Can somebody go through the sequence so I can see it in writing and then practice it on the sim and then for real?
My instructor cleared me to fly on my own, but I'm having problems with coming in too hot, porpoising and flipping over in the tall stuff at the end of the field. No damage to anything besides my ego and several wood props (before I switched to a MA).
Do I ease back on power on the downwind? Wait until base or final? How far out from the end of the strip should I be lined up, and how high? At what altitude and distance from the strip do I chop power?
My instructor isn't going to be available for a couple of weeks (a work thing) and I didn't get enough tutorage on this point.
I can fly, manuever, do loops, rolls and take-off's fine, but my landings are U-G-L-Y!
Situational details: Aircore Cub (taildragger, of course), OS.46FX, Hitec Flash 5 (using standard 4 channel setup), 300' grass strip, no nearby obstacles other than tall grass surrounding the strip.

Practice rectangles in both directions. One will be the take off and landing with wind conditions from the left and the other from the right. Make sure the engine is working well and you have a reliable idle and transition to full power. Don't try to land but practice putting the plane in the proper place each time. Throttle should be about half on the down wind leg and then lower on the base. Remember throttle is altitude and speed is elevator. (If you loose engine power NOTHING you do with the elevator will make the plane fly again).

Keep practicing and enjoy this wonderful hobby.

EXCAP232

Every plane is different, and each plane will have different power needs depending on the wind velocity. Downwind leg is usually about half throttle. Practice your approaches without actually touching down until you find the right combination of power and throttle chop. You'll soon find yourself making adjustments for different wind speeds.

Make several landing approaches at two mistakes high. Then reduce throttle until the plane stalls. Try to remember where the throttle was set, and how long your "approach" was before the stall. (Of course, all this will change with wind speed and direction, but you'll get a better feel for the plane's flight characteristics.)

Theoretically, you want the wing to stall just as the plane touches the ground, but I'd recommend keeping it a couple mph above stall until you're safely down.
Dennis-

I generally just did hundreds, maybe thousands, of touch and goes on the sim. You will get very good at landing if you do this. I can now land the real plane better than just about anybody I see. I can also fly in gusty winds. The other day I flew my 7.5 lb UCD3D in 22mph+ and gusty winds. The plane was twitchin' like a flounder on the deck, but I was on top of it the whole time. Flying in wind is great, it's the landing in that kind of gusty wind that is the problem.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TailDraggin
[B]Can somebody go through the sequence so I can see it in writing and then practice it on the sim and then for real?
//SNIP//
Do I ease back on power on the downwind? Wait until base or final? How far out from the end of the strip should I be lined up, and how high? At what altitude and distance from the strip do I chop power?
//SNIP//
I can fly, manuever, do loops, rolls and take-off's fine, but my landings are U-G-L-Y!
//SNIP//

Yep, we learn it all very soon, those TOs and flying around, then spend the rest of our lives learning to land.

Go to the center of the runway. Look straight out on the final approach and find a landmark that will be easy to see in the background without focusing on it. Make a mental note.
Now from your pilot station, mentally draw the picture-straight-line from your initial turn to base, square or round, but mentally store that line as it will be your altitude reference.
Your model is now on downwind, an estimated couple hundred feet out from runway center. At a straight-out point start a power reduction and HOLD THE ALTITUDE. This will very likely cause you to have to HOLD a slight back-pressure on the elevator stick.
When about 25 -30 degrees off your straight out front line, start your base and use the model's attitude to maintain a slower airspeed. If sinking too much BURST some power in short bursts. If holding altitude, reduce power more. Fly those mental lines.
Your final approach should be some 150 ft. out and about 20-30 ft high. Fly straight to the end of runway with obstacle clearance.
TECHNIQUE Turn your final so the model is about in line with the points you found when looking at the final approach. For a short time fly the model at nearly directly at yourself. Then better align when you are approaching the end of the runway.
If you get LOW, ADD POWER, then adjust. If too high, power back. Sometimes with a model you can get away with shoving the nose down then re-establishing the glide path. Not a recommended thing!!!
Over the end of the runway, about a couple wingspans high, just hold the nose in an attitude to allow the model to slightly settle at idle power. Keep increasing back-pressure while maintaining heading and slight sink. Let her settle in with nose slightly high. Nothing to it!!
If you balloon it, add power and go around. Ballooning and porpoising ain't friendly critters.

That's what I'm talkin' about! I can do that. Just needed to read it so I can let it sink in.
Thanks to all others for the helpful hints as well!

Another thing, if your landings are still hot after taking these recommendations, try "slipping" your plane....on your final turn, give it a little opposite aileron and rudder......for example, if you're banking left with your ailerons, give a little right rudder....just a very small amount of each. This will definitely help slow the plane down......of course, don't do this if you are at or near stall speed.....I typically use this if I come in for a "short field" approach and need to slow down faster.

