The Perfect Landing

[Ironflight]

I was updating my logbook a little while ago, and saw that I have totaled over 9,000 landings in my flying career (so far). Why we total this number is beyond me, but it causes me to remember that I LOVE to land flying machines. I?ve had the marvelous opportunity to land an incredible variety ? and all bring a little joy when handled just right. I think that landing might be the ultimate formation flying ? coming into contact softly (and without damage) with your partner, which in this case is the earth. Whatever it is, we are judged (and frequently judge ourselves) by our landings ? ?good? ones being a badge of honor among those who call themselves pilots.

We all know a good landing when we see it, or when we feel it. I am not talking about the method of landing ? that is irrelevant. Tricycle, tail wheel, wheel landing, three point, soft field, short field, spot landing?.they are all techniques ? methods for getting a particular airplane on the ground in a particular situation. I am talking about that magic moment of arrival when the airplane touches down EXACTLY when and where you want it to, perfectly timed so that you are not even sure if the wheels have started turning or not. So soft that you can feel the individual molecules of the wheel bearing grease shearing as the balls and races slowly spin past each other. No bounce or hop, just that perfect arrival and gentle slowing as the weight of the airplane transfers from the wing to the undercarriage.

These moments of perfection come rarely to all, more frequently to those for whom it matters. It is amazing how each landing becomes important when landing at your own airpark, knowing the neighbors are watching from their open hangars and back yards (most of them aviation professionals who know a good one when they se them). True pilots love to try for these perfect touchdowns, journeymen get them accidentally, but know not how, and apprentices are still trying to re-use the airplane after each landing. And some days, the best any of us can do is get the airplane on the ground within the confines of the airport ? gusty, tumbling, turbulent winds and currents conspiring to add our name to the rolls of the NTSB reports (?Witnesses reported that the aircraft departed runway after third touchdown and ended up in ditch??).

I find that the Valkyrie and I have a good rapport when loaded for normal flight, and touch down in a slightly tail-low wheel landing attitude. I can feel that slow spin up, and the compression of the gear legs as we settle, a very slight pressure on the stick keeping us pinned to prevent the skip. I have greater trouble working the kinks out of my relationship with Mikey, the RV-6. But nothing can compare with those occasional ?perfect? moments in a J-3 Cub, the door open, the grass rising to meet you as you see the right main begin to slowly spin, dampness appearing slowly as the whole tire finally becomes involved, the tail wheel doing the same thing out of sight behind. You can actually hear and feel the airplane kissing the earth as you move from one element to the other, one more rare and perfect moment to enter in the log?..

Paul

[cdmiller]

Paul,

That is a beautiful description of the relationship between man and machine. I too love the landing process and the rapport between an airplane and its pilot. You have described the moment of a perfect touchdown and its significance very well. I also live at an airpark, so most of my home landings are viewed by my neighbors. I have a special feeling of pride and accomplishment when I make the ?perfect? landing and roll out, knowing that a few of my pilot friends had to have noticed how well it turned out.

After several hundred hours in the same plane, True Pilots reach the point where most landings at familiar fields, in calm conditions, are smooth and satisfying. However, I would like to broaden your discussion a bit by including the "perfect approach" as part of the perfect landing. On a few occasions, mostly on summer evenings when the air is dead calm, I have experienced an almost magical approach and landing at my home field. The approach begins on downwind with a stable altitude, approach speed, and power setting. As power is imperceptibly bled off, and pitch is slowly increased throughout the approach, you make the gentle turns through base to final, never moving the throttle or any of the controls in a perceptible manner. It is as though the airplane is on a perfectly smooth track from initial downwind position to three-point touchdown on the runway. A passenger would never see the controls move and there would be nothing but one long smooth motion of the plane from downwind to roll out. A couple of chirps as the tires spin up are the only indication that you are no longer in the air. I have experienced such an absolutely ?perfect? approach and landing maybe only a dozen times in 4000+ hours of flying in small airplanes, mostly in my Bucker Jungmann and recently in my RV-8. Such an experience always brings a huge smile to my face and gives me an immense feeling of satisfaction and rapport with my airplane. To fly an airplane well, and especially, to land one well consistently are the main reasons that I am so hooked on flying.

Thank you for your beautifully written discussion of the Perfect Landing. You have struck a chord with me.

Cheers,

Dan Miller
RV-8 N3TU 530+ hours
Bucker Jungmann N40DM 1690+ hours
T-Craft N29559 910+ hours

[N941WR]

Paul,

Great story.

It reminds me of a landing I did shortly after I finished my phase 1. Nora and I were going to a fly-in / lunch at short grass field (1800') with obstructions at both ends.

The best approach was a curving left-hand approach, similar to what Navy pilots do when landing on a carrier. This allows you to miss the power lines that angle off the end of the runway on the right and the trees on the left.

After slowing the -9 down to follow three J-3 cubs in for a landing, I made the aforementioned curved approach and just as I rolled wings level the wheels touched down in a full stall landing right at the end of the runway.

