Flight Training Advice And Analysis
The trim wheel is a very helpful tool that makes flying a lot more relaxing. Without it you would be forced to hold the yoke pressure almost all the time while flying around.
On most small airplanes the trim works by moving a trim tab, which is a small control surface usually mounted on the elevator surface itself. This trim tab “flies” the elevator. Continue reading “Understanding Trim”
You might think that departing from the pattern at a non-towered airport is simple, and it usually is. However, there is a standard way to do it that is safer than the alternatives.
First, if you aren’t sure about how the traffic pattern works, please read Traffic Pattern Basics and Traffic Pattern Entry first.
See this diagram from the Aeronautical Information Manual.
For our purposes, we are only interested in #6. Notice the only two ways out of the pattern are straight ahead, or a 45 degree turn to the left. This is what the AIM says about it:
From AIM 4-3-3 If departing the traffic pattern, continue straight out, or exit with a 45 degree turn (to the left when in a left−hand traffic pattern; to the right when in a right−hand traffic pattern) beyond the departure end of the runway, after reaching pattern altitude.
It’s pretty clear from this that there is only one real way out of the pattern.
The AIM recommends a straight out departure, but you will need to turn at some point unless you happen to be going where the runway points.
Continue on your straight out or 45 degree departure until you are outside of the normal traffic pattern (2 miles from the airport).
Make a plan that helps you to maintain clearance from the traffic pattern if you need to pass back over the airport. This means being at least 500 feet above pattern altitude before passing over any part of the pattern, including the inbound 45 degree leg.
Have you ever heard the story of the high wing airplane flying just under the low wing airplane, and neither can see the other. This kind of thing can really happen, and downwind is where it would occur. If you are climbing through the pattern while others are maintaining altitude in the pattern you are inviting this type of setup.
Conversely, it is hard to imagine this occurring on a straight out departure leg. Keeping traffic separated based on activity makes the pattern safer by making it easier to anticipate where planes are and what they are doing.
There is a lot of debate around how to enter the traffic pattern at a non-towered field. A lot of experienced pilots make very good arguments for alternate ways of entering the pattern.
However, I am going to simplify this for you and recommend the most standard way to enter the pattern. It is in line with the FAA’s recommendations and safe to fly at non-towered fields.
First, make sure you understand Traffic Pattern Basics.
To enter the pattern fly to a point that is at least 5 miles out and 45 degrees from the middle of the runway (see diagram below). Then turn inbound “on the 45” towards the middle of the runway.
When approaching the starting point of the 45 plan your altitude carefully. If you will be overflying within a few miles of the airport you should be at least 500 feet above the highest pattern altitude (look in the airport facilities directory).
No matter which way you are coming from be sure to announce your arrival and intentions when you are 10 miles from the airport. So if you are coming from the relative direction of travel on the 45 (top-right in the diagram) then you might announce “Chester County traffic, Cessna 12345 10 miles out on the 45 runway 11, Chester County”. However, if you will be crossing over the airport you should announce something like “Chester County traffic, Cessna 12345 10 miles south of the airport. We will cross over the field at 2500 and join the 45 runway 11, Chester County”.
Once you reach the point where you want to join the 45 you need to carefully consider a plan that will allow you to end up at the correct altitude inbound on the 45 and clear of other traffic. If you are expecting to turn to the opposite direction to join the 45 it is good to plan early and fly a relatively wide turn. This will usually be needed when you overflew the airport. Don’t aim straight for the point where you plan to enter the 45. Instead, aim for a point that is a mile or 2 to the side so you will have some room to turn inbound.
Flying the 45 is easy. Just stay at pattern altitude and fly towards the middle of the runway. Use this time primarily to look for traffic in the pattern and get ready to enter downwind. If you haven’t completed your pre-landing checklist yet this is a great time to do it.
Enter downwind at a point close enough to the airport that you could land if the engine failed. Don’t be tempted to turn too early and fly a wide dangerous downwind leg.
That’s it! You’ve entered the pattern.
Location: Westminster, MD Identifier: 2W2 Runway: 14 Weather: Calm Aircraft: Cessna 172 Difficulty: Easy X-Plane 11 Save:Challenge01_2w2_dwnd FSX:SE Saves:challenge01_2w2_downwind challenge01_2w2_downwind challenge01_2w2_downwind
Use the provided save file for your sim to start on left downwind for runway 14. If you aren’t familiar with how to fly a standard traffic pattern, read here.
After landing, make sure to go to the pilot’s shop and buy the coffee mug.
Landing at Clearview airpark is challenging. It is a short narrow field with trees at one end, and a road at the other. You will be landing on runway 14 where tall trees block the approach.
Make sure to focus on landing at the runway numbers beyond the displaced threshold. You should clear the trees with some room to spare. Make sure your airspeed is low enough on final and make a timely decision to go around if things aren’t working out.
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The traffic pattern is a simple set of paths in the sky that allow pilots to fly to an airport and land in an orderly fashion. This standard set of paths lets us know where we can expect other aircraft to be and makes it easy to communicate where we are.
