kdheath

Lots of good material here, gents. Four things stand out in my mind, repeated for emphasis:

1. Use "Stick toward the low wing" when flying toward yourself. Made a world of difference for
me.

2. Learn to use the rudder. It will work when all else is lost. With practice, you can do touch and
gos using only rudder and throttle. Dropping an aileron sharply at low speed increases the
camber of that half of the wing, increasing angle of attack and causing a tip stall. Ka-bang.

3. Try this a couple of times before you laugh: look at the end of the runway from where you
normally stand to fly. There are left hand and right hand corners to the runway,OK? When you
shoot your landing approach, delay turning final until it looks like your plane is going to pass
over the left hand corner of the runway. Then roll level. You'll be centered on the runway
every time.

4. Last and most important-someone mentioned it above-is the airplane Golden Rule: Throttle
controls Altitude. Elevator controls Speed. If you want an airplane to climb, you
have to add power. If you try to climb by pulling back on the stick, you'll get a brief zoom
climb, but eventually the plane settles down at a new, slower speed in level flight.

You can test this easily. Trim your plane out for level flight at 1/2 or 2/3 throttle. Increase to
full throttle and watch. It will climb. Do it again, but pull the throttle to high idle. The nose will
drop. starting a dive. Return the throttle to its original setting. The plane will resume level
flight. Watch closely-the speed will stay the same in all three attitudes. It will go up or down,
but the speed remains constant. Throttle controls altitude.

Do the same thing again, only with elevator. In level flight, roll in 3-4 clicks of back trim. The
nose will go up, but wait, the plane will slow down and resume level flight at a new, slower
speed.
Now trim it nose down 3-4 clicks. At the same throttle setting, it will level off or dive, but at the
same speed as before. Elevator controls speed.

What does this have to do with landing? On the approach, if you are low or short, add power. If
you are long, reduce power. Once you have the plane in a nice flat glide, don't mess with the
elevator again until you are ready to flare. Control your height and distance with power. The
flare is done with the elevator and is done to bleed off the last drop of speed, so you touch
down right at the stall speed of the plane.

It's hard to expain this decently in a few lines. But it is true of all airplanes from your trainer
to the space shuttle. Same rules apply. Oh, another thought. When I am rusty or flying an
unfamiliar plane, I go up a couple of mistakes high and slow-fly a little, to get a feel for the
controls and the stall speed before trying a landing. Another good practice piece is to climb
fairly high-300-400 feet. Go to idle and land without touching the throttle again. A few of
those will make your approaches much more precise and make the landings better. It's good
practice to go out on a windy day and try to fly backwards, too, but that's another
story...Hope there is some help in all this.