How To Land a LIGHT Airplane - Flight training from an experienced CFI (certified flight instructor) 

Having the camera positioned from the students point of view is such an effective way to teach someone through RU-vid, amazing video as always! (Also thanks for acknowledging the flare exist ;))

You’re the best CFI named Jason on youtube.

Another perfect explanation. I hope your students (and the FAA) appreciate you. I now primarily teach in heavy jets, but it’s really all the same principles. For the ‘old timers’ who don’t like the term “flare”, I use the phrase “arrest the descent”, it makes them feel better. But when I taught in light planes my methodology I would explain as “it’s your job as a pilot to not let the airplane land. Fly as close to the runway as you can with power at idle and don’t let it touch down. It’s the airplane’s job to do the landing.” That seemed to allow them to get a better nose up attitude and touchdown at a slower speed.

Thanks for all your landing videos. Went out on a currency flight with my cfi last week after not flying for probably 2 months. All my landings were butter. First landing my cfi said "that was probably the smoothest landing I've ever felt in one of these airplanes. I didn't even feel an impact...all you felt was the torque of the wheels starting to spin." 🤣 Thanks for helping our brains stay current even when we aren't flying often!

I love that you are calling it a flare. I have been seeing so much nonsense videos by m0a where it's all fluff talk and not much substance, it is refreshing to hear some real tips to improving landings. Thank you.

It's funny that I was just listening to old podcasts while walking the dog last night, same topic from October 2006 :)

Thank you, man! I was getting annoyed by 'some' RU-vid instructor that got spooked by ONE student years ago and he since preaches that we do not flare airplanes. We absolutely do! So thank you. And that instructor needs to fly something other than a 172 every now and then ;)

With a consistent seat position, I taught students in a 172 that "holding it off" until the "nose touches the horizon" (or trees while on the runway) is the landing attitude. And like you said, very close to the power-off stall entry attitude. And VY rotation/climb attitude. And soft field takeoff attitude. And go around/missed approach attitude. It corresponds to 10 degrees on a G1000 SP. Keep it consistent. There is a slight 1 or 2 degrees buffer before scraping the tail, but if you are worried about a student dinging it on a soft field TO or landing flare, I told them to "hold it off" until "one finger below the horizon." That is to say a one finger gap between the front edge of the engine cowling and the horizon/trees from the students and CFI's perspective. Seats should be adjusted so that both sets of eyes are level with each other so that perceived visual references can be identical. Each finger is about 2 degrees of pitch attitude so that would be a landing attitude of 8 degrees pitch up until they are more proficient and can land consistently with a more complete flare without risk of a tail strike.

I put these finer points videos in practice, whenever I can; they really helped me breeze through my first biennial flight review!

I’ve been flying since 1975 and never heard about the ‘Lindberg’ reference. Great concept that makes sense. Thanks.

Really impressed with the quality of this video. I’m just a sim pilot due to not affording the real thing and this was an eye opening explanation of how to land and flare properly. Thank you so much!

Great content. Loved your patients and knowledge on the flightchops IFR stuff. Just subbed. Thanks, man.

Worked on this very thing at DPA this morning. My check ride is right around the corner. Thanks for being my virtual CFI on this journey, JM.

Jason, a longtime listener of your podcast. Awesome to see your RU-vid channel!

Always enjoy your lessons. This one is a great refresher for me. Despite having hundreds of hours of flight time, I am still amazed at how much I continue to learn from other pilots and their techniques. The Grumman Tiger my son and I own and fly loves to float if you don't slow it down enough before you cross the fence. It has taught us a valuable lesson in energy management when it comes to the approach and landing. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Fly safe and fly often.

Jacobson Flare totally improved my roundout and flare timing!

Nice tips.... A good way to show my wife as she is just starting to get to the point to fly/land in case of an emergency!!!

I like this exercise. Thank you for bringing it up. I will try this with my students today.

Excellent Jason! Using this with students and it works!

Best video I gave watched so far. Makes so much sense. Great job! Helped me lots. Thank you! - Colin

You are perfect instructor I learned a lot from your videos. Good luck and go ahead. 👍🏻

Thank you Jason. I keep coming back to this video to improve my instructing and my flying. I was interviewed for an instructing job at college that required students to calculate Vref for every flight. This might sound drastic but it helped achieve two things: 1) preparation for flying large aircraft and 2) better landings. The 172 with minimum fuel and a solo student has a Vref that is significantly lower than typical POH approach speed. I found that using Vref reduced float. I’d love hear and see your opinion on this. Thanks again.