One of the old timers there commented that my rollout was well short of the J-3's, with a better approach and landing.

That has been the landing that I judge all others (of mine) against.

[Geico266]

I am amazed at how rusty I get when I don't fly every week. The WX has been brutal here for GA so I've been grounded "pullin" rivets. Went flying to day and did some patternwork with a 10 knot cross wind. Normally, the -10 handles these just fine. Today, not so much.

[videobobk]

I remember the first landing I ever considered perfect--and I didn't make it. I had made some good ones, but never any I thought couldn't be improved upon. I was taking my PPL checkride and had made one landing in a pretty stiff crosswind. It was pretty good. At about 100' on the next final he said, "I've got it." I wondered what I had done wrong. The next thing I knew there were these three distinct tiny squeaks as each wheel kissed the runway as soft as a dove. "That's how it's done. Now go back to the office. You passed." Every time I do one that good in a crosswind, I think of that time over thirty years ago.

Bob Kelly

[Scorch]

Neat thread, Iron!

I'm not sure I have the same rapport with my -6 as you have with the Val. With me it's more like, as I turn final, I'm thinking, "Well, I wonder what's gonna happen THIS time."

And I'm reminded of the F-8 driver who gets aboard on a dark and stormy night with a pitching deck. As he taxis out of the wires he says, "Thanks God, I'll take it from here."

[aparchment]

Part of the fun of flying for me is getting that perfect maneuver. Whether it be a landing, a perfect instrument approach or even a perfect taxi out and centerline takeoff.

Some of the landings that have given me the most pleasure are those that I have made in the Diamond DA40 when returning from a long cross country to my home base in Sanford, Maine.

On several occasions I have returned to Sanford just as the sun is setting. The enjoyment starts at 7,500 feet watching the sun get lower in the sky and the colors of the trees, mountains and ocean get their most vivid. Looking down the long tapered wing of the Diamond at the setting sun just feels like what flying is supposed to be (I am going to miss the sight of that long wing). As I descend to pattern altitude I enjoy a few steep banks partly to limber up for landing, and partly because the center stick and the view down the long wing at the ground makes steep banks fun. By the time I make my turn onto the 45 to the downwind it's time to push the prop forward and slow down for landing. On the turn to final I am rewarded with a solid red over white on the VASIs, and from there I feather the throttle to maintain the glideslope, ending in a nose high, centerline landing. I hold the stick back until the speed bleeds off, the tail stops flying and the nosewheel gently touches down.

Thanks for the reminder Paul. These thoughts put a smile on my face.

[USCANAM]

Great thread Paul.
The last time I checked my logbook, I was just shy of 7000 landings, but there's one I'll never forget.
One year when flying my aerobatic One Design down to Sun n Fun from New England is when it happened.
The One Design was fairly fast especially when I could get it up high to take advantage of the thinner air and the 3 blade MT prop, and overcome some of the drag of it's thick aerobatic wing.
This meant a fair amount of initial clothing to start the trip in a heater-less aircraft. We'd stop about every 1.5 hours for fuel, and peal off some clothing and store it in the over-size baggage pouch I had made behind the seat.
When I prepared for the landing at Valdosta GA which was my last stop before Lakeland, I was down to just one extra sweater under my Nomex flight (racing car) suit. The tower cleared me for a straight in, and as I was easing back on the stick close to the ground, I kept waiting, and waiting for the landing gear to make some contact. Much to my surprise, it seemed I had landed about a 100 yards back, and never knew it until the light bulb went on.
Thinking back, it appears that with the weeks luggage I had packed and the extra clothes I kept putting back there, I was probably flying with the CG all the way aft. Not a good configuration for getting into a spin, but good for making the "Perfect Landing"
Happy New Year all
Jack

[DeltaRomeo]

What does it for me these days is having the pattern to myself as I come up initial at 200mph, still punchy from the rolls and loops a few minutes prior, and then combining the break/downwind/base/final maneuver into a single, perfectly-circular groundtrack. If I do it right, and I rarely do, I roll wings level about three seconds before the tires squeak, having not touched the power since reversing course post-break. Let's call it 'simulated engine failure practice 1000' over the numbers'.

The whole smash….from the backfiring engine translating staccato pops up through my feet, to the quick dance of fingers over the flap handle, boost pump switch and lights, to managing the changing stick forces as the speed decays and you focus on pegging the AOA on the donut. When it comes together, and like I said earlier it rarely does, it is special.

It helps if one of your buddies is on the warmup ramp watching also, cuz it's fun messing with those guy's heads. "It happens all the time...what's the big deal?"

[Jim Sinkbeil]

I'm with you Scorch! Was thinking these guys didn't learn the Navy way.....not that we have THE best method. Don't have your varied &total experience Paul, but have walked away from several hundred traps on USS BOAT, & I concur there is no better feeling than when you are as one with your flying machine & absoutely NAIL the landing
Jim RV-7A RV-10.