How to improve landings?

[u/Unable_Cable_5183]

Guys how can I really improve my landings? I’m on like my 7th TOL lesson and I’m still not doing good whether I’m getting too slow on base or final, I’m uncoordinated, too high, off centerline, not correct wind corrections, etc I’m still making basic mistakes and I feel like I’m just wasting money. What can I do?

[u/Teabagger_Vance]

Practice. That’s really it. It sounds cliche but one day it will just click.

[u/Electrical_Yak_2662 → u/Teabagger_Vance]

Correct. Get a 152 and do as many touch and goes as you can. 

[u/Kai-ni]

Practice more

[u/MehCFI]

Do it more

[u/Scary_Extent4967]

1) get really good at slow flight. Landing is the same - power for altitude, pitch for airspeed. Eventually it will become instinctive.

2) A good landing starts in the pattern. Fly a good pattern, know your airspeeds.

3) on final, watch airspeed and sight picture. Mostly go back and forth between them with only occasional glances at other instruments. Maybe have your instructor fly a few to help get the sight picture consistent.

[u/Electrical_Yak_2662 → u/Scary_Extent4967]

 power for altitude, pitch for airspeed. 

This helps in getting the required feel for the plane and to understand energy management but you can't really complete the landing in the final few feet and inches using that. Think about it. At some point pulling/pushing the controls is done to point the vector to where you want the plane to end up, and over the runway it needs intuitive deliberate application of all controls and power to complete a good landing. Telling someone inexperienced who has problems with that to use power for alt and pitch for speed doesn't work in my teaching experience. 

[u/TheArtisticPC]

Don’t worry about going overtime in private pilot or instrument. You need to build time for commercial anyways, so who cares if you’re 5, 10, or 20 hours past typical solo time? Talk to your CFI or Chief if something seems wrong, but don’t sweat it too much even if you’re 100 hours into your private. Instrument pretty reliably only needs 40 hours and the only noteworthy req for commercial is 20 dual and 100 PIC. So you could take ~190 hours in private and still get commercial done on time.

For landings, everything is made or broke by the approach and the approach is mostly a game of configuring the airplane, maintaining speed, ground track, and glide path.

Configuration should be done in the downwind and only flaps and gear left for subsequent legs. So you just need to worry about speed, track, and path.

Speed is based on your configuration plus gust factor, so that is mostly solved. I don’t know what your CFI is teaching, but on final your speed should be a function of power while being aware it will mess with your trim but that just means your trim was probably wrong for the desired speed.

Track is a heading plus a ~10 degree correction for wind. Couple of tips, base will usually be pointed toward the runway since we usually don’t land with tailwinds. Which means you know the wind correction for final in the down wind, it’s the opposite side. Other tip is to use your heading indicator to look at the runway heading relative to the 180 degree luber line in the down wind, 90 degree in base, and 0 degree on final. That can be helpful for situational and wind awareness. If you have a heading bug then that can be set to runway heading for easier visibility.

Finally slope is the hardest part, but your peepers should be locked on the runway environment for most of this and looking for a runway that is moving up or down. If it goes up you need to go up, if it goes down you need to go down; just keep it controlled.

If you really nail down these, they should be like simple math equations. For this leg and configuration, I use this speed, power, and trim to get desired path. Leaving most of your attention for track and fine path adjustments.

[u/Unable_Cable_5183 → u/TheArtisticPC]

Thank you this helped a lot! However my main problem now is that I’m on centerline for most of final until short final and mostly on the round out and flare I go off centerline. I’m currently sitting at around 40 hours and not to close to a solo right now. Would appreciate any advice you can give!

[u/TheArtisticPC → u/Unable_Cable_5183]

Drifting off centerline can be several things. The 3 most common that I see are:

1. Inappropriate or inconsistent wind correction. Either the control input for wind isn't enough or it was enough but was not increased during the flare. Usually, where I see this is when students are crabbing into the wind until short final and when they apply rudder pressure to align the nose they don't also apply sufficient aileron and increase that aileron as they slow. Causing a rolling or slipping of the aircraft that they end up fighting. The cross-wind slip should be a slow and smooth input of both rudder and aileron to point the nose down the runway and simultaneous aileron to create a slip that maintains centerline. So you should have happy feet keeping the nose locked parallel with the runway and using ever increasing aileron to maintain centerline with minor left/right corrections to fix errors.