Mike

One last thing is that your plane may be a tough nose heavy. That can prevent it from slowing down properly.

the way I land...

first you need to know the stall speed of the airplane. not how fast it looks to you on the ground but how it feels and behaves at that speed. practice pretty high.. slow it down while making shallow s turns. notice how the response slows down as the plane looses speed? pay attention to this. note the feel when the plane drops. this is the speed you want reach as the wheels touch the ground.


now come into the downwind and throttle back till you get to about 20-30mph above that speed, judge it by feel, not your eyes because you cant see the airspeed, only "feel" it.

turn your base maintaining this speed. where you turn is dependent on the field and the plane, on our field a "hot" plane needs to come in over the trees, a floater can turn before the tree line. a trainer can be relatively short and low.

when you turn final drop the speed to about 10-15mph above the stall speed, this is were its tricky because you need to line everything up and keep enough speed to prevent the stall.

as you descend keep that speed until you get to about 5 feet then gentle flair and bring the plane to a few inches above the ground.

as the plane slows feed up elevator to keep that few inches above the ground, as you do this it will slow the plane down more and more as the drag from the increased angle of attack takes effect. If you put the plane on the ground now the plane will keep more speed because the wings will stay at a low AoA and not produce as much drag.

when the tail wheel and main gear are even stop feeding the elevator and hold it. (on a trike gear when you got about 5-10 degrees of pitch) the plane will settle on all three at once for a three point landing.

the trick is keeping the plane at those few inches, you need to be smooth on the elevator and not overshooting/undershooting the flare. (its better to flare a bit high and let it come down then to bounce it due to too little flare.)

with a little practice you should be able to get the flare to where you hold it so low you cant tell if the wheels are touching until they start spinning

good luck and practice practice practice. spend a few tanks doing nothing but touch and goes, if the wind is calm do a T&G, turn around and do one the other way over and over.

Let me add just a little to Horace's discription as he teaches the same as I teach.

Whne you have the plane lined up coming toward you watch it carefully and try to deturmine if it is coming right toward you in both direction and sink rate. In other words it should be heading straight at you. If the plane is gaining altitude going over your head then reduce power a click or two. If the plane is sinking toward your feet then you need to add power a click or two. This will make you land almost in front of you and is a great technique for spot landings.

Practice
Practice
Practice

Above all, if it looks bad in the beginning then it will be a bad landing so just add power and try again.

well I typically decend slowly until 12" off the ground or so and keep that altitude till it just slowly drops to the runway. I landed 4 dead sticks today with this method... all perfect landings, not all on the runway though.. but no damage.. thats the main thing.. no damage

Hi TailDraggin,

You mention coming in too hot, porpoising and running off the end of the runway.

I think that Unstable is right on the money. You need to learn to fly the plane slowly. All of the things that you mention are symptoms of flying the airplane into the ground with too much airspeed.

When I teach landings, I recommend focussing on attitude. Specifically, you want to pay close attention to the pitch of the plane. Once you make the turn from base leg to final, the nose of the plane should never point down at all - even a little. It should always be either level or nose up. If you find that you don't descend with the nose level, or you climb with a slight bit of nose up, then you have too much power.

In my opinion, "elevator" is an unfortunate name, because it doesn't really control whether the plane goes up or down. Rather, it controls pitch. Throughout all the things I recommend below, concentrate on using the elevator exclusively to control pitch, and not altitude. Getting the hang of this will cure your porpoising.

Also, I'm assuming that you are not having any problems lining up on the runway, so I'll recommend an exercise to learn to fly at approach speeds. I won't bother to mention lining up on the runway and stuff.

Take the airplane up and practice some slow flight, per Unstable's suggestion. Then get into the pattern and do some flights (at a good comfortable altitude) over the runway. On each pass, keep the pitch such that the nose is level with the ground and reduce the power each time around. As you reduce power, you should notice that you have to hold a little bit of back pressure on the elevator stick to keep the nose up to level.

Eventually, you will find a power setting where the nose is pointed straight ahead, you are holding a bit of back pressure, and the plane is descending at something that looks like a comfortable landing descent. This will be your basic approach configuration. Also note that you should not try to manuver (turn) at this speed unless you are comfortable with slow flight or high enough to recover from any mistakes. Also, it's helpful to know that the rudder is definitely your friend when turning or maintaining course in slow flight.

Practice climbing and descending a few times until you are comfortable with the approach configuration above. The next thing to try is to *very gently* ease the elevator back from that position. The goal is to bring the nose up just a little bit without climbing at all (in fact, if you do it right, you should continue to gradually descend even with the nose high).

At this point, you are using the elevator stick as a brake, and the throttle to control your descent. Try feeding in *very gently* a little bit of power while being careful to maintain a constant pitch. As you add power, you should see the rate of descent lessen. Add a bit more power and you should start to gently climb. Reduce the power again, and you can start to descend. Go to idle, and you should descend a bit quicker. If you cannot get a good rate of descent with the nose up and at idle, then your idle is probably too high (or maybe you've got too much pitch on the prop - not likely on a trainer).

