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.

Why Cross Control?

There are two ways to know if a crosswind is too strong. One is to land and see if you skid off the side of the runway or ground loop. The other is to cross control the airplane before landing to see if you can align the airplane with the runway. I prefer the second technique.
When you use your rudder to align the airplane with the runway and the ailerons to move the airplane laterally over the runway, you are cross controlling the airplane. This is a technique not used often in flight, but a very useful one to master.

Some pilots advocate flying wings level in a crosswind and kicking the rudder pedal vigorously the instant before touchdown to get the airplane pointed in the right direction. I have even seen this technique described in how-to-fly books. This seems to be one of those ideas that sound good but does not hold up. With this technique, you just don't know if you can get the nose pointed down the runway until you land, nor do you know if the crosswind will blow you off the runway before you're on the surface and under control. So if your life insurance is paid up and you don't have an aviation exclusion clause, you might try the old kick-and-hope trick.

There is an exception. If you are flying a nose wheel equipped airplane with lift-killing spoilers - which means you are flying a heavy airplane, not a light plane - then you can deploy the spoilers fully the instant you touch down and let the plane swivel toward the far end of the runway. I would refer you to that now famous Lufthansa crosswind landing. Its URL is youtube.com/watch?v=z42fchrzhHY. As you can see, even that technique requires some rather precise timing. I have seen some videos of the A380 and some B474s successfully using this technique. They were flown by multi-thousand hour test pilots. I cannot recommend the technique for someone flying a light plane.

Passengers find cross controlling disconcerting. All of us like the floor to be directly beneath us and the seat to feel level. Cross controlling to align the wheels with their direction of travel requires that the upwind wing go down and that the pilot press - sometimes vigorously - on the downwind rudder pedal. Suddenly the floor tilts and the seat sits at an angle. This is all very upsetting to the passengers. What to do?
I recommend practicing entering the cross controlled state just as you start to raise the nose to land. This is the optimal technique and only requires slightly more skill than the procedure I describe a little further on. The wing loses lift when it is cross controlled, raising the airplane's stall speed a little. If the airplane cannot be cross controlled enough to get the airplane properly aligned, applying power immediately and returning to a wings-level, coordinated flying condition will lower the stall speed again and get the airplane climbing. With the wheels now pointed off the side of the runway, a botched go-around could be disastrous.

This technique minimizes the passengers' exposure to cross controlled flight. Nevertheless, it is better to have a disconcerted passenger than a bent airplane. So if you are not the compete master of the cross control at the last minute technique, cross control while you are still in your pre-landing glide.

If you cross control when you are a hundred feet above the surface, you have enough time to see if the airplane can be aligned with the runway before you have to start concentrating on the landing itself. If not, then you have enough time to smoothly transition back to wings level and execute an un-hurried go-around. This technique is the easiest and safest. But it is the most disconcerting to the uninitiated. So let your passengers know before you do it, that this is a quite necessary and safe procedure.

An important point here is that you should keep cross controlled all the way through the landing and during the roll out.
A lot has been said and written over the years about crosswind landings. It all boils down to having your wheels pointed in the same direction you are traveling before you touch down and knowing if you can while you have enough time, altitude and airspeed to easily make a safe go-around.

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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.