Landings (Instructor)
A good landing begins with a stabilized approach, a trimmed nose attitude, and constant airspeed. The student will learn to recognize how the world looks over the nose on downwind, base, final, roundout, flare, and rollout. The student will learn to feel a consistency of control forces used for each application of flaps, in turns, and at power reduction. This consistency is especially true for the rudder. The student will learn to recognize the sounds of the airplane at approach speed, as flaps are added, and as speeds change. These senses have been repeatedly exposed to these situations since flying first started. Now, in landings, the full picture must be flown. We need every skill taught and learned. It is said that it is very difficult to make a poor landing from a GOOD approach. Don't change you flap configuration below 200' AGL. Every yoke movement should be "back". Ideally every power change would be a reduction. A good landing is a combination of TECHNIQUE, and FAITH, and ANTICIPATION.

Aircraft vertical and horizontal speeds are variables that must become constants for obtaining a stabilized approach. During the pattern the wind varies so as to affect your angle of descent. The final decision as to whether you are high or low cannot be made until you are stabilized on final. Once you are stabilized you make the appropriate adjustments of flaps, power, and airspeed if high; or full power if you are low. Diving for the runway is never appropriate. A good landing cannot have excess altitude or excess airspeed. This doesn't mean you should touch down at the very end of the runway. Since we normally land with some power, aim far enough past the numbers to cover possible engine failure. Likewise, runway behind you is not going to keep you from going off the end.

The negative side of any landing approach is the pilot's visual perception as to what is happening. As the ground nears, the speed over the ground is perceived as increasing. As the ground nears, the amount of visual ground decreases in our visual field. The ever-increasing speed of closure affects your sensory perception. Your life history of such closure is that something is about to hit you. The normal instinctive reaction is to stop the FALLING. You will overreact on the yoke instead of what should be what should be a shift of your sight field from the immediate runway to the distant runway and then another shift to the horizon as the nose obscures the runway. Control of this movement is an acquired skill. It takes practice of the right kind to maintain your control over your instincts and control movement.

In a like regard there is considerable pilot difficulty in detecting proper runway alignment. Inexperienced pilots line up on and usually land on the left side of the runway. This same pilot is reluctant to correct this misalignment by lowering a wing so close to the ground, no matter how necessary. Instinct leads us to think that airplanes should land level. A pilot must overcome his inhibitions and accept that a combination of rudder and aileron can slide an airplane sideways across a centerline and can just as well stop such a sliding. The proximity of the ground makes the slide more obvious and it is very easy to over-react to this. Landing on one wheel with one wing down to the ground is very unnatural to our senses. Unnatural but very necessary.

Every landing of an aircraft is a complex of many maneuvers, which are in turn made up of practically all the basic elements of flight. Of these elements airspeed control is primary. Even airspeed control is a complex assembly of sound, movement, visual perception, and memory. Without airspeed control all other elements and maneuvers have a weak link in the chain of competent maneuver performance.

The first landing introduces a new instinctive element to basic flying. Up to this point the basic elements have been formed into maneuvers such as turns, climbs, and descents at altitude. Now the proximity of the ground introduces a new element. The approaching ground triggers an instinctive reaction of avoidance. The neophyte pilot instinctively reacts to halt the closure by raising the nose. This affects the speed. Anything that affects the speed affects the landing. Thus, the initial purpose of landing practice is to show the student that the rate of closure with the ground is controllable. For this reason, our initial practice will not be landings, but rather go-arounds of increasing proximity to the ground.

Why Pilots Tend to Land on the Left Side
As some of you may know, I have spent years trying to find out why students tend to land on the left side of the runway. I have heard from others their reasoning but at last I believe I have found the cause. It is a part of the weak-rudder syndrome.

I have been doing proficiency work for the checkride with my 'Skipper' student. All at once ALL of his landings are on the left side. I mandate that no touch downs are to be made of the left side and that every time this is about to happen he should initiate a go-around. Just as well, he needed to smooth out his go-around procedure.

On the ground before starting in a 'non-movement area' I stand well in front of the plane that is centered on the yellow taxi line. We work to locate a reference point on the cowling to use for taxiing and landing center line reference. He starts the engine and practices taxiing exactly on the line. He does better.

Now when it comes to landings I find that, even though he has been instructed to land on the right side of the runway centerline, during the roundout he begins to drift left. Not using the right rudder when he raises the nose seems to be the problem. The left turning tendency gets even worse when he raises the nose in the flare. He has not learned or remembered about p-factor.

Again on the ground, I go through my P-factor lesson by lowering the tail and having him note the change in propeller pitch angle. It's like a light in his brain being turned on. After a break and lunch, we go up to do some VOR tracking with course reversals. After 15 minutes without the hood to get a visual picture, I put him under the hood for half an hour. His rudder work improves in leaps and bounds since I am having him make course corrections of 10-degrees or less using only the rudder. This takes considerable effort in a Skipper because it is the most 'squirrelly' aircraft I have ever seen. I told him that after succeeding with the Skipper he would have no difficulty in any other aircraft.

We will make one more flight before his checkride with the emphasis upon landing accuracy. With his renewed understanding I do not expect any problems.

The next day a former student asked to fly because of difficulty in making crosswind landings. I mention that we will review Dutch rolls and rudder use. We depart and once airborne I have her fly only with rudder for forty miles. We make numerous heading changes en route and it appears she had become rudder lazy. Landings start out on the left side and touchdown near mid-field.

We work on airspeed control and rudder use. By the fourth landing we are well within our 200' target area in both left and right traffic with 12-knot crosswinds. Happy, happy.

The Standardized Landing (Instructor)
(The Stabilized Approach)
1. Downwind at altitude and cruise speed.
Faults: Not keeping distance from runway. Runway should be in sight over edge of window in right traffic. Leaving pattern altitude before turning base (This is a noise abatement item).

2. Prelanding CHECKLIST:
Fuel, mixture, gauges and instruments. HI/compass
Faults: Running out of time
Untrimmed aircraft
Must include "Go-Around procedure"

3. Abeam the numbers:
Carb Heat, Power to 1500 RPM
Hold heading and altitude
Trim down three full turns for 60 kts

4. Down count on flaps, trim up 1, 60 kts
Turn base
Rudder, forward pressure, back pressure, forward pressure, 60 kts
Faults: Being in too much of a hurry
Being uncertain of trim direction
Angling in toward final approach course
Losing altitude

5. Base:
4 down count on flaps, trim up 1, 60 kts
Turn Final
Rudder, forward pressure, back pressure, forward pressure, 60 kts
Faults: Failing to maintain speed
Failing to adjust base line for high/low

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