This ONE THING Will Fix Your Landings!

Welcome to pre-pilot training. Landings are probably one of the most challenging parts of flying and the reason for that is because it's extremely difficult to know when to start the flare. In fact, this is the most common question I get asked from new students and even older pilots that's been flying a while and today I'm going to explain the flare in detail and this is going to fix your landings. All right, clear. All right, your flight controls. I need a traffic skyhawk three one four x-ray departing one seven. We're staying a pattern, we need it. Finals clear. Hills on the floor, let's roll. Airspeed's coming alive already. Oh, it's beautiful. Oh, almost hit a bird there. Now, there are actually a few different ways you can know when to start the flare and one of those is to use your peripheral vision. In fact, this one's so common that your instructor probably doesn't teach any other method. Eventually, you will learn to use your peripheral vision when you land but there are a couple problems with that. First, if you're a new student, you don't know what visual cues to look for as your airplane's getting closer to the runway. So, how are you going to know when to start the flare if you don't know what those are? Your instructor has probably explained that you should look at the end of the runway as you begin the landing phase but that doesn't really help you judge your height above the runway. The purpose in that is actually to make sure your airplane is in a good landing attitude and not in a crab when you touch down. Second, if you're an older pilot, your peripheral vision gets worse as you get older. So, as you get older, you can't really rely on your peripheral vision as much as you used to to make your landings. Landings may never have been an issue for you in the past when you were younger but now that you've gotten older and your peripheral vision has deteriorated, you may need to revert to other methods if you want to get those landings back to normal. Third, if you go on to fly airplanes other than the ones you were trained in, the visual cues you'll see with your peripheral vision are going to be different. So, by reverting to these methods every time you change airplanes, the transition is going to be that much easier because your peripheral vision will develop on its own as you gain proficiency in your new aircraft. Okay, so if we want to know when to start the flare, we need to know two things. We need to know our height above the runway and our closure rate. As you're probably already well aware, the roundout is when you begin the transition from our descent into a landing attitude. And according to the airplane flying handbook, you should begin the roundout approximately 10 to 20 feet above the runway. But this is the first problem. How do you know where that is if you haven't fully developed your peripheral vision yet? Now, one technique I've heard is to imagine a flagpole directly beneath the aircraft. But a more accurate method is to fly a three-degree glide slope and to use the triangle method. Now, I'm about to throw up some trigonometry here on the screen, but don't let that scare you off. You don't have to know how to do any of this math. I just want to show you something. Notice that if you fly a three-degree glide slope at any given height, you can determine your distance from a certain spot on the runway by using a little bit of math. If I fly a three-degree glide slope at 20 feet above the runway, I will be 382 feet from that spot. If I'm at 15 feet above the runway, I'll be 287 feet from that spot. And at a height of 10 feet, I'll be at 191 feet. This means that if I fly a three-degree glide slope, I can determine my height above the runway from my horizontal distance from my aim point without having to guess what a flagpole looks like under my aircraft and trying to look at the end of the runway at the same time. There are a few different ways we can do this. One way is by using the precision approach path indicators or PAPIs. You can also use the VASIs or visual approach slope indicators. Just be cautious when you do this though because VASIs can have a glide slope as much as four and a half degrees. And this is going to throw our math off a little bit if you're coming in that steep. Now, a lot of instructors don't teach their students how to use an aim point or they don't teach students how to use an aim point until you start your short field landings. But if you start using an aim point right away, this is going to help you determine when to start your roundout and flare. And this is going to make a huge difference on your landings. So let's discuss how to use an aim point for just a minute. Now, your aim point is not where you intend to land. It's actually about 200 feet in front of where you intend to land. It's the place you pick on the runway where your glide slope intersects the runway. And the reason you aren't landing on your aim point is because the airplane needs to bleed off a tiny bit of energy to reach its stall speed before you touch down. This is why your landings will tend to float if you're too fast and the opposite is true if you're too slow. In fact, if you're too slow, your airplane could develop a fast sink rate and it can even stall a couple feet above the runway. And this is what I call plopped in landing. So it's important to be right on your airspeed as you're crossing the threshold. Now, when you're descending towards the runway, you might've noticed a spot on the runway that doesn't move. The rest of the