Important Lesson: Don't Use Angle of Attack to Pick Landing Spot

[VWGhiaBob]

I'm sure this is old hat and seems stupid to many, but I wanted to share am important lesson I learned today from my instructor and a Sporty's video. I'm about 15 hours into my return to aviation after a break of decades and total hours only around 100.

Intuition would tell you that if you're a little low, increase the angle of attack a bit, and you will go farther. And vice versa.

Wrong! This is especially important during emergency landings.

How far ahead you land is a function of many things. But primary among the factors is whether or not you are near the best glide angle speed.

So if you're a bit low at 75knts in a C712 pulling the nose up actually makes you drop faster, because it decreases your speed to...say...65knts, which results in a less efficient glide and a faster descent.

OK, call me dumb, but this lesson made my landings much better today. Even when high, I resisted the temptation to lower the nose. Instead, I raised it. This decreased my efficiency and brought me down faster but at a lower airspeed. Just have to watch it so the airspeed isn't TOO low.

Lesson learned!

 

[Jim Logajan]

A much better technique (IMO) would be to LOWER the nose and accept the increase in airspeed. That increase will bleed off once you're back on glide and you raise the nose again.

Leighton Collins describes exactly that technique in his book "Takeoffs and Landings" in the section "Too High, Too Fast" of Chapter 7. But only advised when done far enough away; not in close. Also says the speed will bleed off fairly quickly even in a clean airplane once the nose is held level and the power off.

He also suggests not doing this on a license test or biennial review - "for when nobody is looking and you don't want to have to go around."