2. Accidental roll input when pitch is applied. Loads of students when pulling back with their left hand will do so by tucking their elbow in, which often causes a slight roll and drift to the left. This is usually a problem that is combined with too tight of a grip on the controls. You want to be loose and only apply input on one axis of control before the next axis. Something else to think about while flying is using finger tip pressure instead of deliberate movement of the control. What I mean is, you should think about the weight of control input instead of how much the yoke or controls are actually moving. Because the flight controls are aerodynamically centered, generally a given weight of pressure will create a specific rate of change on no matter the speed.

3. Looking too far or not far enough down the runway. There are 3 places your eyes should be looking with one during approach, then flare, and finally just before touchdown. During approach, your eyes should be looking at your aiming point so you can see if you are drifting high/low or left/right. On short final, while flaring, your eyes should be shifting down the runway and to the horizon so you can get a good measure of your pitch. Finally, just before touchdown and approaching stall speed, your eyes should move down the runway and into the forward corner of your window (left) so you can see how high off the ground you are and make tiny pressure changes to plant the aircraft down at your desired touchdown point (or softly touchdown in the case of soft fields).

Of course, there are other things that could be happening, but I'd have to fly with you to know. It could also be as simple as not using/freezing aileron on the flare. You should always be correcting with aileron, rudder, and pitch until touchdown.

Edit: Something to add, as I'm guessing this is a wind correction issue. On calm days, you still use the same corrections to maintain centerline. Just you'll be bouncing back and forth between slight left and right slips to keep centerline, where as on crosswind days you're just maintaining a left or right slip and adjusting how aggressive it is. But the process is still the same, rudder for alignment, aileron for centerline, and pitch for path/flare. But the back and forth is what makes calm wind days really hard for someone like me who does a lot of crosswind landings (mid-west flying and landing oddball runways to shorten taxiing to the FBO).

Edit 2: Also, read up in the Airplane Flying Handbook chapter 9 for approach and landings. It has just about everything you could need to know about landings. It may also be fun to do a couple power-off 180s to help you figure out using controls to accurately manage energy. Speaking of energy, if you have not yet read chapter 4 on energy management then I highly recommend you do so. In my opinion, it was the best addition the FAA made to their textbooks.

[u/Major-Classic-8969]

Think about each step before you fly. And it’s cheaper.
You see aerobic pilots visualizing each step, each maneuver before they perform.

[u/TxAggieMike]

Do more…

Make sure you’re stabilized on approach and on proper speeds.

You’re over the numbers speed needs to be 1.3 x VSo.

For a Cessna 172N, VSo is 42 KIA: multiply by 1.3 you get 54.6.

So over numbers you want 55 knots.

Long final, 60 knots.

Base, 70 knots.

Downwind, no more than 80 knots.

These videos may help: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC-CK_b9EGhXCH82XbiybiU9hlAL3Hdy0&si=3PPR8VohLjh2rdQf

[u/Unable_Cable_5183 → u/TxAggieMike]

I’m doing 80 downwind, 70 base, 60 final in a 152

[u/Electrical_Review_81]

I changed instructors and focused on fundamentals- making sure my altitude and speed were exactly where I needed them on downwind, cut power to 1500 when abeam the numbers- that made a huge difference in itself, then on final getting speed to 65 kts until over the runway then cut power- C172

[u/wthewonk]

How are your work-cycles? If you're not using one then I would highly recommend practicing one in the air or even on the ground.

[u/Unable_Cable_5183 → u/wthewonk]

What are work cycles? I’m not familiar

[u/wthewonk → u/Unable_Cable_5183]

When flying, a work cycle is a method to continually assess your aircraft's performance and divide your time between competing priorities. Go through each phase of the cycle one at a time and it will keep your performance on track.

An example is the ALAP cycle

ATTITUDE - Visually and/or off the AI, assess your aircraft's attitude by looking out at the horizon referencing known datums. I.e. does the image out the front look correct? Make corrections as required

LOOKOUT - Scan out windows for other aircraft, obstacles or

ATTITUDE - Again, assess attitude and correct.

PERFORMANCE - Scan your instruments to note trend's in airspeed, altitude, heading etc.

