http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeNNULCL4Mw

I was to go with a friend as I had not flown with him since he getting
his PPL

Winds were above his Xwind limits so I told him grab a CFI to
experience what I considered rather mild crosswinds. I told him I
wouldn't be comfortable from the right seat and I am not a CFI but
today was certainly a flyable day. So he called his brother who is a
CFI.

It would be interesting to hear what others would have done on the
first landing.

My "Howard Cosell" in the action commentary is in the video.

Looks like he is landing flat most of the time or is it just looking that
way on video?

On Jul 14, 2:18 am, "Alt Beer" <exam...@example.com> wrote:

Looks like he is landing flat most of the time or is it just looking that
way on video?

He was "marginally flat" as I heard three distinct squeaks on two of
the landings.

I personally like my nose wheel a bit higher off the ground.

i dunno as a glider pilot i would have just put it down  Looks like
almost a mile of runway left!

Of course i wouldn't have the option to go around in a glider so my
perspective is a bit off.

I'm not sure what recovery procedure is in a powered plane so I can't
say for sure, but yes, you certainly could lose enough airspeed to stall
if you screw it up enough. You have a fixed amount of energy when you
come over the threshold and it's not a lot. That energy bleeds off, and
if you pull up and convert too much of it into altitude, the energy
remaining in airspeed may be too little to keep flying, and you'll come
down hard. On a calm day, I'll come over the threshold at 55kts and
stall onto the pavement at around 40kts, which is not a huge margin. If
I put the flaps all the way down the stall goes down to 28kts, but they
add so much drag that the roundout and flare needs to be at an
absolutely perfect altitude, otherwise I'll run out of airspeed too
high. For what I assume are obvious reasons, I only use full flaps on
calm days.

On Jul 15, 1:42 pm, vic20owner <vic20ow...@yahoo.com> wrote:

i dunno as a glider pilot i would have just put it down  Looks like
almost a mile of runway left!

Of course i wouldn't have the option to go around in a glider so my
perspective is a bit off.

Runway length wasn't a factor, that was for sure! I guess ballooning
for you wouldn't be any different in recovery then a powered plane?
Or could you lose enough airspeed to stall?

On Jul 15, 8:44 pm, Mike Ash <m...@mikeash.com> wrote:

I'm not sure what recovery procedure is in a powered plane so I can't
say for sure, but yes, you certainly could lose enough airspeed to stall
if you screw it up enough. You have a fixed amount of energy when you
come over the threshold and it's not a lot. That energy bleeds off, and
if you pull up and convert too much of it into altitude, the energy
remaining in airspeed may be too little to keep flying, and you'll come
down hard. On a calm day, I'll come over the threshold at 55kts and
stall onto the pavement at around 40kts, which is not a huge margin. If
I put the flaps all the way down the stall goes down to 28kts, but they
add so much drag that the roundout and flare needs to be at an
absolutely perfect altitude, otherwise I'll run out of airspeed too
high. For what I assume are obvious reasons, I only use full flaps on
calm days.

Interesting Mike! Is ballooning a common occurrence in a glider? I
could see it happening should you hit a thermal over the runway?

For me, I usually will add a touch of power to arrest the sink rate in
my plane, but that option obviously would not be available to you? I
would think if you balloon, you would have to lower your nose to get
back the very little precious airspeed you have?

It's not common to balloon more than a couple of feet. A thermal
generally wouldn't do it. The vertical movement of the atmosphere is
greatly restricted below 50ft or so because the ground gets in the way,

On 07/15/09 20:45, Mike Ash wrote:

It's not common to balloon more than a couple of feet. A thermal
generally wouldn't do it. The vertical movement of the atmosphere is
greatly restricted below 50ft or so because the ground gets in the way,

Well, that's not been my experience - not by a long shot. It's not
so noticeable with heavier aircraft, but when I was flying a very
light ultralight there were times when I would hit a thermal on the
runway (during my roundout/flare) that would pitch the airplane up
as though it were taking off again - that is until you hit the other
side of the lift, then "look out" :-)

Even the training manual speaks of the difference in rising air
currents when flying final over different types of surfaces.

Perhaps gliders are less susceptible to these? I have yet to fly
gliders, so I'm ignorant on that front.

 In other cases they cannot
regain speed, forget to retract the flaps, or any number of other
things which contribute to a stall at a dangerous altitude (75-200
feet).  The conclusion was that touch and go's (due to the amount of
possibilities for error and lack of time to react) are much higher
risk than a hard landing.