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Old 04-22-2011 | 02:52 AM
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Luchnia
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From: Amelia, VA
Default RE: Landings - How Do You Do It?

For me, I don't put as much in the science of landing as many do here. I practice approaches which has been the key for me and also spent time learning the characteristics of my various planes thoroughly. Some I still have not learned all the flight characteristics, but these two things has been the primary factors for my learning and if one thing stands out above all it is approach, approach, approach.

I spent some time observing the folks that struggle with landing and crashed the most and the single most consistant factor was simply the approaches. Out of that I found that angle and speed were the killers. The majority of the time they were not lined up with the runway and that caused them to have to work to correct and have to over use the throttle too much.

I have actually practiced bad approaches with one of my beater planes to see just how that affects me and I was amazed and how much more work I had to do to land the aircraft. Although, now after a couple of years I can drop some of my planes down almost completely crossways of the runway or bring them in on a bad approach and still get down to a smooth landing. That comes with practice and knowing your aircraft's flight characteristics. I do still have a long ways to go, but I am very glad of this improvement in my flying skills.

Happy flying and landings!