Ultimately, after you've practiced these descents at a comfortable altitude, it'll be time to shoot some real approaches. One exercise that I find helps to improve my students' (and my) landings is that I get set up on the approach and cross the runway threshhold in a landing configuration with the nose up. Then, instead of landing, I modulate the throttle as the plane flies down the runway. As you gently add and reduce and add power (while constantly using the elevator stick to maintain the nose-up attitude), you should see the plane climb then descend and then climb again. After you get the hang of this, you should be able to set the plane down on the runway *exactly* where you want it.

I fly at a grass field with lots and lots of overrun space. Because of this, I don't worry about a dead stick during any of these things. If the engine quits, I just land short in the deep grass, or long in the deep grass. Depending on how your field is set up, you should be aware of issues landing short or long. If there are obstacles off the end of the field, don't do the throttle modulation exercise far enough down the runway to have a problem in the event of a dead stick. Also, once you're getting comfortable with all of this, it's a good idea to get into the habit of shooting your entire approach, from downwind to touch down at a low idle. That way, if the engine quits on approach, you'll never land short.

I hope that something here is helpful,
-Wade

...to all for the great info. I've printed out this thread to present to the other new guys at tonight's club meeting. If there are copyright issues, please let me know now.
You guys are the best!

Very good discussion!

When I was learning, my big problem was landings. I couldn't land smoothly.

I got bad advice initially: I was told to chop the throttle to idle on final and let it "glide" in. The plane lost too much altitude to even make the field, and I started feeding in up elevator to (or attempt to) preserve altitude. Bad habit to develop! I'd either lose airspeed and stall at 4-8" or come in too hot and bounce. Once I was told (or I figured out) to modulate the throttle to maintain altitude/control glide path and use the elevator for pitch control, my landings improved.

Wade, "unstable" and Horrace have it right.

On thing I found helpful was to go around and make landing approaches. Each pass, decrease the throttle a bit more each time until you get a good glide slope. When you are close you can modulate the throttle up or down to gain or lose altitude.

Practice, practice, practice.

Bad landing habits tend to snowball. If you have a bad landing, you get nervous the next time and have a badder landing, and so on downhill.

Oddly, my landings started improving when I started flying sailplanes. In that case, the throttle stick operates the spoilers, which are the glide path control. But flying "on the wing", you get very attuned to what the elevator/pitch control does to airspeed and you use the elevator sparingly.

I always practice landings with the throttle at idle. The reason for this is: deadsticks! I always start from a height that will allow me to make a good landing while glidng only. I also can do a deadstick landing perfect every time because of this. Every one of my landings is "deadstick". I personally think this is a good habit to get into. It develops the sense of potential energy that your model has. I do not like to "save the approach" with addition of power. This always makes me think "what if I HAD no power to add at this point?"

TailDraggin, you got some good advise from the above posts. I would like to add one thing that gave me fits, and still does at times. Don't concentrate so hard on the plane that you loose focus of its surroundings. Over concentrating can cause great problems with depth perception, or at least it did for me and I found it would cause me to land either in the tall grass just before the field or just off the far side of the runway.
Now I purposely shift my focus for just an instant to the end of the field, etc. if at a new location just to make sure. No problems now where I normally fly at.
Ed M.

Mtthomps,

What type of planes do you fly?

The reason why I ask is because I've found that some types of planes require the management of throtle during the landing process, If you get in the habit of allways landing "deadstick" you could run the risk of stalling certain type of planes (warbirds and aerbatic planes like the extra-300s come to mind)

I fly fun fly, 3D, and heavy and light SPADs. The fun fly and 3D type planes are much better floaters, but the SPADs I fly have a much steeper glide slope. Its all in the management of flare timing. Even a plane with a steep glide slope, like a warbird, or a SPAD QHOR, can be landed with the engine at idle. I just bring it in much steeper, and flare it authoritatively in ground effect. If it can fly, it can glide; just not at the same glideslope. Look at the space shuttle. It has a VERY steep glide slope

And every landing deadstick! Those guys are good!

Thanks for the reply,

Don't the flight computers handle most of the landings?

the intial entry and s turns are computer. the final approach to landing is done by the pilot. the computer can theoretically land the shuttle fine but I do not think anyone has tried it yet.

Thanks,

thought I read some place that something like 90-95% percent of the flight was under computer control with only the final approach and touchdown down by the pilot

The above advice is very similar to the way I am being taught at this time. If I may add one little thing. Don't do like I did and get in the habit of using the same flying station every time you fly. Try and practice the above mentioned techniques from both ends of the runway and near the middle. Also, (wind permitting) practice your approaches or patterns in all possible directions. The wind can change on you in mid-flight and really throw you a loop if your not used to landing in the opposite direction.

Mike E