How to Land an Airplane | Landing a Cessna 172

When we're teaching pilots how to land an airplane, we often start by not teaching them how to land. Let me explain. We're flying at 3,500 feet above sea level, or about 1,000 feet off the ground, following that road straight below us. We're in cruise flight, about 2,400 rpm and 110 knots indicated airspeed. If we reduce power now, let's say to around 1,500 or 1,600 rpm, in order to This causes us to trade airspeed for altitude. We slow down in order to maintain altitude. As we approach the white arc on the airspeed indicator, we extend the flaps 10 degrees, which you can hear moving. We'll then stop trying to maintain altitude and let the aircraft settle into a shallow descent. In our Cessna 172, we'll be about 75 knots. The speed isn't important right now. We can add progressively more flaps and with full extension at 30 degrees, we're going to aim to fly the airplane at 60 knots. We can control our airspeed with pitch. Pitch up to slow down and vice versa. As we approach 60 knots, we're going to pretend to land. Let's pretend the runway is at 3,000 feet. And what we want to do is keep our aircraft as close to 3,000 feet without going below, i.e. hit the runway, as we trade away all our remaining airspeed and quote-unquote land at the slowest speed we can. About 50 feet above our runway, we're going to cut our power to idle and slowly bring the nose up. We want to stay above 3,000 feet, but only just barely. That's where the runway is. Obviously we're not landing, but we'll in fact stall and need to recover. But we've simulated touching down at the slowest airspeed we can. The game in landing then is to try to keep the aircraft off the ground at minimum height while slowing down as much as possible. You should be trying to actually not land for as long as you can manage it. Let's get ourselves on final and try it. We're at 60 knots with full flaps. Notice the two white lights on the VASI to the left of the runway, indicating we're higher than the normal glide slope. You don't want to pitch down to descend, this will only speed us up and we're at an airspeed we like already. We'll reduce power to correct for this. Now we don't need to pretend the runway is at a certain altitude, it's right in front of us. So don't look at the altimeter, look at the runway. The only instrument we need is airspeed, which we'll try to keep at 60. Our eyes should be focused where our butts are moving towards, our aiming point, which is the beginning of those wide white stripes between the VASIs. Our feet are working hard here too, keeping that extended center line of the runway as if it's cutting our body in two. Just like taxiing, if the center line is getting to our left or right, we adjust with our feet. Don't over control the aileron, especially in calm wind. Now focus on the pavement of the runway. As we get lower, it'll start to expand in our visual perspective. This is our cue to adjust our focus from the aiming point to the end of the runway. Our peripheral vision will be able to gauge our height better this way. Now we cut power to idle and start playing that game of slowly bringing the nose up, trying not to land. How long can we put off that landing? The actual touchdown should feel almost like a surprise. Let's go flaps up, full power, and re-enter the pattern. Now we're on a more traditional downwind. We'll have a look at the runway to our left. When we're abeam the numbers, we'll start a descent, bringing power back to around 1600, holding the nose up to trade airspeed for altitude, and introducing some flaps. Now establishing a pitch down attitude. The airspeed isn't critical here, but something like 75-80 knots should be fine. We'll make our base and final turns, bringing flaps to 30 and slowing down to 60 knots. This is where airspeed is important on final. Know your aircraft's ideal approach speed and fly that first. Airspeed is king. The VASI shows red over white, meaning our glide slope is good. No need to adjust power, we'll just concentrate on holding that center line with our feet. Once again, our eyes are on the aiming point, only referencing the airspeed indicator. When we know we can glide to the runway, we'll bring the power idle. And again, what's going to happen is the runway will fill up our field of vision. The runway goes from being a compact object in our view, to blowing up and taking up a great deal of our vision in a short amount of time. It's at this point that we'd like to focus our attention to the end of the runway, and start bringing the nose up. Don't land, don't land, don't land, keep it off the ground as long as humanly possible. It should feel like forever before the aircraft wheels actually touch down. This is how we've bled off enough airspeed so the aircraft doesn't bounce on landing. Now all this is so easy to talk about and show in the sim, but landing an aircraft requires all the focus and coordination you can muster, especially as you're learning the mechanics. Think of it like learning a new sport, you're exercising muscles in a way you haven't done before, so practice practice is the way to get better. I made the mistake of trying to read and study my way to better landings by devouring all the how-to landing tutorials just like this one, but at a certain point it's really better to get out there and train those muscles. Just remember, the game is to keep the aircraft off the ground as long as you possibly can.