runway might seem a little bit blurry, but this spot is much more clear. This clear spot you're seeing is your aim point. If you were to continue the descent all the way to the runway and not round out and not flare, this is where you would crash. But you don't want to do that. And if you do, I don't want to fly with you. You want to make a smooth round out and flare and an awesome touchdown. Otherwise you wouldn't be watching this video. Beautiful. Hey, that was almost as good as mine. I do what I can. All right. Flaps coming up. Flaps are up. Carb heat off. Power's coming in. Power's set. But with all that in mind, we want to control our aim point and fly as close to three degrees as we can so we can nail that flare. So to do that, we need to pick a reference point on our windshield. Now every plane's a little bit different, but in most Cherokees and Cessnas, you'll notice that with full flaps, a good spot to pick is about a fist length above the dash. If you're landing with flaps up, your nose will be higher and your aim point's probably going to be on the dash. That's actually why a lot of people find no flap landings a lot easier, because you're already in a landing attitude as you're coming down final. And so there's basically no round out and flare. Anyway, now that you have your reference point on the windshield, you need to pick an aim point. Typically, I pick the threshold unless I'm at a big airport. In that case, I'll use the captain's bars or thousand footers, but that's just my personal preference. I get flack for using the threshold as an aim point sometimes because some people think that that leaves no room for error, which just isn't true. You aren't landing on that spot. You're landing about 200 feet beyond that spot. Anyway, now that I've picked my aim point, I want to keep my reference point on my windshield right on that spot. If my aim point moves above my reference point, I'm getting low on glide slope or drug in. If my aim point gets below my reference point, I'm getting high on my three degree glide slope. Now, how do I fix the problem if I'm not on glide slope? On final, we still want to pitch for airspeed and use power to control our altitude. However, if I reduce power, my propeller is producing less thrust. So I need to offset that by pitching down very slightly to avoid bleeding off airspeed and getting slow. If I'm getting slow and I pitch down, but I'm right on my glide slope, I need my wings to create a little more lift so I can keep my glide slope. So I'll fill in a tiny bump of power. So yes, it's true, we need to pitch for our airspeed and power for our altitude, but you need to use them together if you want to control that glide slope all the way down final. And this is the first step in nailing that roundout and flare. And now we're headed towards our aim point. And now we know because of that trigonometry we did earlier, that if we are in fact on a three degree glide slope and we start the roundout between 191 and 382 feet from our aim point, we're going to have a buttery smooth landing. When you first start using this method, I would recommend shooting for about 300 feet from your aim point. But as you get better, you can start rounding out closer and closer to 191 feet as you feel more comfortable. I typically start about 250 to 300 feet from my aim point, but that's just my personal preference. But how do we determine how far we are from our aim point? There are several ways to do this. Here at my airport, we have a 210 foot displaced threshold and I can only see about 40 feet directly in front of my airplane. So I know when my spinner is just about to hit the pavement, from my point of view, I know I'm about 250 feet from my aim point. So this is where I like to start my roundout. If you don't have a displaced threshold like I do, another method is to use the runway stripes as a size reference. Individual stripes are 120 feet long, and the spaces between them are 80. So two stripes with one space in between is a good size to shoot for when you're using this technique, because that's about 320 feet from your aim point. Add that 40 feet under the nose that we can't see, and that puts us at 360 feet from our aim point. And if I do a little trigonometry here, that would mean we're about 19 feet high. So just imagine two stripes in front of your aim point, and when your spinner touches that first stripe, this is where you'll start the roundout. And if you're getting your flight training at a big airport, where they have captain's bars or thousand foot markers, you'll even have two stripes right in front of them that you can use to do this. So in this case, you can see exactly where to start the roundout, because you'll see your spinner hit the front of that stripe. Now, what do you do when you want to start the roundout? It's actually way less than you might think. I want to give you a little memory aid that the Air Force teaches their pilots when they're learning to land. I think you'll find this useful. Crack, shift, idle, flare. Now, what does all that mean? First of all, I want to reiterate that you need to be the correct height above the runway in order for this to work. And I just explained one way you can do that. But once you know that you're at the correct height, because your spinner just hit that spot 360 feet in front of your airplane, now you're ready to use my little mantra. Crack, shift, idle, flare. Crack. Crack the power back. Whatever power you have in, take half of it out immediately. