You must believe this one key element of aviation: The plane wants to fly. It was built to take off and stay in flight. You can stall the plane, and recover. You can lose your engine, and still get safely to the ground. You can try to take off too soon, and still recover to safely ascend. All because the plane wants to fly. Which is precisely what makes landing such a tricky maneuver to learn.
I take my lessons in the left seat of the plane – typical for “pilot in command” – my left hand is on the yoke to steer while in flight, and my right hand is on the throttle. For in-flight maneuvers, your feet don’t do much, other than periodically apply rudder pressure if you need to correct for some of the torque placed on the aircraft. The yoke moves back and forth, as well as from side to side, which controls the planes attitude. The throttle controls power – pushed all the way, you are at full power and ready to take off. Pulled all the way out, you have no power, and the plane turns into a glider. Generally, at any given pitch/attitude, the amount of power determines whether the plane remains level, climbs, or descends. A well executed maneuver, such as a landing, requires you to coordinate your two hands – one on the yoke, and one on the throttle, to pitch the plane forward, so the nose is slightly turned down, and simultaneously reduce power.
The trick is to do this without crashing.
Here’s how to tell if you’ve established the correct rate of descent for the aircraft: PAPI lights. PAPI (Precision Approach Path Indicator) lights are conveniently placed at the end of the runway, and show up in combinations of red and white. In Goldilocks fashion, you have 1 in 3 chances to get it right. If both are white, you are too high, and need to get into a better glide path to land on the runway. If both are red, you’re descent is too rapid, and you’re going to hit the ground way to fast. If one is red, and one is white, you’re “just right,” for landing.

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The second landing with Leon, as I mentioned previously was a prime example of how not to land. It started with a slightly sloppy turn onto base. As we turned base, the attitude of the plane was nose down, and so naturally we began to descend. Except I hadn’t reduced power, so we suddenly found ourselves turning onto final approach (airplane is facing the runway head-on) much lower than we wanted – we were so low that at the rate of descent, we’d never reach the runway. I automatically pushed the throttle in, and pulled the nose up. Obligingly, the plane rose away from the ground.
Now the PAPI lights were white-white – and we were way higher than I had ever been for a landing. We needed to get down – fast – or we’d overshoot the runway. “OK, Leon,” I said, “you’re controls.” “Got it, my controls,” Leon responded. With full flaps, and a quick power reduction combined with dipping the nose down, the plane began to descend. White-red showed up – briefly.
Leon pulled the throttle all the way out, cutting power, but the plane was still moving faster than normal. Normally at this point on the runway, the plane has become a glider, and you wait for a slight sinking sensation as you pull the nose up away from the runway. Even at this point, the plane can experience ground effect, and happily jump back up into the air even without power. Ours was not such a normal landing. The sharp high pitch whine of the stall warning signal went off in the cabin and the back rear wheels hit the tarmac hard. The nose quickly came forward, and full brakes brought us back to normal taxi speed.
“Whew. That did not go at all like my previous 5 landings today,” said Leon. Upon returning to our spot, Glen and Nate greeted us with somewhat wary grins. They’d seen our down-up-down landing, and knew it hadn’t gone as planned. Sharon got out without seeming too perturbed. I had never been worried about the landing. I always figured that we’d have enough time to adjust the pitch up, apply power, and escape a crash landing. But that could just be my general belief that the plane wants to fly, even more than I do.
As I thought back to my previous landings, I couldn’t help but trace our landing back to that initial sloppy turn. I’m not well-enough versed in standard maneuvers to know exactly what went awry, but I do know that I’ve had flight instructors emphasize the need for carefully executed turns in the pattern, and consistent climbs and descents at different legs of the flight pattern. The plane was happy to stay off the ground and keep going. Preparing to land smoothly requires preparing the plane attitude at the correct points in the process. Moral of the story: sloppy flying, leads to an unruly landing. Disciplined flying ensures a neatly controlled approach, and “just right” return to earth.
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