Can Someone Help Me With My Landings!

RcNoob123

Very Very New Pilot
I suck at landings and I need some good tips to make my landings more successful, I have crashed about twenty times trying to land and I have almost completely destroyed my plane beyond repair (e.g. my landing gear snapped off, my horizontal stabiliser cracked and my prop has stress marks on it). I really need help!!
Regards RcNoob123
 

Christopher14

Driftin' with the wind...
This is what I do when I try to land: First, chop the throttle, (on some planes you may need to keep the throttle at like 1/4 when you land). Second, use small control inputs, that will help keep the plane from wobbling all over the place. Third, keep the wings level, if you don't the plane could do a cartwheel or dig a wingtip in and that usually results in a broken prop and banged up wings. Forth, let the plane loose speed as you come in, not to much though just don't stall. Fifth, set it down gently, basically stall it when you are about 30cm off the ground.

If you have any questions, just ask away! Me and lots of others would be glad to help.

Welcome to the forum!
 

makattack

Winter is coming
Moderator
Mentor
Welcome to the forums mate!

Any chance you have regular access to a computer and can use a simulator? I think that's really the best way to practice. What transmitter do you use? It may be able to connect to a computer with a trainer cable, and let you practice with a bit higher fidelity.

There are many a good free simulators out where, along with some commercial options. If you have a mobile device/tablet, there are simulators on those as well.

IMHO the first thing to do to setup your landing is to practice them (even with the simulator) by first visualizing where you want the plane to end up, and extending the flight path to where in the sky your plane needs to be to start the glide in. Make sure the plane will be flying into the wind on your landing (nose straight into the wind) -- in fact, turn on the wind in the simulator.

Then, practice setting up your plane to fly along that glide slope, but don't actually land. Do it a number of passes. When you are ready to land, you can either do a touch and go -- where you land with power, but then apply more power as soon as the gear makes contact, and fly around. If you are landing in the rough / tall grass without beefy gears, you might want to skip the touch and gos.

On your approach try to lower the trottle without fully cutting it just so that you can pull out if you need to. You should be able to slow down enough that you end up with full back/up elevator and the plane is descending slowly. If you need to slow down the planes descent at this point, with full back/up elevator, you actually need to increase your throttle a little bit.

Hope this helps!

Again, it's cheapest/easiest to practise this on a simulator... but if you are flying a model, just practice the approaches, but don't land until you're confident.
 

Maingear

Flugzeug Liebhaber
^^ Good advice.

Have you had anyone check out the airplane? I was shocked how out of trim my airplane was when a club member flew it, made some adjustments, then handed it back, it was like a new plane. Also though close enough was good enough with balancing the CG, not so. I had issues with figuring our where the ground was when I started and flared too high.

It's obviously the plane and not you! (I hope)

Justin
 

joshuabardwell

Senior Member
Mentor
Land into the wind. Landing with tail wind or cross wind will make your life difficult.

Remember that when landing, the throttle controls your altitude and the elevator controls your speed. If you are descending too fast, add throttle, don't pull up. If you are descending too slow, reduce throttle. If you are going too fast, pull up on the elevator. If you are going too slow, reduce how far up you are pulling on the elevator. Never input down elevator when landing, period.

Do this at altitude so you can recover. Reduce throttle until the nose starts to dip. Input just a little up elevator. The plane will slow down. Reduce throttle a little more. You will need to input more up elevator to compensate. If you keep doing this, you will eventually stall the plane. That's okay. Nose down, throttle up, regain airspeed, and fly out of the stall. This is why you should do this drill at altitude.

Notice that before the plane stalls, the ailerons start to feel really mushy. Get used to that feeling. Get used to all the signals that the plane is giving you that it is about to stall. Look at how slow it is going. Feel how much up elevator you are giving it. One of the clear signs that a stall is impending is that you are giving the plane up elevator, but it is not climbing. When you are landing, you want to be almost, but not-quite to the point of a stall. A stall should be the very last thing that happens just before you land. When this happens, it's known as a flare. When it happens before you're ready to land, it's known as a crash. Get used to what the plane feels like when it is getting ready to stall so you can avoid the stall when landing.

How do you avoid the stall when landing? The answer to a stall is always more airspeed. Give a little more throttle and relax the up elevator a little bit.

When you get familiar with this low speed situation, you will eventually be able to put the plane into a configuration where it establishes a glide slope. In other words, you are holding just a smidge of up elevator, the throttle is just where it needs to be, and the plane is descending in a controlled manner. If you think about it, if you were to do nothing at all after establishing the glide slope, the plane would eventually land perfectly. It might not land where you want it to, but if you had an infinite open field, all you would have to do is establish the glide slope and then do nothing.

Practice establishing a glide slope. You should have a little bit of up elevator, maybe about 25% throttle, and the plane should be descending in a slow, controlled manner. Keep the wings level. Try to pass the plane right in front of your position at head height. When the plane passes you, throttle up and go around. Once you have some confidence at this, just keep the glide slope until you land.

Don't be afraid to go around if things are not right. Punch the throttle to 75%-100% and fly away. Take a whole battery to practice landing approaches so you are not pressured to get down before the battery dies. Coming in too high? Go around. Coming in too low? Go around. Wind direction changed? Go around. Wait until a landing approach looks just perfect and then let the landing happen. Especially close to the ground, don't make radical changes to the inputs. Landing is 95% about the set up, and 5% about the actual touching down. If you establish the glide slope properly, the plane will already be set up, in terms of its velocity, the throttle position, the elevator position, its angle of attack, and so forth, and it will be primed to land well.

Don't be afraid to go around, but there also comes a point in every landing where you are committed, and throttling up to go around will just make you crash harder. Learn to mentally realize when this "point of no return" has occurred and make the best of the landing instead of trying to fly out of it.
 
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RcNoob123

Very Very New Pilot
Thanks

Thank you so much for your help!
I will go through the process next time I fly.
Regards RcNoob123
 

RcNoob123

Very Very New Pilot
I'm Flying...

I'm flying and Apprentice 15e, but I'm only flying a 3 channel right now because the servos for the ailerons have broken gear teeth, I was so annoyed when I started the aircraft up that they were clicking. So I immediately ordered new ones.
Regards RcNoob123