March 2005-
Recently, a friend and I were out in the Bounce Pattern (touch-and-goes) in an old beat-up rental hag attempting to make spot landings with six- to eight-knot crosswinds. This is good practice and dependent on traffic in the pattern.
On the second time around the pattern, I noticed the traffic ahead of me extending his downwind leg out a few miles and couple hundred feet below pattern altitude. My friend and I started commenting about what would happen if his engine quit; he would suddenly be a Christmas ornament on someone’s house.
As we watched the pilot go from downwind, to base, onto final, he continued to lose altitude three miles from the airport. We just shook our heads in amazement. He did a perfect airliner approach.
Nevertheless, if the engine quit, he would never have made the runway. I see this all the time.
After he was out of the pattern, I proceeded with my spot landings. Downwind set up is at the midpoint of the intent runway, throttle back, flap ten degrees and then trim nose up. When abeam the numbers, chop the power (burp the engine on descent), full flaps, side slip the aircraft, keep the eyes on the runway and airspeed indicator. Then plant the aircraft on the numbers of a 5,200-foot-long runway for landing.
I put the aircraft on the numbers, because if the brakes fail, I have plenty of runway left to let the airplane roll out before stopping. Brakes are meant for taxiing in these puddle jumpers, but that’s another story.
I started thinking and wondering where some of these pilots learn these bad habits. The answer is from flight instructors who are training to be airline pilots. Now, granted, not all flight instructors are training for the airlines, and I have met, on occasion, some rather nice flight instructors.
In general, these days, flight instructors don’t teach slips (cross control) landings. How do I know this? One time I was being checked out in a Cherokee 140 and when I was on final, a bit high, I put the aircraft into a forward slip. I noticed the instructor was literally climbing the cockpit wall going unstable.
While learning spot landings, I was always taught to turn base when 45 degrees from the numbers and to always be within gliding distance of the runaway.
Pilots and student pilots, I’ve observed are low and slow on landings, making these airliner type approaches which are extremely dangerous. My first flight instructor said to me she likes space between her and the ground, and I can understand why.
What is the natural state of aircraft? On the ground, of course. Airplanes defy the laws of physics known as gravity.
I’ve had my share of Air Traffic Controllers telling me that they will call my base turn (extend your downwind leg). And why are these yeehaws going out to the next county or state to turn base, when the tower didn’t tell them to do that? The best thing I can do in this case is slow down the aircraft, maintain pattern altitude until they’re abeam my wing and turn base.
Nevertheless, I emphasize maintaining pattern altitude until I have the runway made (gliding distances to the runway).
What some of these flight instructors need to teach is the first commandment for flying: Know Thy Airplane.
• What is the airspeed for downwind, base and final?
• What are the power settings for downwind, base, and final?
• When and where does the pilot use flaps?
• What is pattern altitude?
• You can always trade altitude for airspeed, but you can’t trade airspeed for very much altitude.
• What is the gliding distance of the aircraft?
I read somewhere that best glide airspeed, if unknown, is stall speed plus fifteen. If I use 61 KIAS from 14 CFAR Part 23.49 (c) as a datum, this would give me best glide airspeed of 76 KIAS. So I will round this number off to 75 KIAS and developed the chart in Figure 1. You will notice the less the altitude, the less the glide distances available.
Glide distances will be less at a slower speed. For example, at 65 KIAS the glide distances will be 1,000 feet less. Notice in Table 1 there is big difference in maximum glide airspeed between different aircraft.
So the moral to this information, is always check the Pilots Operating Handbook (POH) for best glide airspeed. This varies from one aircraft model to another. You don’t need to be a flight instructor or a rocket scientist to use common sense.
The next time you go flying ask yourself these questions.
• Was I taught the right way?
• Watch how other pilots make landings and ask yourself, “Was this safe or not? What would I do differently?”
• Get a second opinion if you don’t feel comfortable.
• Observe and criticize your landings. Strive for that perfect pattern altitude.
• Learn from other pilots experiences and make your own observations.
• “What happens if the engine quits? Can I make the runway? If not, is there a safe place to land? If not, what am I doing wrong, and why am I this far from the runway?”
To put this all in perspective, take another look at the chart in Figure 1 to see what the glide distance is versus altitude. The next time you are making a low and slow approach (back side of the power curve), think to yourself, can I make the runway if the engine quits? Happy flying.
Norm Ellis is an instrument-rated private pilot, who has flown 23 different General Aviation aircraft types. He holds three Multi-STCs on five different Type Certificate aircraft that are certified on 88 aircraft with 30 more pending.
