My Flying

Hi Vtrance,

Flying your approach requires practice to make it perfect. A few important things you have to keep in mind is although every landing is different, you should keep the same things in mind. I would suggest you speak with your instructor, I myself am a flight instructor here in Canada, I've flown a variety of different aircraft and would love to suggest a few pointers; so here we go!

1.Know your aircraft, read the POH (pilot operating handbook), know your POH and what is in it.

--a)SPEEDS!!!

--b)Weight and Balance before every flight (includes fuel, range, endurance)

--c)Weather (go/no-go)

--d)Take-off, landing performance before every flight (go/no-go, is my runway long enough, is the density altitude too high, climb performance)

--e)Important checklists (Climb check, Downwind, short final + ***EMERGENCY CHECKLISTS***)

--f)General stuff, how much oil, what type, type of fuel, powerplant specs...

--g)Anything else your instructor tells you!

2.Familiarize yourself with your base airport, in training this is important as you are learning to fly the plane, the rest will come later.

--a)Look at the airport information, look at it from the airport charts and find your key points: x-wind to downwind, downwind-base, base-final, short-final.

--b)Check on the charts for any obstructions or anything usefull to identify your key points. Know set your altitude goals, downwind-base 1000AGL, base-final 500AGL, short final (all checks complete, commited to land ***important***) 300AGL.

--c)Runway lenght, taxiways, frequencies, common stuff

--d)Anything else your instructor tells you!

3.Hangar talk, talk to other pilots, with your instructor, discuss problems or concerns, they are there to help you! Heck, you might even teach them something!

4.Get good books, if you can order it; "From the Ground Up", is amazing.

5.Look online, just like you asked me.

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All this will make you a better pilot and help you land!

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Many rule of thumbs exist, such as

- Always keep the ball in the middle of the two lines, beware of ILLUSIONS!

- *** Remember your stall speed is 54 knots *** so your approach speed is usually 1.3 you Vso so about 70 knots + 1/2 of any wind gusts.

- On short final, only two items in mind! **AIRSPEED / CENTERLINE**

- In your flare, look far ahead and imagine you are trying to reach the other end!

- If you bounce, never push down on the controls, keep the nose up and add power, if its safe to do so either overshoot/or land.

- On touchdown, keep the weight of the nose gear for as long as possible and use your brakes, more weight on the main gear makes them more effective.

- Use proper wind correction: if its in the back dive with the wind; if from the front, climb into the wind.

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There are so many more things...

Fly safe(r)

Hi ; i recently joined aviation and cleared my Solo on Mushak MFI 17 after 12 dual hours ; i got lot of confidence after my solo ; im at 2.3 solo hrs now but with every coming day i dont know why im making more mistakes :/ why is it so ? when im doing dual with my instructor ; im good , but when im solo ; i make soo many power adjustments on "base turn" that on "short finals" most of the time my speed is decreasing rapidly ; and although i put throttle idle imedialtely after touch down ; still my aircraft bounce ; why is it so ?

cool...