Rollout & Flare

African_Swallow

African_Swallow

Well-Known Member
OK, I've been doing this for 7 years now and some recent students are leading me to explore new ideas in teaching this. Does anyone have any fresh ideas to share what works best for them in getting a student to rollout without climbout and flare without fear?

-A.S>
 
African_Swallow said:
OK, I've been doing this for 7 years now and some recent students are leading me to explore new ideas in teaching this. Does anyone have any fresh ideas to share what works best for them in getting a student to rollout without climbout and flare without fear?

-A.S>
Click to expand...

Slow flight in ground effect on a nice 6000+ft rwy. Or, talk them through it, "Back, back, more more, dont you let go of that yoke , hold it!! Chirp... Beautiful nice job!"


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African_Swallow said:
OK, I've been doing this for 7 years now and some recent students are leading me to explore new ideas in teaching this. Does anyone have any fresh ideas to share what works best for them in getting a student to rollout without climbout and flare without fear?

-A.S>
Click to expand...

Without fear, you say?
"I swear to god if you even so much as blink and it makes you balloon half an inch I'm going to drop you off at [random satellite airport] and take the plane back myself!"

In all seriousness though, the slow flight in ground effect can work, but from when I've tried it with my students, it doesn't usually go as planned. That being said, when they do accidentally touch the runway because they let it slip a bit, the touchdowns are absolutely not dangerous, always soft, but holding it in ground effect with a new student can be very taxing, when all their primordial instincts tell them "plane must be put on runway, why am I not landing?" That, or I just suck at teaching the maneuver.
 
nocturnalaviator said:
Slow flight in ground effect on a nice 6000+ft rwy. Or, talk them through it, "Back, back, more more, dont you let go of that yoke , hold it!! Chirp... Beautiful nice job!"


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...
What he said. I usually take control of the throttle during the low approach and have them work on centerline, rudder, and most importantly aileron control. I'll do the go around as well because it can be tricky for a newish student to manage the airspeed and flaps after all that.
 
What everyone before me said .......... plus ......

I was once teaching in an airplane that had one of those devices where you could record and repeat a phrase (intended to capture ATC calls). After a couple trips around, I recorded "hold it off .... hold it off ...... hold it off .... hold it off". Then as we came in to land I would just push the play button. I'd even make a joke and ask him if he wanted to push the flight instructor button this time. For some reason, that clicked in the student's head.
 
Here's how I would teach landings, though it has been a while.

Pick a touch down point (usually a stripe), pick an aim point (a stripe or two before that), make the aim point stay stationary on the windshield. As you cross the threshold, bring the power smoothly to idle (in a light aircraft anyway...speed dependent of course), keep your aim point still. Once the aim point starts to disappear under the nose, start the flare and touch down on your touch down point.

This didn't help everybody, but for most it worked pretty well. You really just have to practice the muscle memory to see the rate at which you have to flare to make that work.
 
One thing I did with one of my students (in a DA-20 Katana) was to bring it down to about 3 feet or so, and have the student put the nose right on the other end of the runway. As we start to descend slowly, tell them to keep the nose on that point. You repeat as necessary until the wheels touch the ground.
 
cstewart6 said:
What he said. I usually take control of the throttle during the low approach and have them work on centerline, rudder, and most importantly aileron control. I'll do the go around as well because it can be tricky for a newish student to manage the airspeed and flaps after all that.
Click to expand...
I meant to say most importantly ELEVATOR contol. A lot of students want to force the plane on the runway too quickly out of nervousness, but force them to keep the nose up and off the ground as long as possible
 
Maybe I'm weird, but what finally made it click for me was when my CFI started teaching me soft-field landings. I'd had a bad habit of stopping flying the airplane at a few feet above the runway. Adding that extra power at the end helped me feel where the airplane was, and helped me fly it all the way down. Was a big help.
 
For tricycle pilots, wheelies down the runway...

Set flaps & trim where you would for takeoff. Do a "soft field" run keep the nose wheel off the ground with out actually taking off.

They're not actually taking off or flying so there's less anxiety and the student is more receptive to learning. This forces them how to maintain centerline with rudder when they cant actually see over the nose. It gives them a looooong look at the landing attitude and teaches them precise elevator control pressures.