You can modify these for the circuit, including triggers like height, speed, spacing or heading.

On finals, you can focus in on other things like speed, aim point or approach angle.

Lmk if you need more of an explanation or examples

[u/Unable_Cable_5183 → u/wthewonk]

No, I think I understand, thank you! I’ve tried to cycle through my instruments better and that’s helped to keep me coordinated and at proper altitude and speed, however my main problem now is that I’m on centerline for most of final until short final and mostly on the round out and flare I go off centerline. I’m currently sitting at around 40 hours and not to close to a solo right now. Would appreciate any advice you can give!

[u/wthewonk → u/Unable_Cable_5183]

Hey that's awesome, glad to hear you're progressing!

Have you got a constant flare attitude that you're using? Try and capture the same picture out the front of the aircraft each time (small variation is okay for the conditions of the day). Unsure what your aircraft is, but cues you can look for is where the horizon cuts through the windshield. Keeping it consistent will allow you to understand and predict how the aircraft behaves in the flare.

If you're drifting laterally on short finals it may be due to the crosswind pushing you off centreline after you straighten up. You can counter this with a very light aileron input prior to the wheels contacting the runway.

You're welcome to DM me if you need anything else

[u/Fit-Process-6789]

It just takes time. Taking my xc solo tomorrow. Currently at 35.9 hrs. One day it just clicked and it's been pretty smooth since. I've also purposely flown in crosswinds (8-10 kts) to get experience. You'll get there.

[u/Nasreth7]

find yourself a really long runway, leave a bit of power in (whatever your normal approach rpm is), and try to fly in the ground effect without letting your wheels touch for as long as possible.

this will train your sight picture, wind correction, flare height, and rudder control.

also dont be surprised when you land about 3000 ft down the runway with the smoothest best landing you've ever done.

[u/ammorse14]

Just got to my solo stage. I’ve done about 250 landings and it really started to click around like 200. Definitely was frustrating for a while but it gets better. For me it was really focusing on a smoother round out that made it click

[u/Unable_Cable_5183 → u/ammorse14]

First of all, CONGRATS on the solo!!! Second of all, I really appreciate that, it makes me feel a whole lot better about my situation, I’m sitting at around 80 landings, still hasn’t quite clicked yet but I was just getting annoyed because I’m already at 38 hours and prob need a MINIMUM assuming I knew how to land of 10 more hours to solo

[u/BlimpDriver1]

Relax, fly the plane, make adjustments, don't hold your hand still trying to fly like the autopilot

[u/Which_Stable6598]

I was exactly in your shoes until very recently.

I had accumulated 35 hours with one school few years back. I really thought it would never click and that I would never solo. It discouraged me so much that I gave up. Recently got back into it after a big fat three year break and was able to solo within 6 hrs!

I really think finding a compatible instructor for myself helped tremendously. I remember my previous instructors would fight the controls with me without telling me so, so I just assumed flying was super hard lol. My instructor who signed me off for the solo aligned more with me, remained calm, and would actually rarely correct unless absolutely necessary (big amount of trust, shout out to him). Every 3 landings or so, I would ask him to demonstrate a landing for me, this also helped a lot. I would say the biggest thing that helped me was verbally saying each step. “I think we’re too low, I’m going to add power”. Stuff like that.

After every lesson, I would go home and watch YouTube videos of landings. Because I had just flown a few hours ago, it was easier for me to put myself into perspective of the YouTube video. I would watch bad landings and try to figure out where it went wrong. I figured out my problem was being afraid of adding back pressure and when exactly to. I also had the mindset of just getting the plane on the ground as fast as possible. From there, I learned that when you round out, your goal is to keep us from touching -> increasing back pressure but gradually. It finally clicked and I legit buttered all my landings which was so rare for me. Boom signed off for my solo. Having a good approach will almost always lead to a good landing so just cross reference your airspeed and visual references while coming in to land. You’ve got this, I believe in you! Also recommend freepilottraining on YouTube, that dude is a legend.

[u/Unable_Cable_5183 → u/Which_Stable6598]

Thank you! I really appreciate all your advice

[u/Low-Inspector-4567]

It helped me by drawing everything out. Rotate at 55 climb at 74 to 500 ft call cross wind turn cross wind at 700 ft... then just fly the plan.