My flight 15/1/07

[ZK-Brock]

Hi guys
Went flying this morning. I turned up to see a busy Nelson airfield. When I stepped out of the hangar I spied a nice big Beech Bonanza with a straight tail. I preflighted RJF (45L in the left tank, 20 in right). We called up tower and got out taxi clearance to taxi hold point Echo. Inbound was an RNZAF King Air, callsign Kingair 81. We did the run-up and pre-takeoff briefs (that I forgot AGAIN ).

Then we were cleared for immediate takeoff, due to the inbound King Air. We gave it half-throttle, got ourselves near the middle of the runway and gunned the throttle. We took off nicely with very little swing. We turned left to exit the zone 1500ft and below.

After exiting the zone we switched to 119.1 unicom and gave our intentions etc. It took us about 5 minutes to get everyones positions etc because of bad position reporting. There was one foreign guy that we could barely understand as well. Unicom was buzzing with transmissions as the Motueka av college was back up and running. Anyway we established ourselves and we did a nice forced landing, I remembered all the processes etc, all went well. We did a few turns and the instructor showed me a max rate turn - 60 degrees of bank! 'twas crazy.

Did a few basic stalls and an onset recovery, then we headed back to Nelson to join the circuit. We joined right base for 20 and did a nice landing - real nice. 'twas my smoothest landing ever up to that point. We did another circuit, this time flapless - and my landing was better still - I was on fire! Anyway for the next one we did a glide approach - basically when the engine stops when you're downwind and you still land normally. We came in quite high, so I dumped all 40 degrees of flap down - the runway had disappeared below our nose so I didn't think much of it. But how much we slowed with idle power! We started basically dropping, very steep approach. Hugely steep. Too steep. I had to nose-down lots to keep our speed up. We weren't going to even make the runway, so I had to add power. One thing that I noticed in all 3 landings was that I floated quite a bit down the runway - didn't baloon, but certainly floated. Any tips?

The landing was ok, not as good as my other two but passable, and very short. We taxied back to the club via Delta and we shut down.

Comments?

Brock

[Mike M]

Sounds good Brock

[BerG]

If you're floating you're probably coming in slightly too fast.

[ZK-Brock]

Hmm ok thanks Berg, I noticed on the last landing that I didn't float much due to a low landing speed (touched down at around 40 knots!), so I may be landing at a too-high speed. However my instructor insists on 60 knots.

[JonARNZ]

Great de-brief, thanks for sharing it with us.

[kiwiflyboy]

The reason you will be floating, is that too much speed is maintained in the level off/flare. come in at your speed of 60 knots, when you cut the power, you want to keep pulling back slowly and your speed should be washing off nicely, the plane should land itself, also on days with little or no wind, (like ardmore today) you will naturally float more because it takes longer to wash off the speed. one thing that can be done, is get rid of the flap in the flare..... you will fall on to the runway..... good in a need to land situation..... but not generally the smoothest. Also ask your instructor why you are floating, I mean you are paying him to teach you, he will be able to describe what was happening better as he was there and knew what the conditions were like.

[mailman]

Are you really learning in a C172? Those big old wings just don't want to lose speed and you really have to crank the old handle back when you flare.

Just get your instructor to demonstrate the flare and take note of how it was executed and then practice, practice, practice until you feel its under control.

Flating can be a real problem, especially when you are landing on a short strip. Then again there is no shame in going around!

Regards

Mailman

[chopper_nut]

What I find really helps with getting a nice smooth landing is to look as far into the distance as you can and hold the back pressure on the elevators, when the scenery starts to rise in the windshield then add more back pressure. This only works of course if you are fairly close to the runway. This is one of the things that I used to struggle with a lot. Of course practice makes perfect. Try flying at WLG in a 35kt wind in a PS38! now thats fun!!!!

[ZK-Brock]

I'm flying a Tecnam P2002, as seen in my avatar. Doesn't slow down very easily. I've found though that with more flap I don't float as much.

[HardCorePawn]

I'm flying a Tecnam P2002, as seen in my avatar. Doesn't slow down very easily. I've found though that with more flap I don't float as much.

thats the extra drag washing the speed off... the best demonstration I had of this was doing flapless landings...

NZPM is like 1800 metres long, with full flap and good airspeed control on finals for 25 you can pull a cherokee up before the first taxiway (whiskey, which is something like 100m from the threshold).

flapless and with little wind, you'll be lucky to be on the ground before x-ray, which is about 500m from the threshold.

its one of those IAS vs. groundspeed things. With a good 20kt headwind, your groundspeed at 60kts IAS could be as little as 40kts. Flapless, with no wind, your groundspeed will be closer to like 70 or 75kts (almost twice as fast!).