Microlighters

Ek weet almal gaan vir my se ek is glad te haastig, maar hoekom voel dit vir my ek gaan NOOIT dit regkry om te land soos my instrukteur wil he ek moet dit doen nie?
My moed het regtig vanoggend in my skoene in gesak!
Trek nou op 11 ure.

Ontspan, dit gebeur so, moenie bekommerd raak nie.

As I said previously, it seemed to take me forever to get the flare height right, I was always flaring too high. The secret is tojust relax and stop trying so hard. It will eventually come to you and you will never believe that you ever battled with it.

Good luck and enjoy the flying.

Remember, flying is completely unnatural to a human. You are teaching your mind and muscles new tricks. It will suddenly come right.

While we are on this subject I get the feeling, that learning to land a Trike is much more difficult than a 3-Axis. I am not talking from experience because I don't fly trikes but just generally everyone I have spoken to have taken longer to go solo on trikes than on 3-axis and most have told me that they have battled with the landings. Is this true

It also took me forever to get those blady landing right, but eventually i got it and wondered why i battled so much. Just relax it will come to you eventually.

Bacchus wrote:Trek nou op 11 ure.

Bacchus – warm welcome to the club especially if you;
• are on the wrong side of 50
• are unfit and over weight
• wear glasses
• have 3 problems with flying, namely, landing, landing & landing
• make a tortoise appear to move at warp speed compared to your reactions on the controls.

Bacchus - stop counting the hours. I have still not added up my hours and just keep a mental note of my solo hours [obviously logs etc. are completed]. Who cares if I have 14 or 16 hours? I don’t. In any event, going solo is not a “goal” – it’s just a small stepping stone in terms of being able to competently leave the cabbage patch one day.

Good luck bud! See Frik’s similar frustrations [posted last week – Hoe lank nog na SOLO?]

Morpheus wrote:While we are on this subject I get the feeling, that learning to land a Trike is much more difficult than a 3-Axis. I am not talking from experience because I don't fly trikes but just generally everyone I have spoken to have taken longer to go solo on trikes than on 3-axis and most have told me that they have battled with the landings. Is this true

Morph – I am going to stick my chin out – here goes ….

You are absolutely right. The principal reason is that M/L students are taught to fly a much steeper approach angle [20° normal and 30° in wind] on finals which makes the round out ridiculously more difficult to learn. I have now carefully observed 1000’s of landings.

Experienced M/L pilots [especially on “windy” days] use a much lower angle of approach on finals. The very first time I tried this using power as necessary = WALLA !!! – I can see clearly now. Gauging height and getting the round out timing right became “easy” by comparison – proof of this is that I went solo within the next week.

My instructor “Da Boss” is not unhappy = “If it works for you, that’s fine”. When he says it, I believe it.

PS: Morph, let's not forget the obvious - no rudder etc.

Hi Bacchus

Moenie teveel bekommer nie. Ek het 150 ure en land nog elke nou en dan lekker hard.

Party keer is 'n harde landing veiliger as 'n sagte een. As jy met 'n drie as bietjie hoog uitrond en jy land hard is jou spoed klaar weg en jou vliegtuig gaan nêrens heen nie.

As jy met te hoë spoed sag land kan die vliegtuig nog vlieg en jy kan dalk probleme optel

Bacchus, just try and relax and go with the flow. Everything will come right
I also at one stage thought of taking up chess, especially for my ego but now I'm glad that I didn't take it up. There is no better feeling than when you land your first perfect landing and stop in front of the hanger with your head in the clouds It is like playing golf, just when you think you have it in the bag it comes back to byte you in the bum
That's what makes flying so much fun (never a dull moment) :D
Good luck

Throughout doing training I just kept thinking that when learning to drive a car it also seemed quite unnatural to consciously co-ordinate all your limbs at seemingly the same time, but soon it's almost a completely natural task.

I may be overcomplicating it but here's a view:
I had - still have - the impression that sometimes you learn about flying when you are not flying. I would have the worst morning trying to land the damn plane properly. Look far, look close, airspeed, power, too much, too little, oops! look far, too high, too low, too HARD, try again.

I'd be thoroughly disheartened after training, thinking that I'd never get it right. Then for some unknown reason the next morning without seemingly doing anything different, it all just works!. It's like your mind, muscle memory or whatever all of a sudden grasps what the important variables are in this complicated equation of calculus required to land this thing and it just snaps together. Like a perfect golf shot, that one perfect landing makes up for all the other foul-ups. And you need that, because just when you think you've got it - well like t-bird says - every now and then it all goes south.

Quote:(Morph) Remember, flying is completely unnatural to a human. You are teaching your mind and muscles new tricks. It will suddenly come right.

That's so true, if flying didn't pose any difficulties and risk to a human, we would have called it "walking"!


We as pilots are a small breed of incredible people who have successgully discovered freedom!
Shit, I'm going to put my name against that quote!!

It may be worth considering a change of instructor and/or flying school. (Some schools have a reputation, which may or may not be true, for managing their cash flow by dragging out training for as long as possible). It is not too difficult undermine a students confidence and convince them they need a “few more hours”.

The other problem you have is that this is the worst possible time of the year to learn to fly in the Western Cape. It may be worth taking some leave and coming up to one of the schools in the Gauteng or Mpumalanga area. You would not be the first one to do it.

Hi Bachus,

I had the same 'thump 'landings, floating a few feet above the ground untill the stall 'drop'.

As soon as I started approaching 60 m.p.h. and was slightly more aggressive, or late in my'flair' I've 'aced' it ever since.

Not advising, but works for me.

Buchus - I struggled like hell to land properly. One of my instructors told me to pull in the bar in right against my chest when descending and look far ahead when landing. To me this didn't work. Airspeed was too high (65mph on Safari with hangin point in the middle.)

I then flew with a different instructor who taught me to pull the bar in half way keep +-4000rpm power (582) on and the airspeed at 55mph on the same Safari. I also changed my focus point to about 20 m in front of me on the ground and as I approach the ground I just relax on the bar - Moves forward by itself and then push...wait...push...wait...big push and you toach down so softly that you don't realize where the air stops and the ground begins.

Moral of the story - Don't descend at a hell of a rapid rate. 55mph is ample to not stall on roundout.

My 1c worth

Thanks julle ouens!
Dis nogal m@erse om te weet ek is nie die enigste een wat hiermee sukkel nie. Dankie vir al die raad. Gaan als in my agterkop bere!
Winderige Wes Kaap groete!

CloudBase wrote:Look far, look close, airspeed, power, too much, too little, oops! look far, too high, too low, too HARD, try again. Plus, every now and then it all goes south.

I think it’s great when seriously experienced guys come out and admit that it was “tuff” for them too. Don’t somehow feel so lonely.

Suggestion – I going to ask tdrtw [Damien - Albuquerque, New Mexico] to make a video with the camera mounted on the pylon behind the pilots head to capture short finals, round out, hold off, touch down etc. for both steep and flat approaches. Further work in this field could provide for a valuable learning / training tool – the student will have a better grasp of what it is going to “look” like. In the beginning, my “landings” were simply awful – I guess like about 100% of other students.

Is there someone out there who will utter, “Landings were never hard for me”?