To fly the pattern a pilot will depart and climb straight ahead until the airplane is past the end of the runway and within 300 feet of reaching the pattern altitude (usually about 1000 ft above the runway).
Then he will turn downwind soon so that the downwind leg is about 1/2 to 1 mile from the runway.
There are a number of steps to take to land and they begin on downwind (or sooner). Is the pre-landing checklist complete? Do that first.
On downwind, choose a power setting that will allow you to maintain altitude with your airspeed within or just slightly above Vfe (top speed of the white arc).
Then wait until you are abeam the runway, meaning that you are passing the end of the runway where you intend to touchdown and it is 90 degrees to your left. Once you are abeam reduce your power so that the aircraft may descend. Expect to add just a little bit of back pressure to the yoke so that the aircraft slows down while descending. If your speed is outside of the white arc then do not let the plane descend yet. Instead slow it so it is within the white arc. Once you are within the white arc below Vfe you can lower your first notch of flaps.
Next, you need to turn base. When to turn is a bit of a judgment call depending on a lot of factors including wind, power setting, speed, altitude, etc…. In general, you can usually turn when the touchdown point is about 45degrees behind your left shoulder.
Once you turn base lower the flaps another notch. Then look at the runway and decide if you are too high or low. Look at your airspeed and decide if you are too fast or too slow. There are some tricks to deal with this but the simplest thing is to add power if you are too low and reduce power if you are too high. If you are too fast or slow you can adjust with both power and pitch.
Turn final soon enough that you don’t overshoot the runway and feel free to make an earlier shallow turn if it helps. Then work to get your aircraft lined up with the centerline of the runway. Don’t let yourself drift around. Instead, aim to keep the plane lined up as perfectly as possible. As you get closer to the runway and you are almost over it go ahead and add in the rest of your flaps.
All the steps above should be taken smoothly in order to create a nice stable approach from the pattern down to the runway. Practice this until you can get from downwind to the runway and float in just over the numbers at the right airspeed.
Yes, there are some downsides to using a simulator to learn how to land a plane. However, there are significant benefits to landing in a simulator over real-life.
This is the big obvious advantage. Learning to land in the sim costs basically nothing compared to landing in real life which usually costs around $10 per attempt when renting a plane.
Practicing landings in real life allows for one trip around the pattern every 5 minutes or so. This means that in a 1 hour lesson you usually can’t do more than 12 landing attempts.
The simulator however, let’s you save and load quickly. A good approach leads to a good landing so make sure to spend plenty of time practicing both. It is nice to save on midfield downwind at pattern altitude and the correct speed and then reload this save over and over again to quickly practice approaches to landing.
Once you get the approaches down try saving about 100 feet before the end of the runway so you can practice the touchdown over and over again. Some simulators will even allow you to load your save with a joystick button so you can land again and again!
When landing a real plane you can only access one view: the 3D cockpit view. This is nice but the simulator allows you to land from chase view and really get an idea of how the airplane is behaving during landing.
Practice landings in the chase view sometimes and you will get better at touching down softly.
Debriefing after a flight is one of the best ways to solidify your learning. Use replays of your landings to help recall what worked and what went wrong.
I am a big supporter of flight simulators as a training tool. But, like every tool, there are several drawbacks to using it. In this post we will go through a few of the shortcomings that simulators have when learning to land.
A big part of the getting the muscle memory and physical skill involved in landing is based on your almost subconscious feeling of the way the airplane is moving. When you are floating just above the pavement your main goal is to keep the aircraft on a steady track despite shifts in the wind and ever-changing airspeed.
When your body senses a pull to one side you can react without thinking with corrective rudder. In the simulator you can only see this motion, so there is a bit of a delay.
The same effect occurs with sinking. As the aircraft loses airspeed it will want to sink and for the early part of the landing you generally want to resist sinking to lose more airspeed. Again, your body can feel this happening a bit faster than your eyes will see it.
The effect of this disadvantage is small, but important.
This one has to do with peripheral vision. In a simulator, you generally can’t see out the side of your eyes like you can in real life.
In real-life your eyes can see just about 90 degrees on each side, which is a huge amount of extra information coming in. When landing this means that you can see the pavement racing by out the side and front windows. This little bit of extra information helps your brain to put together an estimate of how high you are in real-time.
I believe modern virtual reality headsets will mitigate this factor somewhat and eventually peripheral vision in a sim may be just as good as real-life.
When you land a real plane your controls begin to feel “mushy” as the plane slows down. This is simply because there is less air flowing over the wings and you need lots of aileron to get any sort of roll control at all. The same is true for your other control surfaces as well.
In the simulator, the yoke or stick is often very sensitive because there is no feedback to push against. There are some force feedback joysticks out there that may help with this one somewhat.
Despite these drawbacks there are some serious positives to using a simulator to learn how to land.
I have been a CFI for 10 years now and a simulator user for much longer than that. I am frequently asked if flight simulators are just games or if they can really teach someone to fly. Continue reading “Can a simulator teach you to fly?”