Hi Mark,
A while back you wrote a piece on your methods of approach and landing. In it, you stressed how that it liberates a person from having to constantly monitor the airspeed indicator, and that it works in any airplane.
Could you post those tips and techniques again sometime?
I'm sure everyone would appreciate it.
thanks
Ed Baker
Landing technique
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earthstaraircraft
Re: Landing technique
Hi Ed
What ever we are doing, it is important to Distill the process to its most important components.
In an approach to landing we want to maintain a speed of 60 mph, since airspeed is the result of angle of attack. I will pick an angle of attack by looking out the window and recording that view on my permanent memory as important. Than looking at the airspeed indicator. If it does not display the airspeed I want to be at I make an adjustment to the angle and let everything settle down, than read the ASI again. Once I have 60 mph on the ASI I record that view out the window as 60 mph. Now I now what to do and how to do it. The next time I need to set up an approach or any other flight speed requirement I have got it wired.
After spending thousands of hrs watching birds take off and land, since I was knee high to a condor.
I see them come down on final approach, flaps down. Holding the angle of attack that gives them the appropriate ASI, but they don't evan have an ASI. Just that view out the front. As I am watching I see the bird look down to pick a spot as a target for the landing. Than not looking at that spot again, other than pereifaral vision. Than I see the birds head rise to level as he or she is looking at the horizon or at least off in to the distance. So that the pariferal vision can give the depth perception to juge wen to flair to stop the downward momentum at the same time as those feet touch the ground.
We have it easier since we don't have to run.
What works for us is to assume the correct angle of attack and hold that all the way to the ground, and wile looking out the window off the end of the runway our pariferal vision will tell us wen to flair and how much because as we flair we look off the far end of the runway and our depth perception is active and only because we are looking far ahead.
This is what you do when you drive a car! You look far ahead and everything else is worked out by your prifferal vision.
Happy Flying
Mark
Sent from my iPhone
What ever we are doing, it is important to Distill the process to its most important components.
In an approach to landing we want to maintain a speed of 60 mph, since airspeed is the result of angle of attack. I will pick an angle of attack by looking out the window and recording that view on my permanent memory as important. Than looking at the airspeed indicator. If it does not display the airspeed I want to be at I make an adjustment to the angle and let everything settle down, than read the ASI again. Once I have 60 mph on the ASI I record that view out the window as 60 mph. Now I now what to do and how to do it. The next time I need to set up an approach or any other flight speed requirement I have got it wired.
After spending thousands of hrs watching birds take off and land, since I was knee high to a condor.
I see them come down on final approach, flaps down. Holding the angle of attack that gives them the appropriate ASI, but they don't evan have an ASI. Just that view out the front. As I am watching I see the bird look down to pick a spot as a target for the landing. Than not looking at that spot again, other than pereifaral vision. Than I see the birds head rise to level as he or she is looking at the horizon or at least off in to the distance. So that the pariferal vision can give the depth perception to juge wen to flair to stop the downward momentum at the same time as those feet touch the ground.
We have it easier since we don't have to run.
What works for us is to assume the correct angle of attack and hold that all the way to the ground, and wile looking out the window off the end of the runway our pariferal vision will tell us wen to flair and how much because as we flair we look off the far end of the runway and our depth perception is active and only because we are looking far ahead.
This is what you do when you drive a car! You look far ahead and everything else is worked out by your prifferal vision.
Happy Flying
Mark
Sent from my iPhone
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rahulchoudhary73
Re: Landing technique
please elaborate on "...knee high to a condor"
bird landing sense is more complex with two foveas in each eye where vision is most clear; their eyes switch between these foveas pretty fast, which explains their quick darting of their heads while at rest; in landing approach, I'd hypothesize that one fovea is always in line with the landing spot with rapid eye movements to make split second micro adjustments with given wind conditions.
