Never flown a CRJ, but my generic advice is to forget about making it smooth. Concentrate on putting the aircraft down in the touchdown zone and on speed, even if you thump it down. Beyond that, it's all style points anyway.
Oh trust me, the high flare is in no way an attempt to strive for passenger comfort. I think it is more of a reaction to the sensation of
"
HOLY CRAP!!!!!"
when I approach around 50' and I'm still going 155+ kts.
I have to get used to the idea of flying it all the way to the ground, and the fact that the plane is designed to land at such speeds.
Oh, and one thing that was pointed out to me when I was brand new to jet flying was that I was subconsciously pitching up a degree or two when I got close to the runway, causing us to go high like you're talking about. Apparently it's pretty common. Once that was pointed out, I corrected it by concentrating on keeping the nose down to the normal flare height, even if it feels a little unnatural at first. Does the CRJ have the "land by sound" RA callouts (50, 40, 30, etc.)? That should help.
I am starting to pitch it up around 50', and not pulling the power all the way back to idle which then screws up the deployment of the ground spoilers. I had two good landings, and both of those were when I was not really trying.
The CRJ700 does call out the altitudes at 500' 100' and then 50' all the way down to touchdown. My IOE Capt told me to round out and go completely to idle at the 10' foot call. Rationally I thought "No problem, I'll do that," subconscious I thought "Are you nuts!!!! 10' !!!! We'll crash and DIE!!!"
I'll have to put that subconscious behind me and get the plane on the ground.
Floats during landing seem to be from pilots trying to flare like piston engine GA airplanes. Try to think of maintain an angle of attack, and fly the airplane onto the runway at Ref. Let the sink rate carry you, then just raise the nose a little to soften the descent rate. Don't be afraid to float a little. Just put it in the first 3000 feet of the runway and you're solid.
It is that raising the nose
a little which is getting me. It is turning into raising the nose a lot!
I have been told that when you go to idle the thrust vector alone will pitch the nose to where it needs to be, so I'll give that a whirl tomorrow. I just want to get it into the touchdown zone, and get it on the centerline.
You're on you own man!
