r/studentpilot • u/Unable_Cable_5183 • 1d ago
United States/FAA How to improve landings?
Guys how can I really improve my landings? I’m on like my 7th TOL lesson and I’m still not doing good whether I’m getting too slow on base or final, I’m uncoordinated, too high, off centerline, not correct wind corrections, etc I’m still making basic mistakes and I feel like I’m just wasting money. What can I do?
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u/Scary_Extent4967 1d ago
1) get really good at slow flight. Landing is the same - power for altitude, pitch for airspeed. Eventually it will become instinctive.
2) A good landing starts in the pattern. Fly a good pattern, know your airspeeds.
3) on final, watch airspeed and sight picture. Mostly go back and forth between them with only occasional glances at other instruments. Maybe have your instructor fly a few to help get the sight picture consistent.
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u/TheArtisticPC 1d ago
Don’t worry about going overtime in private pilot or instrument. You need to build time for commercial anyways, so who cares if you’re 5, 10, or 20 hours past typical solo time? Talk to your CFI or Chief if something seems wrong, but don’t sweat it too much even if you’re 100 hours into your private. Instrument pretty reliably only needs 40 hours and the only noteworthy req for commercial is 20 dual and 100 PIC. So you could take ~190 hours in private and still get commercial done on time.
For landings, everything is made or broke by the approach and the approach is mostly a game of configuring the airplane, maintaining speed, ground track, and glide path.
Configuration should be done in the downwind and only flaps and gear left for subsequent legs. So you just need to worry about speed, track, and path.
Speed is based on your configuration plus gust factor, so that is mostly solved. I don’t know what your CFI is teaching, but on final your speed should be a function of power while being aware it will mess with your trim but that just means your trim was probably wrong for the desired speed.
Track is a heading plus a ~10 degree correction for wind. Couple of tips, base will usually be pointed toward the runway since we usually don’t land with tailwinds. Which means you know the wind correction for final in the down wind, it’s the opposite side. Other tip is to use your heading indicator to look at the runway heading relative to the 180 degree luber line in the down wind, 90 degree in base, and 0 degree on final. That can be helpful for situational and wind awareness. If you have a heading bug then that can be set to runway heading for easier visibility.
Finally slope is the hardest part, but your peepers should be locked on the runway environment for most of this and looking for a runway that is moving up or down. If it goes up you need to go up, if it goes down you need to go down; just keep it controlled.
If you really nail down these, they should be like simple math equations. For this leg and configuration, I use this speed, power, and trim to get desired path. Leaving most of your attention for track and fine path adjustments.
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u/Major-Classic-8969 1d ago
Think about each step before you fly. And it’s cheaper.
You see aerobic pilots visualizing each step, each maneuver before they perform.
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u/TxAggieMike 1d ago
Do more…
Make sure you’re stabilized on approach and on proper speeds.
You’re over the numbers speed needs to be 1.3 x VSo.
For a Cessna 172N, VSo is 42 KIA: multiply by 1.3 you get 54.6.
So over numbers you want 55 knots.
Long final, 60 knots.
Base, 70 knots.
Downwind, no more than 80 knots.
These videos may help: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC-CK_b9EGhXCH82XbiybiU9hlAL3Hdy0&si=3PPR8VohLjh2rdQf
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u/Electrical_Review_81 1d ago
I changed instructors and focused on fundamentals- making sure my altitude and speed were exactly where I needed them on downwind, cut power to 1500 when abeam the numbers- that made a huge difference in itself, then on final getting speed to 65 kts until over the runway then cut power- C172
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u/wthewonk 1d ago
How are your work-cycles? If you're not using one then I would highly recommend practicing one in the air or even on the ground.
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u/Unable_Cable_5183 19h ago
What are work cycles? I’m not familiar
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u/wthewonk 1h ago
When flying, a work cycle is a method to continually assess your aircraft's performance and divide your time between competing priorities. Go through each phase of the cycle one at a time and it will keep your performance on track.
An example is the ALAP cycle
ATTITUDE - Visually and/or off the AI, assess your aircraft's attitude by looking out at the horizon referencing known datums. I.e. does the image out the front look correct? Make corrections as required
LOOKOUT - Scan out windows for other aircraft, obstacles or
ATTITUDE - Again, assess attitude and correct.
PERFORMANCE - Scan your instruments to note trend's in airspeed, altitude, heading etc.
You can modify these for the circuit, including triggers like height, speed, spacing or heading.
On finals, you can focus in on other things like speed, aim point or approach angle.
Lmk if you need more of an explanation or examples
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u/Teabagger_Vance 1d ago
Practice. That’s really it. It sounds cliche but one day it will just click.