along with stepper motor like (or almost digital) head movements, their wings move with sharp flicks of the forearms, like human karate hand gestures to block an incoming attack which have twist&flicks in the forearm towards the end of the blocking gesture. As beginners we were taught karate actions as a series of discrete (almost) digital steps which have to be repeated in sets of like forty each time, and then in a few weeks it becomes ingrained to appear smooth and done with consciously thinking about the sub steps involved. even doves I see in steep landing (and take off) approaches like BASE jumping or dive bombing, is like a few flicks and flares of varying intensities to land precisely. once I saw a dove teach her baby to fly, who had fallen out the nest in a storm a week before it could actually fly, she flicked her forearms hard on his back repeatedly almost sounding like hard slaps to show the vigor the baby's wings need to apply and where; babies start out by using their shoulders in a weak flapping action. guess i'm saying, smooth landing approaches like Mark and the birds, are discrete oft repeated reorientations of varying magnitudes until touch down, which must be how the ILS came to be for the safest glide path
soft landings,
rc
bird landing sense is more complex with two foveas in each eye where vision is most clear; their eyes switch between these foveas pretty fast, which explains their quick darting of their heads while at rest; in landing approach, I'd hypothesize that one fovea is always in line with the landing spot with rapid eye movements to make split second micro adjustments with given wind conditions.
along with stepper motor like (or almost digital) head movements, their wings move with sharp flicks of the forearms, like human karate hand gestures to block an incoming attack which have twist&flicks in the forearm towards the end of the blocking gesture. As beginners we were taught karate actions as a series of discrete (almost) digital steps which have to be repeated in sets of like forty each time, and then in a few weeks it becomes ingrained to appear smooth and done with consciously thinking about the sub steps involved. even doves I see in steep landing (and take off) approaches like BASE jumping or dive bombing, is like a few flicks and flares of varying intensities to land precisely. once I saw a dove teach her baby to fly, who had fallen out the nest in a storm a week before it could actually fly, she flicked her forearms hard on his back repeatedly almost sounding like hard slaps to show the vigor the baby's wings need to apply and where; babies start out by using their shoulders in a weak flapping action. guess i'm saying, smooth landing approaches like Mark and the birds, are discrete oft repeated reorientations of varying magnitudes until touch down, which must be how the ILS came to be for the safest glide path
soft landings,
rc
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ejbnorfolk
Re: Landing technique
Hi Mark,
Thanks for sending out your thoughts again. I'm sure it makes all the group members ponder and compare to what you do. As an aside, there was a hawk at a golf course I used to play at that had a favorite telephone pole. Every day, I'd see him come charging down at that pole at about 8 feet from the top. As he got to about 60 feet, or so, away from the pole you'd see his wings open up in a tremendous flap/air brake kind of movement and he'd just stop right there on the pole. Every day I said, "Man o man, I wish I could do that"
Ed Baker
Thanks for sending out your thoughts again. I'm sure it makes all the group members ponder and compare to what you do. As an aside, there was a hawk at a golf course I used to play at that had a favorite telephone pole. Every day, I'd see him come charging down at that pole at about 8 feet from the top. As he got to about 60 feet, or so, away from the pole you'd see his wings open up in a tremendous flap/air brake kind of movement and he'd just stop right there on the pole. Every day I said, "Man o man, I wish I could do that"
Ed Baker
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earthstaraircraft
Re: Landing technique
Don't over complicate it!
A lot of it is to have confidence in our selves and just do it since we really do know how!
Happy Flying
Mark
Sent from my iPhone
A lot of it is to have confidence in our selves and just do it since we really do know how!
Happy Flying
Mark
Sent from my iPhone
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rahulchoudhary73
Re: Landing technique
aye, aye, sir!
it's just the birds, cats, domestics 'n others coming into my field of vision here, with still too many firecrackers and odors surrounding the neighbourhood. like i see a double page ad with el capitan at sunset; & doves outside raise their heads, tuck their beak in, saying an unheard of dove note like 'whew', and started BASE jumping up and down many a time; believe you me, the thought ne'er crossed my mind until the doves started it, while all i was thinking of was carting off some of the talus, taft granite, rock pile below it for a fireplace or something bigger after reading John Muir shouting "A Noble Earthquake" back in 1872..
As an aside, Ed Baker definitely ought to go BASE jumping after the eagle gave such a nice leading indicator :-)
rc
it's just the birds, cats, domestics 'n others coming into my field of vision here, with still too many firecrackers and odors surrounding the neighbourhood. like i see a double page ad with el capitan at sunset; & doves outside raise their heads, tuck their beak in, saying an unheard of dove note like 'whew', and started BASE jumping up and down many a time; believe you me, the thought ne'er crossed my mind until the doves started it, while all i was thinking of was carting off some of the talus, taft granite, rock pile below it for a fireplace or something bigger after reading John Muir shouting "A Noble Earthquake" back in 1872..
As an aside, Ed Baker definitely ought to go BASE jumping after the eagle gave such a nice leading indicator :-)
rc