Officially, landing is the means by which an aircraft transitions from flying to being supported on the ground onby its landing gear. The techniques to do so vary from aircraft type to aircraft type, but all typically involve the aircraft making a very gentle descent towards the ground, thence contacting the ground, mooring mast, etc. on its landing gear and remaining there with the weight of the aircraft transferred from the wings, rotors, or other lifting surfaces, to the landing gear for the duration of the ground rollto then taxi to a parking area, shut down, etc.
For airplanes, gliders, and other fixed wing aircraft, this process typically involves two stages: an approach to a runway followed by a roundout. The approach segment involves flying the aircraft along a specific path through space guided either by visual reference to the ground or electronic instruments in the case of an instrument approach. Approaches can be straight in, circling, or involve a traffic pattern. The goal of any approach is to line the airplane up with the runway centerline, along with a vertical guidance, at the minimum airspeed needed to enter the roundout phase. This speed is typically 1.3*Vso or the approx ~30% faster than the stalling speed of the airplane in the landing configuration. Approaches will either terminate in a roundout, a go-around for a traffic pattern, or a missed approach procedure forin the case of an instrument approach. Go-Arounds and Missed Approach Procedures involve terminating the rate of descent to the airport or runway, applying power, and configuring the aircraft for a maximum rate of climb to either re-enter a traffic pattern or fly an instrument course to set up for another instrument approach.
On a good VFR day in the traffic pattern, try to envision the traffic pattern itself, including all legs of the traffic pattern in the sky around your airport, then make the airplane fly that path. It sounds a little crazy but it does provide good guidance for where you need to be and visualize where you need to be in order to make the airplane do what you wanted to do.
Good landings all start with good traffic patterns, and good consistency is the key to good traffic patterns. One of the best ways to achieve consistency is knowing what power settings for what configurations of the aircraft you will need to achieve a certain rate of descent, airspeed, etc.
If you’re operating out of an airport where traffic is light, or if the tower will grant this at a towered airport, asked to fly a larger traffic pattern, and make notes on a knee board of the power settings, trim, flap configurations, etc. that you need to achieve stabilized flight at certain airspeed. As an example, flying a C172 in the downwind, you not that the airplane, flaps up and trimmed just slightly nose down of the takeoff mark requires a power setting of 1900 RPM to maintain level flight at 85 KIAS. Note these metrics for all legs of a traffic pattern and then fly them that way in the airplane. If you have trouble remembering those things on the go, take a session where you chair fly in front of a cockpit poster doing all the steps of a traffic pattern, setting power, configuration, trim, etc. until you have it memorized and it becomes second nature. If you do this you will find the airplane is very controllable in all legs of a traffic pattern and any kind of adjustments, only require slight changes in power and/or trim. I especially like practicing long final approaches this way and this. This advice is indispensable when transitioning to a new airframe type.
Following the steps I described above, then start practicing picturing the pattern as a transparent path in the sky and make the airplane fly alongp that path. You will find it reduces a lot of errors in position, altitude, and speed if you do it that way.
Base to final turns can be a struggle for students, often times causing the student to overshoot or undershoot the runway centerline. To guard against this, on base, project the runway centerline out to a point where it intersects your base leg flight path and prepare to turn inside of that corner. You should line up right on final as you roll out if you do this right.
Timing the start of a round out and flying the round out can be more of an art than a science. It’s a matter of hand-eye coordination combined with kinesthetic fuel for the aircraft. Rod Machado’s runway expansion method works well for light trainers, but this is just something you gain from a lot of time in practice. If you’re making bad landings on the way you’re pretty normal.
Another exercise during dual instruction are high speed taxi flares. Basically, you and the flight instructor will go out on a (long!) runway and accelerate the aircraft up to approximately 10 knots below its rotation speed, thence set power to hold this speed and apply back pressure on the yoke to lift the nosewheel off the runway, effectively doing a high-speed taxi wheelie down the runway. This will give you practice with two different skills. The first is gaining an appreciation and kinesthetic feel and response of the flight controls in the roundout as well as the approximate sight picture you want to see in the roundout. Note, if the airplane becomes airborne at this point, immediately ease off some back pressure and gently reduce the throttle while holding that same nose high attitude you would in the flare. This should cause the airplane to touch down again. Always plan on terminating the exercise with at least 2500 feet of paved, dry runway remaining so you can slow down to taxi speeds under positive control without risk of overshoot or loss of control. NOTE WELL: This is an exercise to be performed on dual instruction flights only. NEVER attempt this on a solo flight as a student pilot.
Still another exercise is to have the student fly a low approach 1-2 feet above the runway on Vref (approach speed). This, too, will provide an excellent site picture in kinesthetic experience of the roundout. If crosswind conditions exist, the student should be applying the correct cross control technique to keep the aircraft aligned on the centerline of the runway. With approximately 3000 ft of runway remaining, a proper go-around technique should be initiated to allow the airplane to establish a best angle of climb to clear obstacle at the departure end of the runway. I favor this technique onwith new students withwho have little or no aviation experience as the transition training forto fully landing the airplane. All that’s required to land the plane in this low approach exercise, is to smoothly pull the throttle to idle while simultaneously holding the airplane off from touching down using back pressure. NOTE WELL: This is an exercise to be performed on dual instruction flights only. NEVER attempt this on a solo flight as a student pilot.