Down to earth with a bump

“Watch your speed, watch your speed! Keep it at 55 or I’ll take control.” instructed the CFI sat behind me.

I lowered the nose slightly and inched the airbrake lever ever so gently rearwards.

“Ok, thats better.”

As we crossed the threshold of the, erm, field we were at 55 knots, perfect approach speed in the K-13, a wood and fabric glider that had been around for what seemed like centuries.

Unfortunately I kept the nose pointing towards the field, and at the last instant, when my instructor realised I was going to fly us straight into the field if he didn’t do something, he uttered the words that all student pilots hate to hear.

“I have control” and pulled back hard on the control column.  And  not a moment too soon either.

BANG!

Now that landing, or perhaps arrival would have been a better phrase, had hurt.

“I thought you said you had learned to land?” He inquired with a large dollop of sarcasm in his voice.

“I have done.” I offered, almost apologetically.

“I bet they weren’t like that one!”

No. They hadn’t been. Nothing like that at all.

It was at this point I started to suspect my other instructor may have had more than a little input into ‘my’ landings previously.

I’d been learning to fly gliders at my local gliding club and this was probably my 6th or 7th flight.  Which sounds a lot to someone who has learned to fly in an aircraft with a fan on the front.  But you need to bear in mind that the average winch launched glider flight lasts around 5 minutes if you don’t hit a thermal (unlikely in March) and that invariably means it consists of: launch to 12/1300 feet, one circuit, approach and landing.

This particular flight in my log book includes the following telling comments from the CFI.

“Remember to round out!”

Er, yeah, I definitely would do from now on.

And that’s the secret, I’ve since learned.  Try to not land.  Getting a stable approach is quite easy with a little practice, but what a lot of student pilots do, and what I did many times is, try and stick it on the ground as soon as you can.

Actually, if you’ve got your approach right all you need to do is reduce the power to idle and try and fly down the runway.  The key is to try and keep the aircraft flying by raising the nose and increasing the angle of attack.  This means the speed will keep reducing and you will inevitably land.

I only wish I’d known that 6 years ago..