Hey guys! Jon from fly8MA.com and today I'm here to
talk to you about low approaches to the runway. Making low approaches down the runway without
actually landing. And that is a great tool to practice when
you're getting ready to do touch-and-go's with your instructor, just getting ready to
start learning how to land the aircraft. Instead of just going right in and trying
to bring the wheels down to the ground, we're instead going to fly lower and lower and lower
down the runway. Today we're going to be flying the airplane
down the runway with proper crosswind correction put in, by the way, keeping a wing down if
we need to, keeping some rudder in there if we need to, and then just tracking center
line, using power to keep the airplane in the air off the ground. If we get too low we'll add power, if we get
too high, we'll reduce power, always managing our airspeed. We're a B in our touchdown point so we're
ready to go through our landing checklist. PPFF, power back to 1700, pitching for 80
miles per hour, I do that just by holding my nose up right where she was, not letting
it drop or climb at all. So just keeping that nose up there, bleed
the airspeed down to 80, I'll go ahead and trim to help me hold at 80, trim back to neutral
there. And then put in 10 flaps, and turn my fuel
pump on. That'll start a nice, gentle descent here. About 300-500 feet per minute. Watching my runway there off on my left shoulder,
all I care about here is airspeed and runway. That's all I care about. I can tell my altitude, just by looking out
my window, I know if I'm high or low, just by looking out the window. But watching my runway, that gives me my heading
information, watching the airspeed, that gives me how much energy is left in the airplane. Right about 45 degrees off of our left shoulder,
we'll go ahead and turn a left base."Traffic Cherokee 07Whiskey, left base runway 23, Venice
Traffic." I'm going to keep my hand near the throttle
since we are coming in closer to the ground. If we ever get too close to the ground, or
something goes wrong, we'll just add full power and climb away. Leveling our wings here, going to 25 degrees
of flaps, still looking good. You'll notice we've got a pretty slow ground
speed here at base. That's going to be a good indication that
we're probably going to run into a right crosswind on final here. Maintaining airspeed, watching the runway. Airspeed and runway, that's all we really
care about here. Use power for altitude if I get a little low,
I'll bump some power in, if I get picked up by a little thermal and I get too high, I
reduce some power. We're clear on the right, nobody else is on
final. "Venice Traffic Cherokee 07Whiskey final runway
23 low approach, Venice Traffic." So I let everyone know that we're just a low
approach, we're not a touch-and-go, we're not a full stop, we're just low approach on
runway 23, not necessary to include that but it's a helpful little bit of information to
let them know. We can see we're just slightly high here above
glide, so that's okay, better high than low. I'll try to reduce a little power her to get
back on glide slope, and when I do get back on glide slope, I'm coming down and when I
intercept glide slope, I want to bump some power so I don't continue to go below it. There's glide slope, bump a little power in,
expect a few little thermals over the blacktop here and over the road, and then probably
some sink over the inner-coastal there, over where the cooler water is. Right on glide slope, as I get closer here,
I'm going to go ahead and transition to a side slope slip, so we're slipping sideways
through the air, putting in left rudder, right aileron, because I've got a crosswind coming
from the right and I want to track straight down that runway. Now I'm just using power to hold myself up
in the air. Normally I would want to reduce power here
to come even lower and let the wheels touch the ground, but I'm going to leave a little
bit of power in, not so much, just enough. Probably about 1500-1700rpm-- somewhere in
that range. Just enough power to keep the airplane cruising
down the runway at a safe airspeed-- about 70 to 80-- just a few feet off the ground. There's about 30 feet. I'm going to take her down to 10 feet. 20 feet. And about 10 feet. We could take her down even lower here if
we wanted to. We're just using power and pitch to work this
here. I'm keeping my right wing down, tracking center
line, looking all the way down that runway, and focusing at the very end of it, focusing
on those trees at the end, trying to just continue flying the airplane down the runway
as far as we want to go. We're getting a little low, I'll add some
power in, keeping that energy in the aircraft. And with the last thousand feet of the runway
there I'm going to go ahead and add full power, go around, immediately climb away in Vu. Once we've passed through 200 feet, I'll go
from 25 flaps down to 10 flaps. "Venice Traffic 07Whiskey, up on runway 23,
Venice Traffic." Passing through 200 feet, 20 flaps down to
10, and holding Vy. 85 mph here. Just keeping that nose right up on the horizon
there, and I'm pushing forward a bit here. I'm fighting the trim, I don't want to bother
reaching up and trying to reset it. I'd rather just keep my hand on the throttle
