CTLSi said:
Another way to get down is to pitch down and dive toward the runway, then roundout a little higher and pitch up reducing speed. You will use a little more runway, but can accomplish the same thing if you create the skill to do it this way.
(let's see how fast the 'experts' attack this idea)
RoscoeT said:
The skill to dive at the runway?? :lol: Wow.
N64543 said:
Dive toward the runway! Always try to land using minimum runway that way u will be comfortable putting your 172 down on a real short runway . Full flaps and 30 or 40 degrees and still high maybe u can slip it in but don't forget the option of going around. I fly out of a 2000 airport with trees and land my 172M with no more than 20 flaps because of potential for go around due to deer on runway. I think a lot of pilots get in trouble because of not wanting to go around, that dive toward the runway mentality may get u in trouble.
Leighton Collins, founder of
Air Facts magazine (also contributed a chapter to Langewiesche's book
Stick and Rudder,) might qualify as one possible sage on the subject of "diving for the runway" when high. In sum: Do it right away or don't bother. Here's his full opinion, quoting from his book
Takeoffs and Landings: "And, it's heresy, for sure, but even in a clean airplane, nosing down rather steeply to get rid of clearly excessive altitudes works if its is done soon enough. Even a clean airplane, once the excess altitude is gotten rid of in this manner, will slow rather quickly back to proper approach speed if held nose level, power off. I've told as many new pilots as anyone has, "Don't ever dive at the airport," and that's still a valid stock admonition close in. But if you get at it soon enough, it's something else again. I learned this, eyebrows up, mouth shut, once with an associate, Ken Lester, who'd wound up World War II as a B-29 instructor. I was checking him out in my Culver Cadet, which had no flaps and little extra drag with its two small landing-gear legs down.
On his first approach, across Esso's mile-square refinery at Linden, New Jersey, Ken hadn't glided more than a few seconds on final, power off and at the proper approach speed, when he saw he was in trouble. He put the nose way down, the speed went way up, he leveled off at just the right distance out, and we crossed the fence with exactly the right airspeed and altitude for a normal short landing. But if it isn't done soon enough, forget it. And never on a license test or biennial review. This one's for when nobody is looking and you don't want to have to go around. And when it's warm enough that the engine won't suffer thermal shock in descent."
