When we were doing pattern work, my landings were great.
As I started to concentrate on my cross country flights, I was doing more flying and less landings, so not having a lot of experience, my landings became sloppier in respect to airspeed.
After coming back from a cross-country having two 'floater' landings and wondering why they were like that, I grabbed an instructor and we did some pattern work.
He pointed out my airspeed in the pattern on the first landing, and on the second landing I was back in the groove.
The problem is that when you're so new at flying, one or two things can be overlooked or forgotten because you don't have that experience.
Now that I know what caused the problem, I make sure it never happens again.

Instructors will tell you their worst landings are from their IFR students. Your workload is high and you often have to reconfigure very quickly to land.

On a 172RG, gear down, flaps at first setting, 15 in MP would give me 90kts and 450-500 fpm descent which was perfect for timing the approach. I would never do approaches to minimums, so 400 to 500 AGL would be my personal minimum, higher for non ILS approaches. For a full stop landing trim is your friend when slowing down to about 60-70 knots and adding some more flaps. The few real world approaches when the field is really IFR that I have flown were on long runways and slick from rain. I was just glad to have the field in sight. I have never flown an honest to goodness circle to land real IFR approach, I flew a lot under the hood

that makes sense

Eyes and hands........ All kinds of a/c. When flying European a/c the flair is measured in centimeters. 1/4"=.635cm.

I are teh stupidz.

What is this 1/4" you speak of?

Worst ? Maybe.
I used to get to the Decision Point, and make a decision.

If the airport environment was visible, proceed to land.
If not, full power, missed app procedure.

Landing - depending on what the picture was out the window,
30 deg. flaps, or full- 40 deg.- trim for landing speed, get / stay centered, kill the power,
slip if necessary to drop altitude, try to slam it on the numbers.

First time I did it, she was but after she realized I could land the thing she was

But I 'cheated' on my IFR, - used my own C-182 - arguably the ideal Instrument learner platform.
And I loved to fly VFR at night - 100's of hours, before getting my IR.

And my Inst. Instructor would take me to Decision Point, every time, regardless of conditions,
VFR, day or night, under the hood, hard IMC day or night, under the hood.
Only time I flew without the hood was hard IMC, below minimums.

She did that to me, to prove that minimums are there for a reason !!!!
She was a cruel bitch, sometimes, for a 22 yr old. Taught me well, tho.

Last I heard, she is now flying Left Seat in a 767

Ok Mid, first, you have to understand, 90% of that chatter is just bullshit from guys that don't know much.    

Different models land slighly different, but if you have the right pitch, and airspeed, it's all pretty much the same.  

"Pitch controls Airspeed, Power Controls Altitude" is a good way to think of it.    (Obviously, they are interconnected.  It's all energy management).  

You don't consciously set power during landing..   You use it to control sink rate/glide path. You make hundreds of small adjustments.  You feeeel it.  

Only a complete douchbag would just "chop power" at treetop level.

Do everything slowly, with finesse.c

-eta, to answer your question:  yeah, if you are flying with a high AoA, "backside of the power curve", and you "chop power".   Yes, you will develop a high sink rate that may not be arrested in time.     Can happen in any airplane.    The cure is "Add Power!"

Even in this video the throttle is not at idle with a Skyhawk, a high wing a/c, he is carrying a little power into the flare

That makes a lot of sense, that's how I was taught,  sometimes I'll have to add a little power because I'll be a little low, but once I set the pitch, I'm not messing with the planes attitude until I need to hold the plane up for it to slow enough to stop flying, well at least that's what I try.

I'm always looking at the airspeed though.

If you add power because you're low without changing the planes attitude, you'll go faster.  Airspeed is what you want to remain constant, and you control airspeed by changing the attitude of the plane.  If you try to keep pitch constant, you're doing it backwards.

 


Hmmm....I need to try that next time out.

The problem is that I need to practice a lot. Which I haven't been doing. I wish I could just do touch n go's for a whole day and I think I'd have it down.

Landing the plane is the most difficult to learn because you spend the least amount of time actually doing it.