and keep it pushed all the way in. We're clear to turn left crosswind here. "Venice Traffic Cherokee 07 Whiskey, left
crosswind runway 23, Venice Traffic." As we roll onto the left crosswind, once we
get our wings level, we'll go ahead and go 10 flaps down to zero and turn our fuel pump
off. There we are, wings level on crosswind, airspeed's
good, positive climb rate, positive airspeed, flaps down. Flaps up, actually. Panel down, flaps are retracted. And we'll go ahead and turn onto the left
downwind. "Venice Traffice Cherokee 07Whiskey, left
downwind runway 23, Venice Traffic. And we're going to do the same exact thing
again here. We're going to do a low approach using power
to control our altitude, just holding the airplane just a few feet off the ground as
we get lower we'll put a little power in. If we touch a wheel, let's take that opportunity
to take power all the way out and make it a touch-and-go. Wouldn't that be great? We'll go ahead and do PPFF to configure for
landing, power back to 1700. Now I already trimmed, I never fixed that
trim, so now all I have to do is slowly release on that back pressure without letting the
nose pitch up or down on me. And eventually, I can let go, the nose stays
right there and we pitch for 80 automatically. Flaps at 10, and fuel pump on. We're on a nice, gentle, slow descent right
at 80 mph. 45 degrees off our left shoulder there, once
we get 45 degrees, we'll turn on a left base. On base, 25 flaps. And on this one, we'll make a low approach
just like we did before, but I got a feeling we'll get really low in a good position, and
when I like it I'll just pull power back to idle, the right wheel will touch first and
then the left wheel, and I'll just hold it off, follow through, and make it into a full
stop landing. And we're clear to turn our left base, no
one else is around here. "Venice Traffic Cherokee 07Whiskey, left face
runway 23, Venice Traffic." Alright, we're on left face, we're going to
23, we'll go to 25 flaps here. Power for altitude, pitch for airspeed. Never using this to go up. This controls airspeed. Throttle controls altitude. Add power we'll go up, reduce power we'll
go down. Really get that stuck in you're head. Never use this to control altitude. It will go terribly wrong, because what happens
is, you get low, so you pull back to go up and then you get slow, so you sink a lot more. We'll go ahead and get our approach stabilized
here at 80. A Nice stable approach is the secret to a
good landing. 80 mph, nice steady descent rate, everything
is looking good. We're clear on the right-- nobody else is
on final, we can go ahead and start turning final for runway 23, here."Venice Traffic
Cherokee 07Whiskey, Final runway 23, Venice Traffic." I didn't tell them touch-and-go, full stop,
low approach, or anything like that because we're not really sure what we want to do just
yet. I don't know how this one's going to turn
out. Pushing forward just a hair there to keep
my speed up. Right on glide slope, using power to manage
my altitude, power to manage the glide slope. As I get lined up here, eventually I'll transition
to that right wing down, left rudder in, to keep my nose going straight down the runway,
and put the right wheel down first. Looking all the way down that runway, focusing
at the very end of it, using my peripherals to help gauge height. Even though my focal point is all the way
at the end, I might not be able to see over the nose, I'm still focusing down at the very
end, and using the peripherals to gauge how high I am, and also my yaw left and right. Bringing that left rudder in, bringing that
right wing down. We're a little bit below glide slope but we're
clear of all our obstacles so we're going to go ahead and come down towards the runway
now, holding that 80 mph all the way down into ground effect. Looking down that runway, making all the little,
tiny corrections we need, making as big a correction as you need on the flight controls,
but look how I'm moving them around. I'm immediately canceling myself out so I'm
making very small changes in attitude to the aircraft. Very small attitude changes, but plenty of
changes on the flight controls, whatever I need to get the aircraft to respond immediately
to what I want, but not making big attitude changes. Because if I just put a change and hold this
up, look at that, now we're climbing up like crazy. I want to make lots of small, little corrections. This looks really good here so I'm going we're
just going to go ahead and reduce power. Right wheel is down, left wheel is down, the
nose gear is down, and we're rolling all the way over, following through, and there is
how we turn a low approach into a landing. So, low approach and high-speed taxi combines
to make a really nice landing. If you can taxi the aircraft fast, and you
can fly it down the runway just a few feet off of it, you can land the aircraft. We'll go ahead and turn off here, and let
everyone know we're clear of the runway. As we get clear, here we'll make our radio
call. "Venice Traffic Cherokee 07Whiskey is clear
of runway 23 at Echo, Venice Traffic." Hey, guys thanks so much for watching and
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