For some time now I\u2019ve noticed a common technique that many of my students use on the descent to their destination.\u00a0 Several miles out they reduce the power to well below 2,000 RPM and descend slowly to the destination airport.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be honest with you:\u00a0 This technique drives me nuts (okay, more nuts than usual).\u00a0 It extends the time to touchdown and just seems to me to be terribly inefficient.\u00a0 I much prefer the use of the gait I call \u201ccruise descent\u201d.\u00a0 We simply lower the nose and re-trim while gradually reducing manifold pressure in order to maintain the same RPM we had in cruise.\u00a0 A little more tweaking will give you the descent rate you want and a little practice will enable you to know exactly how much throttle and how much trim will give you the RPM and descent rate you want every time.\u00a0 You will arrive at your destination long before the guy who brought the power way back while still miles away.<\/p>\n
How about the \u201cminimum time to touchdown\u201d approach? It could also be referred to as the High Speed Approach.\u00a0 Most pilots have never heard of it (I\u2019m used to that) but I love this proficiency maneuver.\u00a0 It enables you to get on the ground in the minimum time.\u00a0 Not the type of thing that\u2019s ever taught in the modern, minimum-standards-rip-off\u2013the-students-for-every-hour-of flight\u2013time-we-can, flight school.\u00a0 You may never need to make this approach, but I sure think it\u2019s a great idea to know how to do it.\u00a0 It consists of a high speed cruise descent followed by throttle closure, flap extension and touchdown in short order.\u00a0 It\u2019s necessary to know how long it takes your airplane to slow from a relatively high airspeed to flap extension speed when the power is reduced and also how long from flap extension to landing speed.\u00a0 You can practice these operations at altitude, and then apply the knowledge to an actual approach and landing.\u00a0 For example, if we are in cruise descent in the Cessna 140 with 2,300 RPM, 100 MPH and 500 fpm and we close the throttle and maintain that descent rate, the plane will slow from 100 mph in a cruise descent to 75 MPH (with flaps extended at 80 MPH) in about 20 seconds.\u00a0 It could be less with a forward slip.\u00a0 The object is to be crossing the airport fence as soon as that speed is reached.\u00a0 It can be quite a challenge but I love it and I think it teaches planning and precise control of your airplane in a very challenging maneuver\u2026 in other words, my kind of flying!\u00a0 My detractors will say, \u201cya can\u2019t do that in my Bonanza!\u201d to which I say \u201cBull—t\u201d.\u00a0 You can do it in any airplane; the numbers will simply change (Ask any transport pilot who flew into Saigon during the Vietnam War). Those detractors will also question the reason to practice this maneuver.\u00a0 See the article on \u201cWhuffos\u201d.\u00a0 I used this maneuver on virtually every approach and landing when towing gliders with my Pawnee.\u00a0 Coupled with proper power management, shock cooling was never an issue.<\/p>\n
Depending on the direction of your approach, this maneuver might be best combined with a landing in a turn.\u00a0 All the better!<\/p>\n
And if there ever was a swooping approach, this is it.\u00a0 So,<\/p>\n
Happy Swooping!<\/p>\n
Brian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For some time now I\u2019ve noticed a common technique that many of my students use on the descent to their destination.\u00a0 Several miles out they reduce the power to well below 2,000 RPM and descend slowly to the destination airport.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be honest with you:\u00a0 This technique drives me nuts (okay, more nuts than usual).\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,266],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6444,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions\/6444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}