What am I doing wrong

[Oscar Avalle]

I am getting frustrated. Normally my landings are OK, but somehow lately I feel that things are deteriorating. To be fair winds have been picking up around here and I am landing with 20kts + variable winds. So I decided to tape my latest landing and please provide me with some advice....thanks! 

 

http://youtu.be/unn-h_3Sv1w?list=UUuBPKyU-fEOZGWKutpVtFKw

[Dale Logsdon]

Your touchdown speed is too high. Your main wheels should touch first and your nose should stay off the runway for a while untill your speed bleeds off more. Reducing your touchdown speed will make your nose higher and allow this to happen.

[orionflt]

hard to give you much advice from the bottom of the plane, if I had to guess you were carrying some extra speed and tried to force it down before it was ready. but without knowing what your speeds were and the other variables during the landing I can't make any good recommendations 

[rbp]

agreed. the low, laminar flow wings won't stop generating lift in ground effect until the airspeed bleeds off. if you try to force it on the ground, it will bounce/porpoise. 

 

also sometimes people don't get every last ounce of power out. twist the throttle to make sure its all the way off. even a little thrust will spoil your landings.

what I try to do (and its always hard to explain landings) is to level off low over the runway, and hold it off the runway as long as I can by adding back elevator. when it stops flying, the mains will gently drop onto the runway.

 

every knot of airspeed takes 100ft to burn off. if you're on speed, it happens just after you level off. if you're 5 knots fast, you have to burn 500 ft of runway.

[slowflyin]

My Pop used to say "The key to a good landing is not letting it land for as long as possible".     I can still hear him in my ear,"hold it off, hold it off".   In my taildragger days it was essential.  If I was fast, as soon as the tail went down the angle of attack increased and I was instantly ballooning down the runway.    I still listen for the horn in my Mooney.  When I get lazy my landings look exactly like your video and I retract the flaps to settle her down.   Looks to me like you need to fly her a little longer.   Alibi, I'm certainly not an expert.  Just ask anyone who's seen me land.   

[Glenn]

My personal experience is that when I am going through a period of bad landings (I'd like to think that we all do from time to time), is rather than just practicing landings is to climb to a safe altitude and practice slow-flight for a while.  Put the plane in landing configuration and do turns and the rest of the slow-flight regime.  It will restore your feel for the airplane.  Don't forget to do clearing turns.

[rbridges]

I was going through a spell where my landings were bouncing a little.  It was all speed related.  Hold off the landing as long as possible.  I rarely used to hear the stall horn, now I hear it routinely before touching.  

[gjensen]

I just went through this same problem last week, flew home after an extended absence, three hour flight turned into four due to headwinds, I needed to use restroom, a little tired, impatient, the plane was light with just me and about ten gallons of fuel remaining bounced two times on the mains and had to go around. My second landing was OK, but still ugly. I was to fast over the fence for my weight and knew it and should have just made the go around decision earlier. I went down a few days later and practiced, no problems, I think it happens to many of us Mooney pilots. Airspeed adjustments when the plane is light are important!

[pinerunner]

It didn't look as bad as I was expecting, given the comments from others. It looked like you were trying to touch all three at the same time and as everyone has been saying you want to touch down on the mains first. If you really push to get it on and touch decidedly nose first then you're setting up for a prop strike. 

 

With a high wing cessna I like to start flairing about 10 feet up, passing through straight and level at about 3-5 feet up (wheels to runway of course). From there I want to be at least a little nose high. As I get closer I make slight adjustments to keep it about a foot off the ground until I get the touchdown attitude I like (not quite a full stall) and then let it settle on.

 

With the Mooney it goes similar until it gets close to the ground.  Because of the strong ground effect, any "adjustments" I make when close to the ground seem to get an exaggerated result. Imagine: my senses and judgement (good or not so good) tell me I'm approaching the ground too fast so I pull back a bit to get a little more lift; but its also going deeper into ground effect so I get more lift from that too!! The result is over-correction if I treat it the same as almost any other plane.

 

I haven' got it perfected yet but I think with a Mooney if you bleed off speed about four feet up until you're a bit nose high and then hold the attiltude it'll settle into ground effect and get closer and closer as the speed bleeds off and touch down nicely on the mains.

 

I'm pretty sure you'll over correct if you try to fly it like a Cessna and why but as to the ideal technique I'm still working on it.

 

Get approach speed right and don't over-correct as you approach to a mains first touch down.

 

I'd also throw in the caveat that my perceived distances are probably a bit different from the real distances.

[N6327Q]

I am assuming you came in a little hot. I use 100 mph downwind, 90 on base, 80 on final, 70 over the threshold and 65ish there after into a horn sounding flare. She will want to touch and you should hold her off as long as you can. Another thing is that Mooney's need a flatter approach than some other planes. I used to "kamikaze" my way down to the runway which caused an excess in airspeed. Think of yourself as walking down a flight of steps instead of jumping off them.