Thank you so much for this video, that put in a short period of time everything I learned on my own over 37 years of flying and `14 years of instructing. I learned the Lindbergh Method back in the 90's after reading about Lindberghs flight over and slightly above the Atlantic. I am continually looking for ways to make my landings better and to be able to teach this to my students. I feel the aiming point, target reference point and landing attitude is the key, besides airspeed to great landings. Thank you for emphasizing AOPA's Pilot Protection Services as I am a bimonthly writer for AOPA. I am the little old pharmacist who speaks about medications and how it pertains to the AOPA community. You are a gift to all of us. PS, I also use the knowledge Lindbergh learned about thermals as well. Larry M. Diamond, PharmD, CFII

Another great one

very nice video! Thx! Love this!

Great advice, Jason. Thanks!

95% of humans, metric. Science, metric. Military, metric. Aerospace industry, metric. FAA... Still not done gaining independence from the British. Yeah, sometimes they're wrong. Great channel! Love it.

**"FAA joined the chat and Would Like to know your Location"**

I’m 15 hours in , working on landings have a habit of landing flat ( but smooth) your video was helpful

EXCELLENT VIDEO OUTSTANDING EXPLANATION!

Daanng calling out Jason Schappert in the intro lol I appreciate both The Finer Points and M0A :)

Great points. I'm always warning new pilots about the dangers of the decelerating final. It's fine after you've gotten plenty of experience, but way too many new pilots try to stretch a glide with pitch while the airspeed is decreasing, leaving them with NO energy at the beginning of the flare and the resultant hard landing. I've always taught to get it to that flaring altitude and keep adding back pressure to keep it from touching. Gravity will do the rest, but the student's job is to keep the wheels from touching. So many have this idea that the perfect landing is a perfectly timed round-out and the wheels touch at the end of that maneuver. Nobody can time it that well. Just keep the wheels from touching.

Another great video 👍🏻 IMO A stable approach is always best. It is far more predictable, and for anyone who wants to become an instrument rated pilot, a stable approach will become a required skill.

Excellent!

Passed my PPL Checkride Yesterday! Thanks for all the videos, maybe make a trip up that way sometime I’m down at KVNY.

as always excellent content and very professional. cheers.

Thank you, this channel isgoing help me a lot

This is a great tip, thanks!

Haha Jason I love it! There’s been a lot of buzz going around lately about the flare or “tRaNsiTiOn” as some call it and I thought this was a great response to that and it was a great lesson that covered one of the most talked about features of flying.

Hi Jason. I really like your clean and simple way of instruction. It would of been nice if my first flight instructor in the Navy had used the same approach. (no pun intended) Your style removes all the unnecessary moving parts. Keep the vids coming. Thanks

Thank you!

Nailed it. Well done sir.

Amazing instructor...

Good knowledge

I learned something about 10 years back, which works out very well. It’s called profile flight. If you look at an airliner coming in or any large aircraft, they obtain an attitude which stabilizes their airspeed, and they control their altitude and decent rate with power. When it comes time to touchdown, they have little or no raising of the nose. It basically just settles down the way a duck lands on a pond. Most of the time with larger aircraft, you need to land with a little bit to no power. Trying to land anything heavier than a 172, especially a low wing aircraft with zero power usually results in the aircraft going into a high sink rate. This also works well in windy conditions with minimal flap and also with tail wheel airplanes. Some aircraft need a little bit of thrust to get more tail authority.

Great vid! Had my C-172 flares down until I had the airplane heavy with 3 adults. Didn't touch the nosewheel but not a great landing. Will have to come get a lesson with you someday!

Not in flight school yet but this is as close as I can get at the moment. Love your content!

Man I wish I would have seen this before I went flying today. Customer I'm working with has had huge regression in skill on landings after a very hard landing a few months ago.

Starting first instructor gig in a few days. Excited.. but nervous. But nice to know I can come here for teaching ideas and tactics.

Binge Watching!! 😁Thanks!!

My home airport weather always includes the word ‘gusts’, and learning to land a Mooney.... or trying to get comfortable being thrashed about on final... without a good flare and raising the flaps once the nose touches, the gust picks you back up and gives ya the stress sweats. I think I’m due for some calm weather so I can develop good habits.

Great video, thanks!

The key point, which you demonstrated nicely, is how you can tell if you are drifting left of right without having to see the stripes in front of you.

CFI as well, This video helps a lot. Understanding the phases of landing C172 plane.

Learning to look to the side, what he is referring to as "the Lindbergh' reference " really helped me when I was having a lot of trouble with landings. Also, adjusting the seat to the same height every time.

Totally a shot at MZeroA lol. I agree with this demonstration not MZeroA's anti flare videos. GJ Jason.

