| Mark E. Gunnison | www.MGCPA.com |
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For about eight months now I have been taking pilot lessons. I really enjoy flying but have been taking my time due to work and family. I'm learning on a conventional geared aircraft. If you are not an airplane buff, you may not know the significance of learning in a conventional aircraft.
A conventional aircraft is an aircraft with the third wheel in the rear. The majority of the aircraft manufactured before the mid 50s were conventional geared aircraft. In the mid 50s the aircraft manufactures discovered they could sell more aircraft by placing the third wheel in front. This made learning to land much easier. By placing the third wheel in front of the main gear they were placing the center of gravity in front of the main landing gear. With the center of gravity in front of the main gear the plane tended to want to go straight once touching down for landing. This is a good thing if you are new to landing. Conventional geared aircraft (taildraggers) on the other hand have their center of gravity behind the main landing gear. This causes the tail to want to come around after touching down - not good for pilot or plane.
Although learning on a taildragger is harder, 99% of the pilots who learned before the mid 50s learned in taildraggers. If they could do it, I could do it. The trick to landing in a taildragger is to keep the tail from coming around. You do this with the rudder. As soon as you notice the nose of the aircraft moving to the right or the left you give it opposite rudder to keep the plane heading straight. As long as the plane is going straight down the runway things are not too hard. However, if you let the tale come around just a little things get real exciting in a hurry. You quickly go from one inch movements of the rudder to full deflection of the rudder. It is not uncommon once things get out of control for both full rudder and breaking to be inefficient resulting in a ground loop. So far, I've avoided the ground loop.
The first 20 or so hours of flight training consisted of learning how to keep the tale of the plane from coming around, among other things. I now have over 40 hours of flight training and have gotten pretty good at correcting or preventing the dreaded ground loop. The tale still starts to come around but I now have the skill to correct it.
Although I'm pretty good at avoiding the ground loop, my landings are not as smooth as they could be. My current bad habit, which contributes to this, is not looking far enough down the runway. I tend to focus on the point I hope to land on or once that has passed some point not to far ahead. I've read over ten books on landing and every book suggests looking towards the far end of the runway. The thought is by looking far down the runway you will notice slight turns in the nose and be able to make quick corrections. By looking just outside the plane and not far down the runway, I'm not noticing the slight turns of the nose until they become more noticeable. I've noticed when I look far down the runway, I naturally keep the plane much straighter.
When I focus on looking down the runway the plane ALWAYS tracks straight down the centerline - under normal conditions. Yet I tend to look directly ahead of myself. No mater how hard I try, looking down the runway does not seem to come naturally. I need to force myself to concentrate on looking down the runway or I just focus on what is directly ahead of me. No matter how much I read or practice, until I learn the new habit of focusing far down the runway I will continue to weave from side to side while landing.
This is much like my Christian life. I have a built-in tendency to get off track - sin. If I don't concentrate on the goal at the end, I tend to wonder and get off track. For some reason what is directly ahead of me tends to grab my attention as opposed to the goal at the end. It is also much easier to correct small deviations than it is to get back on the centerline once I have strayed off. Another similarity is no matter how much I read, until I implement what I have read it is of no use. My bad habits don't just correct themselves with knowledge and practice. I must work at overcoming them. I must make my desired reaction a new habit and my old reaction no longer a habit. This is not easy and required effort on my part.
My problems are often not a lack of knowledge but implementing the knowledge I already have.