Being a new one to the sport I cant imagine anything harder than getting the plane to land in one piece and staying that way.
I picked up the sport on my own but landings are still dicey.

I manage it ok but i seem to have the plane bounce back after touching the ground seemingly thru more elevator control.
Do guide me on the process from the moment you are 1 metre above the ground to the stop
Thanks

The biggest thing on landings is proper airspeed control. To fast and you float forever. To slow and you either land short or stall.
I try to bring my plane in about 5-7 mph above the stall speed.
Controling the desent with the power. and as sone as your over the runway smoothly reduce the power to idle and gently ad up elevator. If you do it right you will run out of up elevator just as the wheels touch. Enjoy.

Craig

To enlarge on the previous post. When landing, use the elevator to control airspeed and throttle to control altitude. Get into this mindset, even say it to your self while landing.

At your 1 metre above the ground and flying straight and level, If you left the controls alone the model would stay like that. Decrease the power and the airplane will sink. If it sinks too fast apply a little up elevator and it will again level out. Get the idea?

The best way to practice landings is to continually do touch and goes until you have it right. It means going round and round and round. But that is what practice is.

Ed S

How the landings are achieved will also be dependant on the type of plane that you are learning with. Is it a basic trainer with lots of dihedral? A mid-wing with a straight wing etc. Some planes will drop like a brick once airspeed lowers too much; some float. Is it a trike gear or a tail dragger?

How planes approach the field will help to determine what type of speed is needed, when to apply the elevator and how much etc.

In addition to the above posts, it's important to know how your plane reacts at slow speed. You might want to try bringing the plane across the field at a higher altitude and slow it down to see the reaction. Enough height will give you some time to react and compensate. This will give you an idea of what to expect (though not 100%) from the plane at stall speed.

Best of luck

Nuker

Everything you've been told is exactly right. To further expound a bit, if you can get your plane on line with the wings level over the end of the runway three feet high, the hardest part is done. The idea is to run out of airspeed and altitude at the same time. I've had good luck teaching landings by having the flier try to keep the plane FROM landing (not by adding power) but not letting it get any higher. Try to hold it at that three feet. As it starts to sink add a little elevator to try to hold that two or three feet of altitude. You'll find the plane will continue to lose speed and begin to slowly settle. As you continue to add up elevator, remembering NOT to let the plane get any higher... just enough to try to keep it from sinking, it will continue to slowly drop till the mains touch down. By then you ought to be out of flying speed and should have no trouble keeping it on the ground. The procedure is the same for a tail dragger or a trike gear. Now, that being said there's no substitute for PRACTICE! Every plane behaves a bit differently. A heavy, high wing loaded plane will have a lot faster ground speed when it touches down as opposed to a lightly loaded "floater". The principle is the same, but it looks a lot different. You just have to shoot landing after landing until you get the hang of how much elevator to use (it usually doesn't take much) to keep it from ballooning up while trying to hold that 2 feet or so of altitude. The idea is, if you touch down with appreciable flying speed it's hard to keep it on the ground. It will tend to balloon back up with any little bounce. On the other hand, if you run out of speed too high, you stall and maybe bend your airplane. Just try holding it off one or two feet from the runway as long as you can and see if that doesn't help your problem.

cool ! now for the best part ... I have been using the engine without the muffler (don't have it)and hence dont get any low rpm at all. I just cut it off abt 20ft from the ground and glide in to land WOW!

Guess waiting for my new engine to come and then i am going to wow the landings.

Any more f/b is most welcome

Once you get that ''click'' it will be simple.......

As one who is recently getting the hang of landing properly.. teh above is great just remember to add elevator SLOWLY to let the plan sink, just a bit will do, if you crank it up you risk a stall or the plane goes back up, get to know the descent rate (glide path) of your plane the you will now to (consciously) let it sink.
I believe that most beginners have a picture perfect landing in the brain and a touch down spot... if for some reason we overshoot or undershoot then we tend to overcontrol and hence get bumpy landings.. let it fall...
Regards,
Patrick

One thing you might not be considering is the attitude of the plane on the ground. Nearly all trainers have wire gear that tend to spread over time. This allows the tail of the plane to sit lower than the nose. Given this attitude, it is difficult to touch the main gear first on landing. If your nose gear touches first, you will be guaranteed a bounce.

Keep your main gear pulled in so the plane sits level. You may want to solder a piece of 1/16 wire between the gear legs down near the axle to keep the gear from spreading.

Once your plane sits level, you should be able to get in some better practice.

I like my students, if their plane doesn't already have it, to put a 1 inch wide stripe down the fuselage side. At 6 feet, about head height, throttle to idle and use elevator to level the plane using the stripe as a reference. At 3 feet, waist high, raise the nose slightly, a couple of inches, check the stripe, and freeze. The plane will land itself. If you stir the stick, you'll only make it worse.

I tried to get to your website, ( http://members.home.net/moorman1/ ) recently and it seems to be unavailable. Will it be back up or have you moved?

Thanks!

RikHye,

You ever seen the James Bond movie when hes sliding down the banister shooting people as he goes and then he shoots the thing off the end just before he slides over it?? No? You didn't see it?

Well anyway, someone told me once that when he lands he visualizes the plane sliding down a banister. The point being, the plane should always be moving forward and down in a smooth motion. It should have slight nose up so its gradually slowing down the whole time.

