New CTLS Owner Needs Landing Advice

[mikey70]

Flaring too high seems to be a common problem in the CT, especially for those who learned to fly in other aircraft. It took me 50 hours to get it right. Something about the sight picture through the window is making you think you are lower than you really are. Perhaps the fact that the dash is curved more than many other airplanes gives a different optical picture. 

[FlyingMonkey]

21 hours ago, mikey70 said:

Flaring too high seems to be a common problem in the CT, especially for those who learned to fly in other aircraft. It took me 50 hours to get it right. Something about the sight picture through the window is making you think you are lower than you really are. Perhaps the fact that the dash is curved more than many other airplanes gives a different optical picture. 

Same here, I'm a slow learner apparently and it took a long time for me to figure out the problem.  I would have some good landings, and some that were "firm" or had other issues.  It seemed random and I tried a LOT of corrective actions to try to solve it.  Once I figured out all the bad landings were due to a high flare and/or excess speed into the flare, the problems went away quickly.

I was lucky to have a good CT instructor, and one of his best pieces of advice:  "Don't try to reach touchdown attitude in one motion -- at the bottom of the approach gently lift the nose to arrest the descent, then as the airplane settles to the runway lightly ease the stick back and try to hold it off".  This will help another problem many CT owners have with over-rotating and ballooning due to light controls.

[Ed Cesnalis]

One of the tricks I learned eventually to judge my round out height was to envision my hangar door at the runway threshold and to envision me flying through it before I began to lift the nose.  There are often hangers nearby that I could glance at to see the height so I could envision it correctly.