 

Hope that helps........

[Parker_Woodruff]

My personal experience is that when I am going through a period of bad landings (I'd like to think that we all do from time to time), is rather than just practicing landings is to climb to a safe altitude and practice slow-flight for a while.  Put the plane in landing configuration and do turns and the rest of the slow-flight regime.  It will restore your feel for the airplane.  Don't forget to do clearing turns.

 

As a CFI that watches these things happen quite often, this is great advice.  Unfortunately, many pilots get unnecessarily afraid of flight at the slower end of the envelope and shy away from good practice like this.

[Oscar Avalle]

Thank you guys, great advice, the problem is the wind. Gusty winds with 20kts+ complicate things...

[rbp]

I haven' got it perfected yet but I think with a Mooney if you bleed off speed about four feet up until you're a bit nose high and then hold the attiltude it'll settle into ground effect and get closer and closer as the speed bleeds off and touch down nicely on the mains.

 

once you're within 1 wing-span of the ground, you're in ground effect

[rbp]

Thank you guys, great advice, the problem is the wind. Gusty winds with 20kts+ complicate things...

 

it does complicate things. you want to add 1/2 the gust to your speed on final, so 15G25 adds [(25-15)/2 =]  5 knots to final approach speed, and you will use an extra 500 ft of runway

[pinerunner]

once you're within 1 wing-span of the ground, you're in ground effect

Sure but you can't expect it to be an all or nothing thing.  The closer you get the wing to the ground the stronger the effect.

[moodychief]

Oscar, I routine fly in windy cross wind conditions. One thing nobody has mentioned in this thread that was discussed at length in other threads is don't use flaps during really windy/gusty conditions. In the video it appears you have some flaps applied. Land with no flaps and adjust your speed as mentioned for the wind/gusts. Depending on the headwind component you may not use any additional runway due to the decreased ground speed. I have many landings in my C model with crosswinds above 20 knots. The worst was when I landed at Wilmar for tank reseal. Fifty degree crosswind, 21g29. Don't try to rush anything...just hold it off and let it settle in naturally.

[moodychief]

One other thing I forgot to mentioned. Practice dancing as you will need it on gusty crosswinds.

[gsxrpilot]

Ditto what Chief said.  I was landing in some ugly, gusty, cross-winds on Saturday. Both Friday and Sunday were beautiful flying days, but I was flying on the shitty day between as the front was passing through.  No flaps gives me a little faster and a little flatter approach. While that does result in a longer float, I think the key is to wait it out. I had a friend with me who'd never been in a light single before, so I was demonstrating by chanting, "hold it off, hold it off, hold it off..." until it just wouldn't fly any longer and set down gently on the mains.

[Marauder]

Oscar, I agree that you seem to be landing with full flaps on a windy day. I think the results of the landing in the video was because you started drifting to the right a bit and you put it down a little sooner than it was ready to land. It is hard to say if you were carrying too much speed.

[Robert C.]

I couldn't help but noticing that the mains and nose wheel touched at pretty much the same moment. So while speed was part of it the related part was that you weren't in the optimal landing attitude.

That "hold it off" advice sounds like the way to go. My trim is usually almost full up by the time she settles on the mains. Am guessing that would have made the difference.

[rbuck]

SO.........I am less experienced than most of these other pilots responding. I will say, though, that I did the same exact type of thing....bounced a couple times each landing, for a while.

An instructor told me asked me where I was looking when I landed. Turns out, I was looking right over the nose and not toward the end of the runway. 

Once I was conscious about looking at the end of the runway, my landings got a lot better (not perfect, but better). 

Maybe that'll help, maybe not. But is helped me. 

[Piloto]

When in gusty/crosswind conditions I raise the flaps just prior to touchdown. This reduces significantly the ground effect and assures positive contact with the runway. Specially on slippery runways were on crosswinds the plane could drift to the side. As the flaps raise the plane will pitch up slightly. This helps on keeping the nose wheel off the ground during touchdown.

 

José

[takair]

Great video. I was surprised how much the gear moves. I always assumed the rubber shocks had less movement.

I have good days and bad too, I suspect most people do. Speed, trim, and sight point on the runway seem to fix it.....but after all these years I still have days when they don't come together. The harder I try, the worse they seem to be.

[HRM]

You will hear no end of advice for landing a Mooney in crosswinds, or even landing it at all.

 

When things get sloppy for me I find that an hour with a good Mooney CFI is just the sort of refresher that puts me back in the groove. At this point in your flying a session with a CFI should be less like after school with teacher and more like skill-sharpening with coach.

 

Just my 2¢.

[MooneyPTG]

My feeling is if you don't wreck anything it was a great landing! Hold it off as long as possible was great advise. I also remember a pilot saying treat the yoke as a ratchet. It goes only toward you a little at a time as you keep trying to hold it off the runway. That made sense to me.