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just get it as close as you can as quick as you can. Shift. Shift your aim point. The entire time we've been flying down final, our reference point has been on our aim point. For this video, my aim point has been the threshold. Once again, don't confuse the aim point with your landing point and the spot we just talked about where we can start our roundout. Your aim point is what's been guiding you down final. And now we want to shift that aim point. This is a very small movement. All we're doing here is bringing that reference point on our windshield up to where we intend to land. And remember, that should be 200 feet or so past your aim point. In this video, my landing spot is going to be the beginning of that second stripe. So I'm just going to gently raise the nose of my airplane until my reference point is on that spot. Idle. Pull the power back to idle. That's pretty self-explanatory for most of us. At this point, you should be at idle power and you're headed towards your landing spot, but you're not quite done yet. You need to start the flare, but I want you to wait for something very specific to happen. I want you to wait until your spinner hits your original aim point before you do this. When that happens, your airplane should be two to three feet off the ground. This is the perfect height to start your flare. Out of the corner of your eye, you're going to notice a significant increase in what I like to call ground rush. The runway will get really big, really fast in the corners of your windscreen. These peripheral cues can be used later once you develop a feel for your airplane, and you can revert to using these cues once you feel comfortable. Up until this point, your reference point on the windshield is still on your landing spot, and the place you started the roundout is just behind you. But the instant the spinner hits your aim point, I want you to gently pull the nose up until the cowling just barely touches the horizon. And a lot of times, you don't even have to raise the nose up that high. This is going to bring the nose wheel just above the main gear. Now, how fast do we need to pull? Remember from earlier, we said we need to know two things in order to have good landing. We need to know our height above the runway and our closure rate. Our closure rate is how quickly we're sinking towards the runway. So how quickly you pull back depends on how quickly you're sinking towards the runway. The faster you're sinking, the faster you need to pull back on the yoke. If you're floating a bit because you're fast or you have high winds, you need to be more gentle when you're pulling back on the controls. With that in mind, as you begin the flare, you need to be somewhat gentle on the controls. But as the airplane slows, you need to apply more and more back stick pressure to keep the nose from dropping. And that's the key here. We're keeping the nose from dropping. We're bringing the nose wheel slightly above the mains and then we're keeping the nose from dropping. That's all we're doing. You don't need to bring the cowling past the horizon unless you have a really high sink rate and you're trying to keep the plane from smacking into the ground. But on a normal landing, if you raise the nose more than that, there's a good chance you're going to balloon and become airborne again. And we don't want that. Just freeze the pitch attitude with gently increasing back stick pressure. And as you do that, you'll want to look at the end of the runway for two reasons. First, you want to focus on keeping the nose from dropping. The slower you get, the more the nose will want to drop. And that's going to take more and more gentle pressure to keep that from happening. The other reason that you want to align the nose is so that you don't land in a crab. It's not going to be very much fun if you forget to align the nose and you land sideways like this because those tires don't roll very good in that direction. Now we want to continue to fly the airplane until it gently touches down on the runway. And as you touch down, I want you to continue to fly the airplane even though you're on the ground with smooth rudder controls and ailerons if you need them to keep your wings level. All right, there's our altitude. Seatbelts on, fuel cycle valve on both. Make sure best power throttle set for now. Carb heat staying off. Landing and taxi lights on. We'll get the rest here in just a second. Might be 100 feet low here. I'm correcting. There's a beam that numbers. That's our perch point. We'll pull the power in the wide arc. First notch of flaps. One, two, three. Carb heat's coming on. That looks like a good 45 off the runway there. Bonita traffic, Skyhawk 3148XR, left base 17, Bonita. That may be a touch slow and low. I'm going to put a bump of power and pitch down. All right, flaps rolling 100. 