How to Perfect Your Airplane Landings with Slow Dutch Rolls - Private Pilot Training Online

Landing is the most challenging maneuver most pilots will ever perform. Not
surprising, it is the most dangerous few moments of any trip. I stumbled on an
exercise that shortened the time that I needed to teach landings and dramatically
improved my students landing skills far more than I ever thought possible. I call it the
'Slow Dutch Roll.'

The original Dutch roll was a rhythmic maneuver that most instructors agree is about
as useful as patting your head while rubbing your tummy. In contrast, the Slow Dutch
Roll proved to be a very powerful tool.

When executing an ordinary Dutch roll, you keep the nose of the airplane pointed at a
speck on the horizon while rapidly wagging your wings with your ailerons and
holding the nose steady with your rudder pedals.

When you move the stick to the left, the nose wants to swing to the right forcing you
to step on the left rudder pedal, but not quite as much as you would in a turn. Then, as
the bank increases, you have to step on the other pedal to keep the nose steady. And
so the exercise continues. But to what purpose?

My colleagues and I don't like this exercise for two reasons. First, aileron - rudder
coordination should be focused on keeping the ball in the center. To put it differently,
a good pilot could put a cup of coffee on the instrument panel and go through a series
of turns in both directions without sloshing the coffee. He or she would have to
coordinate the ailerons and rudder properly to succeed. During a Dutch roll, the coffee
would be all over the cockpit. Our second objection is that, in addition to teaching bad
habits, there is basically no region of normal flight where the pilot would execute a
traditional Dutch roll. We view an ordinary Dutch roll as somewhere between
worthless and counterproductive.

In contrast, the Slow Dutch Roll (SDR) teaches you skills needed in almost every
takeoff and landing as well as some other very useful skills.

I don't hold a patent or copyright on the SDR. It wouldn't surprise me if some other
flight instructor discovered it before I did. But it makes better pilots. I would like as
many pilots and instructors as possible to know about it and use it.

SDR, much like the traditional Dutch roll, requires you to aim the nose at a point and
keep it there while changing the angle of bank. By executing it very slowly, it teaches
you, among other things, precisely controlled crosswind landings and takeoffs.

To get the maximum benefit from SDR, you should practice it at constant altitude and
various airspeeds including slow flight with wheels down and flaps extended. Then do
the same thing while gliding rather than at constant altitude, eventually practicing
SDR at speeds just above a stall with the airplane configured for landing. Depending
on your skill, you might start SDR practice by simply trying to keep the airplane's
heading constant as you change the angle of bank slowly.

I recommend not only changing the angle of bank slowly, but holding bank constant
for as long as 30 seconds or more. You might be surprised at what happens during
these periods of constant bank. With a wing down but the airplane not turning, the
wing's lift will start to move the airplane in the direction of the bank. As it accelerates
to the side, the relative wind direction changes. This wind shift requires you to change
the position of both rudder and aileron controls to keep constant bank and heading.
This continuous change in control position while maintaining a constant attitude is the
added bonus of SDR. It teaches that essential skill that all good pilots have. To be a
good pilot, you must be able to fly the airplane by putting it in the right attitude
regardless of where the controls are. If you must move the controls continuously to
maintain the proper attitude, you will neither know nor care; you simply focus on
maintaining the proper attitude. With SDR, you can practice this skill at a safe, lowstress
altitude rather than during landings.

Having mastered SDR, you have mastered 90% of the skill required to make safe,
precise landings. In a light plane in particular, you must keep the airplane pointed at
the far end of the runway while keeping the wind from blowing you off the runway.
By mastering SDR, you have mastered the controlled sideslip required in the vast
majority of landings. By mastering SDR you have also mastered the art of attitude
flying. You have learned to put the airplane in the attitude that you want and hold it
there regardless of wind shifts and diminishing airspeed - an absolutely essential skill
in safe, smooth and precise landings..

Private Pilot Training Online focuses on the little things that hold pilots back; dispels the myths that make learning and flying unnecessarily difficult; and makes the ‘hard’ subjects easy.