You spend hours droning around doing S-turns, climbs, descents, turns of all kinds and stalls til you wanna puke, but you spends mere minutes in the landing sequence.

Go out next time and just practice actual landing sequences. Don't land, do go-arounds. Do this until you have the speed control and attitude down pat, THEN start landing.

Do full stop landings so you don't have to rush the take-off (another phase of flight you spend minutes doing). Once you have that down pat, start doing T&G's.

Getting the speed and attitude control down is the key to ALL your landings- normal, short and soft.

Remember: generally, PITCH = AIRSPEED, POWER = ALTITUDE, but this does not mean the throttle doesn't work because you've turned base or final.

Shove it in if you need to and yank it out if you have to- basically do whatever it takes to land safely- but it should be more like a maestro conducting a virtuoso violinist.

Last, but not in the slightest bit least: GO AROUND if things don't look or feel right.

The only reason I can come with up with to "reconfigure very quickly to land", would be a single engine circle to land, in SOME multiengine airplanes.  You should be fully configured by the FAF for every normal approach.  And if you set it up right, your workload on an approach shouldn't be that high.

What FB41 said, but I would start out a few thousand feet up, away from the airport.   Pull the power, and play around with controlling your airspeed with pitch.  Try slight changes in power while maintaining airspeed with pitch, and you'll learn how to control your descent with power.  Listen to the sound, and learn what it sounds and feels like when you get too slow or too fast.  You can spend a lot less time looking at your ASI if you listen.

The above post is a very good idea and similar to what I did.
I would go to our practice area and practice working the pattern.
I would start at 3000' and run through the pattern all of the way to final and descend a little, and then go back to altitude and run through the pattern again.
I was able to practice without having traffic around and I could relax while doing it.
Orient your practice pattern the same as the runway you're using, and when you do go to land, the wind direction and speed should be close to what you've been practicing in.
You can practice each part of the pattern separately, or all together.
We practice landings so much for our solo, and then we move on to cross country flight where we land very few times, and our landing skills(what little we have) deteriorate.
You could even grab an instructor for one or two landings, and if he thinks you're good, let him out and do a few more until you're satisfied.

This was a technique I used with students back in the day.  Set 2,000' as the pretend ground and run a pattern based on that.  Seemed to work.

Thanks guys.....I assume you pick a pretend runway on the ground? Canal etc to follow?

Yes.  Remember the plane will handle a little different at altitude since there will be no ground effect.

that's true, thanks!

...which is why I suggest doing the practice I previously mentioned over a runway.

The beauty of the commercial license is that you do short fields, soft fields and no flap landings and you practice them all until they become greasers. Normal landings become a snap

I see now.

That's one of the reasons I want to get more ratings down the road is so that I can be a safer pilot.

We went on a vacation this past week for Mardi Gras and while I am about hour #10 on the drive home, I really started to wish I had a plane. It also didn't help to see all the planes landing at DFW from my hotel room window.

Best landing I ever did, I went out to practice slow flight on an afternoon when it was calm.  Got to the practice area with around 2,000' AGL, set 10 degrees of flaps and started gradually pulling back power and adjusting trim until I got to the point that I was holding altitude at an uncomfortably small margin above stall, then added a little power and nose down trim to stop the sweating.

Flew around like that for a while (maybe 45 minutes), hands off the yoke, doing turns, climbs, and descents with nothing but small adjustments to the throttle and light pressure on the pedals.  

When I decided to head back to the airport, I left everything like that.  Called UNICOM and there was no other traffic, so I did the approach like that.  Didn't really have a base leg in the approach, since I started the turn to base early and just kept it in a gradual turn until I was on final.  Didn't touch anything but the throttle and rudder pedals until it was time to flare, then just a slight back pressure on the yoke resulted in a squeak from the tires.

They were having a cookout on the ramp.  After I tied the plane down and was walking over to the FBO, a Seneca owner came over to complement me on the landing.  Said he couldn't remember seeing a student make one that smooth.


Next time out, I had one of those landings you hope nobody saw.