100, I mean full flaps. Use the C-130 there. All right, rolling final. Bonita traffic, Skyhawk 3148XR, base to final 17, Bonita. Might be a touch slow. All right, so now I'm going to get low on purpose so you can see the reference point sinking below the aim point. Getting a little slow. Pitch down. So now you can see like we're drug in because like my aim point is well above my reference point. So I'm going to add some power and we're going to catch. You can see the aim point coming up on a reference point. So now we are, we may be still a touch low, but we're catching up with our aim point here. So once we're on that three degree glide slope, I might be a touch fast. I'll pitch up here. Now we're right on our glide slope. We are literally right on our glide slope. So I know when I start my flare or when I start my roundout, I'm going to be right at my altitude. I'm going to be perfect altitude for this. We're watching for that spinner to cross the threshold. There it is. Crack, shift our aim point to our landing spot. Idle power, start the flare. Howling just under the horizon. It takes more and more and more back stick pressure as you do that. Now, crack shift idle flare is a great starting point, but as you continue to develop your skills and you get better and better, you can tweak this mantra to fit your needs and the aircraft you're flying. For example, when I fly an aircraft with a high glide ratio, like a 172, I prefer idle shift flare. I feel like I have a lot more control over my landing spot when I use that method. But some airplanes that are heavier or that don't glide very well, you might want to crack shift idle flare. And this typically is a good starting point for any aircraft. Once you have that down, you can make adjustments as you see fit. All right, let's go ahead and kick Mike out because, uh, you know, he had too many burritos and, uh, we'll get some footage from the ground here. I thought I smelled oil burning, but that wasn't oil. Hey, what can I say? Vanita traffic, Skyhawk 3148 X-ray, left downwind 17, Vanita. Oh, it's beautiful. All right, seatbelts on, fuel selector valve on both. Flaps are up for now, make sure best power, throttle set, landing and taxi lights on. I never turned them off. Uh, full landing checklist is complete. Uh, save the flaps and carpet for the purge point. All right, 1700 pattern altitude. Oh, that is the most beautiful spacing I've ever seen. Too bad Mike's not here to see it. All right, there's the purge point, throw the power back a little bit. A couple slaps of trim in there. Carpet's coming on. One, two, three. First notch of flaps. Pitch for 70 knots. Another bump of trim there. This is basically the poor man's autopilot right here. Vanita traffic, Skyhawk 3148 X-ray, left base 17, Vanita. All right, so halfway down, we should be halfway around. So 17 minus five is 1300. 1300, that's perfect for, uh, halfway around. That's a good way to, uh, gauge your, how you're doing on your glide slope way out here. I'm pretty good, I'd say. Might be a touch low. Correcting. Put a bump of power in to keep us from sinking down too low. Roll final. Vanita traffic, Skyhawk 3148 X-ray, base to final 17, Vanita. Might be a touch high. We can always also use the slip if we're high, uh, but flaps will work just fine. We're moving really slow. You can see I'm getting high right now, so we'll just correct it with power. I'm a little fast, so I'll pitch up. So if I need to slip, I can, but I can see I'm going to sink down and we're going to be just fine. Pitching down, I'm getting a little slow. I'm a little high, so I don't need to offset that at all. Yeah, now we're catching our glide slope. I might be, yeah, somewhere right in here. I'm pitched down slightly, so that's why it might look a little low. The camera might be a little higher than my eyes too, so you might be seeing just a touch different than what I am. All right, good air speed, good aim point, and right about shift my aim point. Flare, a little right of center line, but other than that, not too shabby, and it just took more and more and more back stick pressure to keep that nose in its position. I'm just freezing that position. I'm not, I'm not bringing it above the horizon or anything weird like that. I'm just freezing that position to make that perfect landing. Here he comes. Let's see what happens here. Not too bad. He knew he was under pressure. Bonita traffic, Skyhawk 3148XR, back taxiing 36 for a 17 departure, Bonita. By the way, if you like these sunglasses I'm wearing, and you'd like to help me continue to make more videos just like this, consider snatching yourself up a pair. These are made by Flying Eyes, and they're so awesome. They're specifically made for pilots, and they actually fit under hats and headsets without breaking the seal, and that's pretty stinking handy, especially when you're half deaf like I am. You can even get 10% off by using the coupon code FREEPILOTTRAINING. Check it out. You're gonna love it. Mike's jealous because he doesn't have a pair. Yeah, I don't know why. I guess I'm not a pilot. I don't have a pair. So Mike, how hard is it to see without a good pair of sunglasses right now? It's hard to see. It'd be nice to have a good pair of sunglasses. Yeah, man. Especially when you're flying east. I don't know what it's like, but these are pretty awesome. I don't judge this landing because he doesn't have a pair of Flying Eyes sunglasses, and that will actually improve your landings. You may not be aware of that, but it comes with a great placebo effect. It's a good thing my wife's not with me. She would be judging my landing. Bonita traffic, Skyhawk 314XR left base for 17, Bonita. Yeah, it may be a touch low. The top of my fist is slightly below that, so we'll power to maintain that or to drag it back up. He's right on his airspeed. Now we're catching that glide slope, so you can pull that power back out if he wants. Just putting that reference point right on our aim point. Reference point on the aim point. It's perfect. We want that three degree glide slope. That way when that spinner touches the threshold, we know we're exactly 250 feet from our aim point, and then we can start the flare. Coming down, coming down. We may be a smidge high. Spinner crossed our point. They're right on our landing spot. Beautiful.