They won't land flat if they never learn how to in the first place...
 
I would teach them level flight attitude first as part of a two stage process to landing. "remember this attitude," i would say in level flight. That's the first stage in the whole landing process. Fly the plane down and simply level off. I would next teach them to ever so slightly bring the nose up and tell them "don't let it land' over and over until we did a nice low energy landing. Oh, and teach your students to land the thing straight!!! (Shakes fist). During the roll out I made sure they flew it all the way until the aircraft stopped and the wing touched down. Yes, gliders...
 
If they're american, play the lava game. You take the same long runway concept, and just make the runway into lava. They don't want to touch it, and if the nose gear touches it's a go around. Have them play with the pitch and power at varying amounts to get a feel for the airplane. If they go too far and stall, well it's just a hard landing. If they add too much power, let them correct if you have length remaining. Otherwise go around time to try again. When doing this, don't worry about the pattern much, as their concentration will be on the landing. You might even want to fly the pattern to make it quick.

For crosswinds I do the same thing. I show them how to land on one wheel, and just hold us in that balance for 2000-2500 feet or so before taking off. When your student does it, be on the controls so they don't side load. Once they have it though, their crosswind landings will get much better.
 
ProudPilot said:
If they're american, play the lava game. You take the same long runway concept, and just make the runway into lava. They don't want to touch it, and if the nose gear touches it's a go around. Have them play with the pitch and power at varying amounts to get a feel for the airplane. If they go too far and stall, well it's just a hard landing. If they add too much power, let them correct if you have length remaining. Otherwise go around time to try again. When doing this, don't worry about the pattern much, as their concentration will be on the landing. You might even want to fly the pattern to make it quick.

For crosswinds I do the same thing. I show them how to land on one wheel, and just hold us in that balance for 2000-2500 feet or so before taking off. When your student does it, be on the controls so they don't side load. Once they have it though, their crosswind landings will get much better.
Click to expand...
I did mostly the same thing. Never called it the Lava Game though. I like it! I would have them play a game to see how long they could keep the plane just off the runway. I would also have them fly in ground effect but the first time or two around i would work the power for them so they could focus more on elevator control. Seemed to work for the most part.
 
poser765 said:
I did mostly the same thing. Never called it the Lava Game though. I like it! I would have them play a game to see how long they could keep the plane just off the runway. I would also have them fly in ground effect but the first time or two around i would work the power for them so they could focus more on elevator control. Seemed to work for the most part.
Click to expand...
I should mention that I do encourage them to touch the runway, but then to add power and float just a few inches above the runway for as long as they can.

Also, watch for a tail strike, very common to get complacent and make a trike into a tailwheel.
 
Tail strike is a very real concern, but that is why you are there...prevent the bad. I found that most of the time the student ended up making a good landing out of it anyway.
 
Tail strike? That's what those little skids over the tie down ring are for....

Man, if you're scraping the tail on landing in anything other than a Diamond, Cirrus or Skycatcher something is VERY wrong.
 
To get the outside view of the flare burned into a students mind I landed the aircraft and added just enough power to keep the nose at the proper attitude. Clicked for the student. Obviously a tail strike would be a concern when doing this, however don't' let your student do it :)
 
TwoTwoLeft said:
Tail strike? That's what those little skids over the tie down ring are for....

Man, if you're scraping the tail on landing in anything other than a Diamond, Cirrus or Skycatcher something is VERY wrong.
Click to expand...
Truth. Although the C206 could potentially strike the tail on a flaps zero landing.
 
Apparently in a skyhawk with a passenger in the backseat and zero-flap landings, its quite easy. That being said, I just took my pre-solo primary student for a few trips around the patch the other day, and one thing that really seemed to help was, instead of doing the "low pass," on one of our landings, I just asked tower for an extended rollout on the touch and go (7,300' runway) and after the touchdown, I had her hold the nose off as long as possible, in the touchdown attitude, and I added just enough power back in to hold it there. Doing it after the touchdown seemed to take away the apprehensiveness of touching down and made it a fun exercise. It also helped that there was about 8 knots of crosswind component, and at the low speeds, alot of rudder and opposite aileron input was necessary to keep it aligned. After about a thousand feet of that, I gave the throttle control back, we took off, and the rest of the landings that day were nice and soft.
 
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