How to Land an Airplane | Landing a Cessna 172

when we're teaching pilots how to land an airplane we often start by not teaching them how to land let me explain we're flying at 3 500 feet above sea level or about a thousand feet off the ground following that road straight below us we're in cruise flight about 2400 rpm and 110 knots indicated airspeed if we reduce power now let's say to around 15 or 1600 rpm in order to maintain altitude we'll need to pitch up this causes us to trade airspeed for altitude we slow down in order to maintain altitude as we approach the white arc on the airspeed indicator we extend the flaps 10 degrees which you can hear moving we'll then stop trying to maintain altitude and let the aircraft settle into a shallow descent in our cessna 172 we'll be about 75 knots the speed isn't important right now we can add progressively more flaps and with full extension at 30 degrees we're going to aim to fly the airplane at 60 knots we can control our airspeed with pitch pitch up to slow down and vice versa as we approach 60 knots we're going to pretend to land let's pretend the runway is at 3 000 feet and what we want to do is keep our aircraft as close to 3000 feet without going below ie hit the runway as we trade away all our remaining airspeed and quote unquote land at the slowest speed we can about 50 feet above our runway we're going to cut our power to idle and slowly bring the nose up we want to stay above 3000 feet but only just barely that's where the runway is obviously we're not landing but will in fact stall and need to recover [Music] but we've simulated touching down at the slowest airspeed we can the game in landing then is to try to keep the aircraft off the ground at minimum height while slowing down as much as possible you should be trying to actually not land for as long as you can manage it let's get ourselves on final and try it we're at 60 knots with full flaps notice the two white lights on the vazzy to the left of the runway indicating we're higher than the normal glide slope you don't want to pitch down to descend this will only speed us up and we're at an airspeed we like already we'll reduce power to correct for this now we don't need to pretend the runway is at a certain altitude it's right in front of us so don't look at the altimeter look at the runway the only instrument we need is airspeed which we'll try to keep at 60. our eyes should be focused where our butts are moving towards our aiming point which is the beginning of those wide white stripes between the vases our feet are working hard here too keeping that extended center line of the runway as if it's cutting our body in two just like taxiing if the center line is getting to our left or right we adjust with our feet don't over control the aileron especially in calm wind now focus on the pavement of the runway as we get lower it'll start to expand in our visual perspective this is our cue to adjust our focus from the aiming point to the end of the runway our peripheral vision will be able to gauge our height better this way now we cut power to idle and start playing that game of slowly bringing the nose up trying not to land how long can we put off that landing the actual touchdown should feel almost like a surprise let's go flaps up full power and re-enter the pattern now we're on a more traditional downwind we'll have a look at the runway to our left when we beam the numbers we'll start a descent bringing power back to around 1600 holding the nose up to trade airspeed for altitude and introducing some flaps now establishing a pitch down attitude the airspeed isn't critical here but something like 7580 knots should be fine we'll make our base and final turns bringing flaps to 30 and slowing down to 60 knots this is where airspeed is important on final know your aircraft's ideal approach speed and fly that first air speed is king the vazzy shows red over white meaning our glide slope is good no need to adjust power we'll just concentrate on holding that center line with our feet once again our eyes are on the aiming point only referencing the airspeed indicator when we know we can collide to the runway will bring the power idle and again what's going to happen is the runway will fill up our field of vision the runway goes from being a compact object in our view to blowing up and taking up a great deal of our vision in a short amount of time it's at this point that we'd like to focus our attention to the end of the runway and start bringing the nose up don't land don't land don't land keep it off the ground as long as humanly possible it should feel like forever before the aircraft wheels actually touch down this is how we bled off enough air speed so the aircraft doesn't bounce on landing now all this is so easy to talk about and show in the sim but landing an aircraft requires all the focus and coordination you can muster especially as you're learning the mechanics think of it like learning a new sport you're exercising muscles in a way you haven't done before so practice practice is the way to get better i made the mistake of trying to read and study my way to better landings by devouring all the how-to landing tutorials just like this one but at a certain point it's really better to get out there and train those muscles just remember the game is to keep the aircraft off the ground as long as you possibly can

Channel: FlightInsight

Views: 942,096

Keywords: how to land a plane, learning to land, how to land cessna 172, private pilot landings, private pilot normal landings

Id: AzpDSntjK4U

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Tue May 17 2022