Perfecting Your Landing

After intensive training and years of practice, I've developed a pretty good landing. And what's even better is that I am consciously aware of the factors which you must be able to control.

First, you must fly a good approach. By that, I mean you must have the proper rate of descent, the proper airspeed, the proper flap and throttle settings, wind correction (if necessary), and trim, so that you are not trying to line up the aircraft as you pass the numbers.

Second, you must flare (flare #1) over the numbers. Not necessarily all the way into a nose up position, but enough where you are essentially fly straight and level only a few feet off the ground. Here you want to use your left or right rudder in order to control the heading and maintain the flight path directly parallel and over the centerline.

Third, you want to pull into a nose up position ever so slowly, known as flare #2. If you start to lift off release some of the back pressure, even if this means putting down the nose slightly -- and only for a split second, after which you immediately increase the back pressure, which might feel like the plane is swooping. (You want to land on the main gear, NOT the nose. If you land on the nose wheel or on all three simultaneously, you run the risk of having a propeller strike or damaging the shimmy damper.)

Lastly, use your peripheral vision and also look over the nose to see the centerline. By combining those two actions you get both an idea of how high you are off the ground (so you know how to adjust the flare) and a sense of where you are in relation to the runway centerline.

Above, I have summed up what is necessary; below you can see the animated summation.

My description here just explains a typical landing, but you will also want to be prepared for any and all emergencies. In order to set yourself in a good position for landing, use the "GUMPS" check list:

Gauges are good	Which gauges are functioning
Undercarriage is down	(You want the gear out)
Mixture is set to rich	(This prepares your plane for climbing out in the case of a go-around)
Propeller full forward	(You want to descend)
Seats and seat belts fastened	(You don't want to bump your head into the ceiling)

The Box

Just a quick little tip:

If you are flying a Cessna with G1000 there is a simple trick to improve cockpit efficiency. Since the PFD and MFD have the same button layout you can just look at "the box" in the center of the dashboard. For example, the right side of the PFD, the middle and the left side of the MFD allows you to focus on one part of the cockpit allowing you to work more efficiently.

Making flying look easy

Many times you might have been told to not be uptight and you will fly fine. Of course that is true but there are two parts to flying: mental and physical. Not being uptight is mental, but what is the physical part? There are many physical parts actually, but I find that being on top of the game and being preventative means you won't get in trouble (most of the time). What I think is important is keeping your feet ready at the rudder pedals. Whenever you notice you rotated just a little, such as a degree, your rudders will get you back. By making those small corrections early you won't have to use ailerons later (assuming the rudder correction works) and by not doing that there is a lesser risk of overcorrecting which would cause the flight to look bad and take longer to recover from.

I learned quite a bit about pre-flighting that day...

The pre-flight is a crucial part of flying and it must be done properly. You always learn more and more. There was one specific pre-flight that taught me two things.

One, whenever you check your fuel don't just throw it on the ground; if it was clear put it back in.

This saves you money and can give you a little longer of a flight, and it keeps the pavement from breaking down and whatnot.

Secondly, I would always check the rudder to see if it could fully function however I would grab the rudder and move it back and forth. This is bad because it is connected to the rudder pedals and that is connected to the nose wheel. This would stress the springs in the nose wheel that hold it straight. So, I was taught that you should test that when you are taxiing. Of course, if the plane started and you went through the entire pre-flight only to find out that you might not want to take the plane up would be annoying. But, that will keep the plane maintained thus requiring less money for maintenance on the rudder, rudder pedals, and nose wheel.

How To Improve Your Takeoff

A takeoff is like anything else; it will be good if you prepare wisely. That is why the Pre-flight and engine run-up are important. The pre-flight and run-up to takeoff is the entire approach to a landing. So, I will simply say DO EVERYTHING IN THE PREFLIGHT and watch all gauges.

The stuff that are in the checklist should be taken care of. Then, when you taxi onto the runway aligning to the center line is important, but you have to do that without losing runway space. When this is done you have to smoothly advance the throttle. Also, WATCH your gauges. Make sure everything is in the green arc.

Here is the part that makes your entire liftoff look GREAT. The rotation. Once, you have rotation speed (Vr) pull back on the yoke, right? But it isn't that easy. There is a certain range where the yolk is ineffective at that speed. You will notice that when you are at Vr. Pull back out of that range relatively quickly and smoothly until you begin to feel the pressure on the yoke. At that point apply pressure until you feel rotation and then hold the pressure there. Then, like any climb maintain the speed that you want to climb at. (Throughout this DON'T forget to apply the proper amounts of right rudder to correct for left turning tendencies.)

I find the key to this is in that rotation. Getting that feeling so that you don't apply too little pressure to make it look smooth but you don't apply too much pressure which would stress the aircraft and get it into a high angle of attack which can cause a stall at takeoff.

Safer Airplane

It is known among many pilots that Cirrus aircraft doesn't have the greatest accident record. As compared to Cessna. I will try to pinpoint the differences between these two aircraft and the reasons why one is safer then the other.

What I found was that many of Cirrus's protective systems (e.g the parachute) are not preemptive meaning they start working after something goes wrong. The Cessna is preemptive in that it is stable (backed by over 50 years of innovation). This stability helps the plane not get into messes and when it does get into a mess the plane gets right out. So Cessna has before-the-accident-happens plans and after-the-accident-happens plans. Not only is Cirrus relatively new, but the planes aren't as stable. They just incorporate these wonderful ideas but not harmoniously. For example, the Cirrus wings help you not start a spin but it doesn't make it any more stable.

In conclusion, to really have a safe airplane it has to have an old company that has experience making it. That company also has to incorporate technologies that prevent and recover accidents while working in a fluid manner.