Landings per hour of flight time

[211º]

I don't think that I have ever seen this statistic discussed. In the last 12 months how many landings did you record per flight hour?

As a student pilot, I would imagine that this average might be as high as six per hour. I'm guessing that about one per hour might designate someone as doing a lot of commuting or $100 hamburgers. And then a number less than one would indicate quite a few long cross countries. 

If you use ForeFlight and it's logbook, you can click on Experience Summary and then filter for the last 12 months to see the number of hours flown and the number of landings made.

[N201MKTurbo]

I’m at 0.6 L/H

[Danb]

68 hours 32 landings ..about 1 landing per 2 hours flight. Prior to pandemic most likely 3+ hours per landing

[Brian E.]

As an aberration, I was practicing possible turns 2 days ago.  Taking off one runway performing a right 90, left 270 and touching down where I took off and then doing the same the opposite direction.  I swear I could click off one of those a touch and go every 90 seconds.

  I completed my instrument and commercial last year driving my ratio higher than average and have a 4 landings per hour (lph) over 200 hrs for 2020. I blame it all on MS and youtube...  

 

[MooneyMitch]

Bounced landings...... can I count those as multiple landings.....?

All seriousness aside though.......a brief look through my book, and based on my flight missions the past several years, I log 2 landings per flight hour.  Which means I’m a local flyer (mostly) these days..... I take off, fly to another local area airport, land and hangout at that airport watching other planes and folks(sometimes visit a bit), takeoff and return to home base. I usually do a few Mooney aerobatics to and from .

[Vance Harral]

0.6 L/H for me, like N201MKTurbo.  But the number is skewed by sitting in the right seat monitoring other pilots' landings while instructing.  I'm probably about 1 L/H in my personal flying.

[gsxrpilot]

2020 has been a high training year for me. I got my Commercial and Tailwheel which both involved a disproportionate high number of landings.

117 hours - 129 landings = 1.1 L/H

[Davidv]

115 landings in 176 hours for me.

It’s more intuitive for me to show it as hours per landing (average flight time) which is about 1.5 or .65 L/H.

[EricJ]

I did a LOT of touch-and-goes back in the day.   I'm still at about 1.7 L/H. 

 

[gsxrpilot]

3 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Good for you, Paul!   Congratulations!   
 

Since I know that you work in the field, I added a couple of GIAC cyber security certifications in 2019 and 2020 that were quite time consuming for me as a non-IT guy to prepare for.   I really enjoyed the SANS process, but I would have enjoyed doing what you did this year a lot more.  I think I am going to pursue my CISSP certification in 2021. Maybe 2022 will be my year for that tail wheel endorsement.  Anyway, again, congratulations.  Your tail wheel endorsement and formation flying tell me that flying is about much more than just the destination for you.  
 

 

Thanks! Those security certs get more and more involved. And the CISSP is no joke. I never did get the CISSP although I started it a few times. 

[kortopates]

you guys got my curiosity up, for last 12 months:

443 tkoff/landings in 275.3 hrs = 1.6 per hour - not a single T&G but many GA's not counted - vast majority from the right seat

Edited December 18, 2020 by kortopates

[Pilot boy]

I’ve been working on my commercial in the M20E and the accuracy landings - especially the power off 180 have required some practice.  I also did transition training....and I’m commercial check ride ready now.  I also use the plane for work x countries.  I’m around 110 hrs since July and 260+ landings.  

[Pilot boy]

7 hours ago, Brian E. said:

As an aberration, I was practicing possible turns 2 days ago.  Taking off one runway performing a right 90, left 270 and touching down where I took off and then doing the same the opposite direction.  I swear I could click off one of those a touch and go every 90 seconds.

  I completed my instrument and commercial last year driving my ratio higher than average and have a 4 landings per hour (lph) over 200 hrs for 2020. I blame it all on MS and youtube...  

 

Were your practicing the impossible turn at all?  I’d like to practice some of those to simulate losing the engine like at 800 ft etc.

[skydvrboy]

This year, 1.25 L/H.  Lowest year = 1.17; Highest year (PPL) = 3.51.  My landings per hour go up a lot this time of year though.  It's seems all my wife's friends and coworkers want to go for a flight to look at the Christmas lights.  Lot's of night landings in December!

[Seth]

Not exactly what you asked but I looked at this data extensively about 2 years ago. 
 

my switchover point was around 600 hours where I had more hours than landings. Before due to training/proficiency, it was more landings than hours.

Now closing in on 2000 hours I have many more hours than landings. Probably about .65 landings per 1 hour of flgint.

 

-Seth

[larryb]

0.57 landings per hour.

[Tim Jodice]

1:1 for me

[skydvrboy]

 What would be really interesting is to see how this measure would stack up between airplane types.  My guess is it would be rare for anyone to have more hours than landings in Cessna's and Piper's.  They just aren't great traveling machines so most of the flights would be shorter; i.e. fly-ins, airshows, $100 burgers, sightseeing, etc.  Then again, they're so slow you rack up a lot more hours every time you go anywhere!

[M016576]

Landings per hour is a fun metric... but I think, for utilities sake, I like the more simple “landings = takeoffs” measure of a pilot’s experience.

[1964-M20E]

too much time on your hands

[Seth]

16 hours ago, skydvrboy said:

 What would be really interesting is to see how this measure would stack up between airplane types.  My guess is it would be rare for anyone to have more hours than landings in Cessna's and Piper's.  They just aren't great traveling machines so most of the flights would be shorter; i.e. fly-ins, airshows, $100 burgers, sightseeing, etc.  Then again, they're so slow you rack up a lot more hours every time you go anywhere!

My flight hours per year dropped when I got the Missile and my landings per flight hour increased as I covered more ground in the same time vs my finer M20F. That said, my F was still fast compared to any non Mooney.-Seth

[Brian E.]

On 12/18/2020 at 6:20 PM, Pilot boy said:

Were your practicing the impossible turn at all?  I’d like to practice some of those to simulate losing the engine like at 800 ft etc.

Yes for sure.  I'd done it before with a CFI in an RV and felt very comfortable doing it be myself.   Additionally while practicing Power-off 180's I'd become very comfortable flying the aircraft at idle using all the energy management techniques.

  At my home airport I'd take off RWY 33 perform a normal takeoff (gear up, flaps up, etc) to the designated altitude, pull power back (carb heat as needed), wait 4 seconds to simulate reaction time, turn into the cross wind and begin the approach.  I retain gear up until runway assured and added flaps to assist with descent rate as needed.  Then I'd perform a touch and go on RWY 15 and do it again the opposite direction and do it again.  I'm sure I glazed over some key points. Such as not loading the aircraft, 35 - 45 degrees of bank and not skidding the turn.  Finally recommend using an experienced CFI.  The bottomline for me is that I always briefed a turn around altitude but had never tried it out, now I am confident on what altitude will work and that I can safely recover the aircraft.

 

 

[tmo]

1.666 for me looking at myflightbook, but I realized I logged some flights incorrectly, so 1.83

My excuse is that 50nm go by fast in a Mooney and this was not a year for longer XC flights.

Hoping for some nice weather before the year ends, but the forecast is not looking good.

[ohdub]

I would guess that I'm normally over 1 flight hour per landing, but this year has mostly involved local flying just to keep the engine running regularly and keeping my skills sharp. So this past year I only have 0.77 hours per landing.