sparky577

What does it mean to "Balloon" during landing? I've been fling for a few years, on and off, and i've never heard the term. Thanks for any input.

elenasgrumpy

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That would be when in an attempt to land, as you approach the runway & are beginning to bring her down to the ground the plane will balloon up on you. Or in other words it will rise up, sometimes quite violently. My friends Sukhoi would do it so bad it would take numerous attempts to get it on the ground. Each time he thought he had it, it would shoot back up from maybe 5 or 6ft off the deck to 20 to 30 ft in the blink of an eye. I think he was too tail heavy. This is the only way I know of that I've heard the term "Ballooning" used, I may be wrong or there maybe other ways in that this term is used, but this is the only one that I know of. Hope it helps some, more importantly I hope it is correct.[&:]

Mr. Canadian

I thought "ballooning" ment when you came in too fast and too steep and planted it hard on the ground and bending the landing gear. Being tail heavy does cause this to happen, you'll come in to land and as soon as you flare a little too much the plane will jerk up as if a sudden gust of wind hit it.

elenasgrumpy

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Yup, that is exactly what it was doing. I thought that is what 'Ballooning" was, but as I stated I could be wrong.[&:]

alan0899

G'day Mate,
The cause of "Ballooning" is quite simple, the aircraft has too much airspeed, when up elevator is applied to flair for landing, If this happens it is usually because of a not so great approach. A dive toward the ground, causes a buildup of airspeed, followed by a ballooning as up elevator is applied, easy to fix, just apply enough elevator to level the plane, at low throttle of course, at about 2 to 3 ft. off the ground, but not enough to raise the nose above the horizontal, the plane will loose airspeed & when you see the plane begin to sink again, this is when a gradual application of up elevator should be applied to flair for landing. It may take a few tries to get it right, but it will be worth the effort, & will save lots of broken props & bent landing gear.

Dr1Driver

Alan is right. If the plane has too much speed when the pilot begins the flare, it will "balloon". That is, begin to climb again. When the speed bleeds off it will sink normally. This can also be aggravated, especially with low wing planes, by ground effect. That's where a cushion of air is trapped under the wing, providing more lift than usual, holding the plane in the air longer than expected.

Dr.1

bruce88123

Alan and DR1 are correct. Best approach is slow stable approach with a fixed pitch attitude and decent rate controled by the throttle where only a subtle flare (if any) is needed before touchdown.

Rodney

While excess speed is a common cause, there is one more possibility. If a tail dragger and the main gear is to far forward, you will almost always balloon on landing attempts. You want the main gear on a tail dragger to be just a bit ahead of the CG, usually about in line with the leading edge of the wing assuming a straight constant chord wing planform. Any further forward and landing will be difficult to do gracefully.

coolbean

Other than landing, there is one other place ballooning can occur. Usually in trainers with high lift wings and a lot of downthrust. When in level flight at full throttle, if you cut the throttle quickly you loose the downthrust immediatly, but you don't loose the airspeed and thust lift, so the plane "balloons" up.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Actually, "Ballooning" has nothing to do with landing - it is just often observed during landings

As several people said, it has everything to do with a high-lift wing traveling faster than it needs to.

One of the best examples is when turning a trainer: If the nose is allowed to drop during the turn, the plane will pick up speed. Then, once the wings are leveled, the wing will translate that speed into lift, and so the plane will balloon as soon as the wings are level.

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

So would it be safe to say that ballooning is simply unwanted or unplanned lift?

sparky577

Thanks for the answers guys. Now that I know what it means, I've actually done it a lot, but i'm getting better. I really enjoy doing landings. I just take off, circle around, and land. I like to see how many times I can do it before I "balloon", and choke the engine out. One good thing, though, I've gotten really good at bump-starting an engine. It's not usually a problem, since most of the time, only one person flies at a time in my club. Most of the guys like to sit for an hour and talk, fly 5 minutes, then sit down and resume their conversation. Happy flying! If anyone is ever around Culpeper, Va, come on out and join us. We always welcome visitors. My club is the Skyline Flyers.