Douglas Daniel, long time flight instructor, invites you to visit at http://PrivatePilotTrainingOnline.org for more flying articles like this one. You may also feel free to contact Doug by visiting his website.

The Three Skills to Land an Airplane

There are just three fundamental skills in Private Pilot Training you need to know to land an airplane safely and consistently. They are airspeed control, projected glide control, and controlled slow flight. You can learn each separately. But you use them all to land safely and consistently.

The most fundamental and easiest to learn is airspeed control. You should start with it. Then you should master slow Dutch roll thoroughly at various airspeeds, aircraft configurations and angles of bank. Concurrently you can learn to control the projected glide point while maintaining a constant airspeed. Airspeed control and projected glide control bring the pilot to the right place at the right airspeed to start the transition from the approach glide to the landing phase.

Control airspeed with the elevator; fine-tune airspeed with power, flaps and landing gear. Monitor airspeed with the airspeed indicator, and then adjust your pitch attitude with the elevator to change your airspeed. If you add to the airplane's drag, you will be forced to pitch down to maintain constant airspeed. The opposite is true, as well. If you add power, you must lift your nose some, and so forth. Once you have learned to control your airspeed in various flap, landing gear, and power settings you are ready to move on to controlling either your projected glide point (PGP) or mastering slow Dutch rolls (SDR).

Controlling PGP is only slightly more difficult than controlling airspeed. During a constant airspeed approach, you will see a point on the ground that is staying absolutely still in your field of view. This is where you would be if you continued your approach glide. This is your PGP. If you keep your airspeed steady, your PGP will move farther away from you when you add power and it will come closer to you when you reduce the engine's power setting. More drag brings PGP closer; less drag pushes it away. There is really not much to controlling PGP, but when a pilot runs off the far end of the runway almost certainly poor PGP control, poor airspeed control, or both was the problem. You have to control them both to arrive at the right place and the right airspeed to execute a good landing.

Ironically, once you have flown the proper approach, you no longer need to control either airspeed or PGP. A new set of skills is required to execute the landing itself. Fortunately you can learn most of these skills with one exercise conducted at a nice comfortable attitude. You learn it by doing SDR in slow flight and in a landing configuration.

Pick a point on the horizon, hold it steady, and very slowly change your angle of bank without letting the point move. Repeat this exercise while transitioning from an approach glide to level slow flight. Add power as required to maintain a constant altitude while keeping that point steady. Now you are ready to start landing practice.

You learned how to keep the airplane from turning left or right in various angles of bank while flying in a landing configuration at speeds just above a stall by practicing SDR. This is a very good description of the technique used to land an airplane. If you have a simulator, you don't need an instructor. That is the nice thing about simulators; you botch up and try again. Airplanes are not so forgiving.

In either airplane or simulator, here is how to learn to land. You have successfully flown the approach so you are about one wing span above the runway, over its center line and at just the right airspeed. From now on PGP and airspeed need not concern you. Looking forward and from side to side like you were driving on the open road, you start raising your nose to slow the airplane's descent. Using your rudder pedals you keep the nose pointed at the far end of the runway. Using your ailerons you keep the airplane centered over the runway. Use your pitch attitude first, and then throttle, to keep the airplane off the runway.

You are NOT going to land! This is just an exercise. The objective is to get as close to the runway, at as slow airspeed as possible, without touching it. You are now doing that SDR in level slow flight that you did earlier. Just to prove you have mastered the situation, slide the airplane from side to side just above the runway without touching but as close as you can get. Be certain that you continue to keep the airplane pointed at the far end of the runway and the airplane's body parallel to the runway. As you approach the end of the runway, smoothly apply full power and execute a go around. Each time you do this, fly the airplane as slowly as you can. Keep that stall warning screaming. It is really a fun thing to do.

As you develop skill with this maneuver, try touching the runway but without landing. Touch it very gently but at as low a speed as you can. At some point you will realize that you could just touch the runway very gently at a very slow airspeed, then close the throttle and you will land. Easy, wasn't it?

Doug Daniel, long time flight instructor, invites you to visit http://PrivatePilotTrainingOnline.org for more flying articles like this one. You may also feel free to contact Doug by visiting his website.