Struggling to Land the Plane

[jg2000]

Hi everyone.

So I have been flying for over 20 hours now and have done about 80 landings.

I generally find I can do most things in the plane reasonably well. We've basically just done traffic patters and a few essential things out of the pattern like turns, climbing and descending, stalls.

I am flying at a controlled airport and have pretty much nailed the traffic pattern.

However, the landings are just disastrous. Every time I land I flare to early or too quickly and we balloon and slam down on the runway. I know when the plane balloons quite a lot to level the nose and then flare when it descends again, but

My CFI just says I need more practise to nail the landings, but it feels like I am not making any improvement.

I usually fly once or sometimes twice a week so it's not like I am forgetting lots. Not sure if the airport helps. The traffic pattern is fairly large and it's a busy field with a bit of commercial traffic which sometimes means that I don't do that many touch and goes in the hour. It has a huge 8000 feet runway though.

Any suggestions on how to master the flare and improve? I feel like I am just stuck at this stage and will never solo.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Also struggled with this and felt quite frustrated by it at times.

What probably helped me the most was the realization that if you fly down into the ground effect at the right speed and just keep flying straight down the runway there while raising the nose to keep it off, it will land fairly nicely.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

And when you’re doing it as described for the commercial pilot power off 180’s, you’ll float nicely in ground effect until you butter it in right at the 1000-foot markets!

Of course if you start with flying gliders, these power off 180s feel quite natural.