When you get good, slight corrections can be made with the thottle and elevator so its touches right in front of you.

Thats how I do it! 1/4 scale Caps and EXtras land like a duck!

Visualization is the key word here. Estimate approximately where you want to land and visualize it backwards. Then when you setup to land, if you're way off from that visualization go round again, until it's pretty close. After you get your plane back on the ground, make changes to the visualization to correct for wind, rate of descent, trees, etc.

Also are you flying off grass? I've found that the best way to avoid the bumps on grass is to slow the plane WAY down (like near stall) before touchdown. Bumps in the grass have a tendency to put the plane back into the air if you're too fast.

Something else worth mentioning is that your plane might be nose heavy. If it is, it will make it very difficult to slow down for landings. If this is the case, and you're about to add the weight of a muffler you may really be setting yourself up for trouble.

Thanks everyone I have managed the landing quite well after tuning the engine to idle .

Hey how abt flying inverted i did that yesterday ... feels cool !

BTW anyone have plans for a next step plane maybe a low winger !

Maybe a good second plane would be a T-34. Plane is pretty easy to handle and has a low wing with trike landing gear.
I have a VMAR and I have no complaints. Others like the World Models version and that also is very nice.
Steve

The trick with landings (mostly for trainers) is the gentle balance between a too slow approach (stall) and a too fats one.
what u should do is this:
take ur plane high up in the air and do the approach up in the air,
now turn the throttle to idle like a real landing (dont shut it down) and try to keep it stable (in all the three axis) ul see that the more time passes it will be more unstable.
what u should look for is the lowest speed which in the plane is still controlable and play with the throttle up or down to keep it in that speed.
the next step is to get it lower and lower and over the runway and keeping it steady in low speed till u r confident enough for landing.
One good thing in landing is that the plane will come infront of u and in a low altitude and it will be easier to identufy when its too slow or too fast (my opinion at least).
The final thing is when almost touching the ground, when u see u are slow enough for touchdown u should lower ur nose just a bit and then pulling slowly but constantly the elevator stick, in order for the plane not to bounce u shouldnt apply too much elevator or it will bounce and apon flying in a low speed at the top of the bounce it will stall and bounce back to the grund and up agian, till it stops. so what u should do is apply the elevator gently and never pull it too hard. what should happen is slowly applying elevator till u reach the end of the stick, but be carefull not to apply it too fast, and if u see u are too slow dont afraid to apply a little throttle in order to gain enough speed for not going into stall.

I always recommend the Goldberg Tiger II as a second plane. It looks good, and flies GREAT. I'm not too crazy about Goldberg's building techniques, but I have to admit that as far as stability, slow flight characteristics, and ease of flying, you can't beat that Tiger. Another plus to the design is that once you're over the trainer stage, that little puppy will do every trick in the book!

If you are looking for a good second plane I think one good one is the easy sport 40. It really handles like a trainer except for it does do a few more aerobatics and smoother than a trainer. I bought mine used for $40 dollars and took out my stuff from my trainer and loved it... Now I have about 12 planes and loving the freedom of flight..... GOOD LUCK.....

Do what I did. Go out and but the Great Planes flight simulator lite version, then takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land, takeoff, land.

Do this every day until you dont even have to think about controlling the flare. Your thumbs will KNOW what to do. Do it with ALL of the airplanes in the sim. I think I have landed the sim airplanes more than 5,000 times by now. I was really crummy at first, but I can now squeak them in every time, with or without wind, gusts, variable random direction, etc... I even practice approaches inverted, and them roll upright at about 20 feet altitude. I would never do this with a real plane, but it does excercise the "situational awareness" muscles in my head.

Hi there

Im new at this too and trying to learn by my self. I have a realy big field to fly on and I can land and start at any way I want and thats good when you whant to practice the tuchdown moment. I still think the landing is hard cos I feel like im coming in to fast allt the time and I land verry late. I tryed to do pattern or what you call it and just coming in and never tuching the ground but almos landing and doing that time after time. That helpt me very much..

I had an incredible bounce problem with my RCM Global trainer. The main gear was so soft and springy, even a very gentle landing resulted in a very big bounce.

Cheap, easy solution?

I ran a coat hanger from one side to the other of the mains, wrapped it around, secured it with wheel collars. I then put wheel collars above the cross wire, and adjusted them up or down to select landing gear tension. I can make the gear as hard as a rock, or softer as I wish.

It isnt pretty, but it is light, doesnt require soldering, fully adjustable, and cheap.

Now my landings are a thing of beauty, one good thing about learning to land with a super bouncy airplane, I have a gentle touch down. Of course this is still with trainer only, they are easy to float in slow.


Mill

I have a Groupner Trainer 400 and it bounce too. The front gear always bent to the right as soon as it tuched the grass. I removed the front gear and moved up the main gear and put a small rear weel that just was loose and moved with tha plain. It made it harder to steer on the ground but it was more fun to land and I think its more fun to try to do a 3 point landing...

One thing to remember is that if you do get a bounce on the landing, don't stop flying the plane. I have seen several people freak on the bounce and freeze up and distroy several thousand dollar jets. After the bounce keep pressure on the elevator and if if the speed drops to low and you think your going to stall, add a little power or wave off and go around again.