when ever i try to land i do what it says but when i put my throttle to idle i lose altitude and crash please tell me what I'm doing wrong!
I’m a professional flight instructor and former airline captain. I’ve trained military and civilian pilots alike. I’ve taught hundreds of new pilots to fly. I’m always amazed at how little actual understanding of the fundamentals is provided to new players that have no formal training in aviation.
In both military and civilian aviation training today the phases listed below would represent a simplified version of training that is required to be certified by an instructor, that the student pilot has completed each phase, to a published standard before being allowed to move on to the next phase.
Phase one: the four fundamentals (climbs, turns, straight & level and descent) all at prescribed airspeeds.
Phase two: Airspeed control, slow flight, introduction of stalls and stall recovery.
Phase three: Ground work, wind effect training (rectangles around a field, turns around a point, turns across a road, paralleling a road, flying a predetermined ground track.
Phase Four: Pattern work, go around, landings to a full stop, touch and goes, balked landing. Take offs, (short field, soft field, normal and obstructed)
Phase Five: Solo Flight, three take offs and landings to a full stop.
As you can see a lot of learning takes place before they start phase four. The fundamentals teach the pilot to fly the plane and not just go along for the ride. Getting the aircraft into the correct position for any maneuver is easy, once you understand how it works and what the different controls effects on flight are.
If you want to learn to take off and land, learn how to control the aircraft. Start off in the hanger. Taxi the aircraft out to the end of the runway, at any field taxi out of the hanger and make a 90* right hand turn, follow that taxiway to the end. Use the rudder on the way, to steer the tail wheel, get the feel of how much rudder it takes to make small S turns on the taxi way, that’s why P47’s and P51’s the crew chief would ride the wing out to the flight line, shout instructions and use hand signals to tell the pilot how much clearance was in front of him. So the pilot could taxi without doing the S turns on the taxi way. To learn to taxi you could use a P38L. It’s non-standard gear (tricycle gear) elements the nose high problem with taxiing. Standard gear, aircraft with a tail wheel, have several issues that would tend to cause new pilots problems if they lack total aircraft control. Things like P factor, Torque effect, Prop Wash and other things.
So I’d recommend the P38L. Easy to taxi, easy to line up on the center of the runway for take off , NO Torque, No Pfactor, no effect that I can see from Prop Wash.
Airspeed control, as you excelerate down the runway, at an indicated 100 miles per hour, start to easy back the stick. The aircraft will fly off the runway. G Key for gear up. Let the aircraft level out a bit to gain speed. Ease back on the stick and point the nose of the aircraft skyward. Use the stick to control the airspeed, try to fly an airspeed in the clime of around 180 MPH. if the speed fall below 180, lower the nose, if it goes above 180 MPH, raise the nose. Cause and effect. Don’t chase the airspeed. Raise the nose and hold it and let the airspeed settle.
You use the stick to control the airspeed, the throatal to control altitude. Climb on a cardinal heading (N, E, S, W) Climb to 5000 feet, as you get close to 5000 feet, reduce the throatal to 45 inches of manufiold pressure. Don’t worry about RPM.
An exersize for aircarft control is the following, remember the stick controls airspeed, raise the nose to slow down, lower the nose to speed up, throatal controls altitude, if you want to go up, increase (full throatal) power, to go down, reduce power. I suggest for the exersize that when you reduce power you reduce it to 15 inches. Now for the exersize:
Exersize 1. all climbs at 180MPH , all decents at 125MPH
1. turn to a heading of N at 5000 feet. ( fly this leg for 1 minute)
2. turn left to a heading of W maintain 5000. (fly this new heading for 1 minute)
3. turn right to a heading of N maintain 5000. (fly this new heading for 1 minute)
4. climb to 7000 (full power, fly this heading N for 2 minute
5. decend to 5000 while turning left to a heading of S, (remember to reduce throatal, this is a gliding decent with the power recuded, use the stick to control airspeed, decend at 125 MPH, at 5000 feet return throatal to normal power setting of 45 inches, watch as speed increases to around 300 MPH in level flight
6. Make a climbing turn to a heading of E maintain 6000 feet. (fly this for 1 minute)
7. Make a level turn to the right, 360* to a heading of E, maintain 6000.
8. Make a decending gliding turn to the left to a heading of S, maintain 5000.
Once you can hold a constant altitude and fly and turn to a desired heading and hold it. AirSpeed control and introduction to slow flight is next. The object of the exersize is to get close to a stall without actually stalling. A stall is a sudden reduction in the lift forces generated by an airfoil. This occurs when the critical angle of attack of the airfoil is exceeded, typically about 14 to 16 degrees.
We use slowflight as an exersize because when you are landing an aircraft, you are slowing the aircraft and maintaining control using the throatal for altitued and the stick for airspeed.
Exersize 2.
1. taxi out and take off, climb to 5000 feet, set up normal power for stright and level flight.
2. Turn to a heading of N and maintain 5000ft, slow to 125MPH. the aircraft may be doing 300 MPH at this point, reduce power to 20 inches. Maintain 5000 feet
a. If you lose aititude increase power to maintain the altitude.
b. If aircraft starts to gain altitude reduce power to maintain altitude
3. make turns left and right
4. add and remove flaps never more then two notchs.
What you will learn is how to control the aircraft at varing speeds, how to slow the aircraft, the effect of adding and removing flaps, and how much power it takes to hold altitude.
Now using 125 miles an hour as the target airspeed do Exersize 1.
Do it again at 115 MPH. finally at 100 MPH.
When you can control the aircraft, make it fly at the altitude you want at the airspeed you want, you are ready to make landings.
Exersize 3. Flying the standard traffic pattern (all turns are to the left) Pattern altitude will be 1500ft AGL. Airspeed not to exceed 250MPH.
1) Taxi out and take off on the NE runway. This runway parallels the large pad.
2) During climb out, at 600ft AGL make a 90* turn to the left, this is the cross wind leg.
3) At 1200 ft AGL start a 90* climbing turn to the left you are now on the down wind leg level at 1500 ft AGL. Power back to 20 inches. You want to reduce power and maintian 1500ft AGL at 125MPH. put in one notch of flaps.
4) At 160 MPH gear down.
5) You are parallel to the runway , slowing the aircraft to 125MPH as you come parallel to the intended touch down point on the runway and while abreast of that point, reduct power to 15 inches and begin a gliding decent, add a second notch of flaps.
6) As you approach 1000 ft AGL begine a 90* left turn onto the base leg, add a third notch of flaps.
7) As you approach an extended center line from the intended touchdown point, begain a shallow bank turn onto the final approach leg.
8) Begine to ask yourself, this question, “Am I High, Low, Fast or Slow?”
a. High – reduce power, add more flaps, lower nose.
b. Low - Increase power, raise nose .
c. Fast – Reduce power, add more flaps, raise nose, slip & skid
d. Slow – Increase power, lower nose.
9) Every landing should be planned for full flaps on the center line of the runway. Not on the grass or ending up on the far left or right side. The pilot must have proper control of the aircraft so that the pilot puts the aircraft exactly where he wants it
