Charter 963

Charter 963

Good landings begin with a good approach. The approach is broken down into 3 parts, downwind, base, and final. The downwind is about 150~250 feet out from the center of the runway going the opposite direction of the landing. (The wind is pushing you.) Base is perpendicular to the runway, and final is lined up with the centerline of the runway.

The first part of a landing is to know where you want to land. You should pick a touch down point on the runway before you even start to set up for the landing. You can't make a good landing if you just cut your throttle and let your plane plop down wherever it wants. You have to know where you want the plane to land and you have to fly it down to that spot. A good spot to aim for is about a third of the way down the runway on the centerline. If possible, stand as close to this spot as you can so your landing will take place directly in front of you.

Ok. Now that we know where we are going to land, lets start getting the airplane in position. You must learn to fly a traffic pattern. If you can't fly a nice square traffic pattern with properly spaced and executed corners you will never be able to make good landings. So PRACTICE flying a square pattern around the field. Now that you have the square box mastered lets move on.

Make the downwind portion of your box out about 200-ft. from the runway and a 150-ft high. It must be parallel to the centerline of the runway. We want our engine set so that we have just enough power to maintain altitude and control of the aircraft. Usually 1/3 to 1/2 throttle. Continue a straight line past the end of the runway. As you cross even with the end of the runway reduce power slightly so the plane starts to descend. Continue straight ahead till the plane is at 45º from your desired touch down point. Start a smooth 90º turn to base. Maintain a constant descent rate thru the corners. Don’t let the plane start descending too fast in the corner or pull too much elevator and gain altitude. After the corner is complete reduce power again slightly, the plane is still descending. When the plane is half way between where the downwind line was and the centerline of the runway the plane should be about 75 feet up. Start the last 90º corner to final. The idea is to finish the turn with the plane lined up on the centerline of the runway at about 30~40 ft. high. Once you feel the plane can glide all the way to the touchdown spot reduce power to idle. And add a touch of up elevator to control the descent of the airplane. If you feel that you are going to be short of your spot add power. Do not let the nose of the plane come above the horizon until you are about 10 feet from the ground. Then very slowly start to feed in up elevator to slow the plane. If the plane balloons up (gains altitude) you fed in too much elevator. This is a bad situation because you are setting up for a stall with no room to recover. Release the elevator slightly and let the nose of the plane drop and start it over. When you have it right, the nose of the airplane will be slightly high and the airplane will still be settling to the runway. Hold this attitude and the plane will touchdown on the mains with the nose gear up. As the mains touch slowly add power to go around and do it a few more times. You can never practice enough landings.

Copyright 2010 Lorain County Radio Control Club.