus way down the runway. I continue that far-point sight picture and hold the plane off until it settles.
 
Adhere to personal minimums. My personal minimum is a 10,000 foot runway.

I'm kinda stuck right now.
 
Domenick said:
Focus on the far end of the runway. Not hard on a 3000' runway. Might be an issue on a 13,000' runway. Focus far down the runway.
Rudder, rudder, rudder ...
Always plan for a go-around.
If the nose wheel is first contact--immediately go around. Do not try to salvage it. Letting it porpoise twice will likely bleed off to too much airspeed to immediately take off.
A bounce on the mains is a judgement call. If in doubt, go around.
Click to expand...
Am new to this pilot thing. What you suggest is apposite what I did last week. Not experienced at cross/gusty wind landings yet. Second try used up all but 20' of a 5000' runway salvaging a bad landing.

Had plenty of fuel. Should have flown away from the airport, settled my nerves, re-grouped and tried again.

It's an old saying what doesn't kill you makes you smarter. Will remember that landing rest of my life.
 
1. Good approach makes a good landing.
2. After establishing power and airspeed, maintaining pitch maintains airspeed.
3. The timeliness, number, frequency and reevaluation of decisions have the biggest effect on quality of landings.
4. Big changes to pitch, power, or bank require big corrections. Make small changes and reevaluate often.
5. Trim is mandatory.
6. Pick one aim point. Changing aim points is a no no.
6. If you don’t know the direction and velocity of the wind, the plane is flying you.
7. The round out is about placing the aircraft at the proper distance above the center of the runway with the longitudinal axis of the plane aligned with flight path for landing and reducing power to idle. The flare is about trying to keep it there and trying to not to the plane climb or land
 
I need a little bit of crosswind and everybody to go away to make great landings. If it's dead calm and/or one person is watching I'll hose up the landing for sure. :biggrin:

As far as looking at the far end of the runway, in my plane the nose tends to get in the way ...
 
Ok… I’m confused.

1. What’s this flare or round out thing y’all keep talking about.

2. Define smooth….

Tools, carrier guy
 
Learn to fly gliders.
 
I was told by my first CFI: “There are three rules you must follow strictly to guarantee a perfect “greaser” landing every time. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are…”

badum dum!

-Skip (King of the drop-ins)
 
Tools said:
Ok… I’m confused.

1. What’s this flare or round out thing y’all keep talking about.

2. Define smooth….

Tools, carrier guy
Click to expand...
I remember back in the 90s, Flying magazine caused a minor dustup, as evidenced by some critics’ letters, with an article on Naval aviation. The woe and misery among the readership sprung from Flying quoting the carrier-based pilots’ purported motto “flare to land, squat to pee.”
 
Tools said:
Ok… I’m confused.

1. What’s this flare or round out thing y’all keep talking about.

2. Define smooth….

Tools, carrier guy
Click to expand...
The FAA uses the terms flare and round out as the same action. I use round out as the estimate and action required to arrest the aircraft’s descent at the proper distance above the runway and the flare as placing the aircraft in the landing attitude. Once you learn landings, it is one action,
 
Smooth - stopping or turning off before you run out of either grass or pavement, and keeping the center of gravity between the front wheels helps a lot. Oh! And if you have gear that goes up and down, you want "down" for grass or pavement. That may be more of a definition based on style rather than other interpretations of "smooth", though.
 
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