I was getting perfect approaches but was crunching my landings each time. Talked to another school and they mentioned the Jacobson flaire and that was what made my brain click and get close to perfect landings each time. Noticed you reference that technique in the video. It gets somewhat taught here in Australia.

For 51 years in aviation, I have heard and seen more people's explanation of " how to land" than I care to remember. Most have some good points and some not so good. Therefore I don't propose to offer much comment on yours, other than to mention where we advise our student pilots to look. Common to many are concentration on watching the ASI, then fixating on the aiming point, then, and I quote from an official training guide "transfer your gaze to the end of the runway". My advice is that there is only one place to look, and that is EVERYWHERE. That way, you get the "big picture" which has all the information you need to successfully land on a huge airport, or a sloping field with cows grazing in it, and works whether you fly a Chieftain or a Pitts or whatever..

In the air force they teach you to not smoothen out your final approach. The aim point is where you will crash if you don’t flare and round out. At the desired flare height, you flare to straight and level and cut the power and raise the nose as the aircraft sinks. That’s what I learnt in the force

‘Wheelie taxi’ should be the term. And yes, great vid. Thx

Finally, my CFI explained that a landing is just a nice stall a few inches off the ground. So I practiced stalling til that sigh picture was no longer scary. Add cross wind more fun.

Young know what you are talking about,well done

"A good pilot is always learning" hates the word flare. I prefer your explanation and agree with you. Still looking into developing more practice to the Lindberg Reference. Thanks for the video.

I have had a CFI for 24 years... lol I never once ever considered teaching how to land based on the FAA manual and never had a student fail a checkride so I am glad I got that right.

Thanks

Awesome content

Nice video, I did my first solo at this airport! :D

Yeh, the FAA should as minimum state that their way is only for specific aircraft and point out the dangers of relience on that very basic technique in other planes. Great tutorial.

That broken matchbox plane is scaring us all! I think you should get a "Cars" movie plane. ;) I really enjoy these. Can't wait to try your tips with MSFS 2020 once they fix more of the crashing issues.

Fantastic training excercise. My biggest concern when flaring, is to do a tail-strike. Have you experienced this before and have advice for this kind of "ground shyness"=

It's cool to see another cfi teaching some of my same techniques to students.. yep I am a real cfi, cfii, mei, agi..teaching for decades with real students all over the country. Plus lots of military time and serving this country in that capacity as well. Teaching real world life experiences to students to make them better and safer. Just don't have a youtube channel to trumpet everything I have learned and taught in 20 plus years of doing aviation. Disagree with you on your continuing to teach ambiguous language as the flare. I did like how you explain it. Better to say what it truly is though.. which is a planned out process of steps not just something that happens automatically. Good for you for being a real instructor and have real students.

Could not agree more 😊

Jason, I want to first of all say thanks a million for the wonderful content you create and for being who you are! I have and will continue to benefit from it immensely! I have a quick question and my apologies if you have addressed this before. At around 4:10 or so, you make mention of taking advantage of the Lindbergh reference when you lose sight of the horizon. Cool. My question is, do we observe that more with our peripheral vision than we actually would, looking to the side so that the "Lindbergh window" is in the center of our vision? COMMENT REVISION: I just watched a video entitled "Know Where to Look During the Flare" by Rod Machado, which I think is a lovely complementary piece to your video here. The cool additional points that he brings to light are: 1) The reality that we all have a dominant eye and, just as there are more "righties than lefties", so also is it the case that there are more people with right eye dominance than left eye dominance. The other point he makes is - just going off of laws of probability - it will very often be the case that both the student AND the pilot are right eye dominant. However... it is ALSO the case that the student will be in the LEFT seat and the CFI will be in the RIGHT seat. As a result, a lot of CFIs might THINK they're looking over the nose of the airplane, when in reality they're unconsciously depending on their peripheral vision because their dominant eye is already on the same side as where their best Lindbergh reference is and the quality of peripheral vision from the dominant eye is better than the peripheral vision from the non-dominant eye. The student pilot most often will have that Lindbergh reference on the OPPOSITE side of them as to where their dominant eye is and so, it is probably better that they actually rotate their head to the left to give their right eye a better view of that Lindbergh reference, especially during the process of building proficiency with landings. (He especially digs into this point starting at about 7:50 into the video.) It's such a very interesting point about a physiological aspect of humans that, I at least, would never have considered to be a factor in the arena of "What are the correct steps for the landing procedure?" Anyway, I hope that's valuable sharing and I'm super happy to be one of your fans Jason!

The next time you find yourself in the Chicago area i would love to take a flight with you, I’d love to get your judgement and skill to better myself. And of course go flying

Jason, I always enjoy your tips and tricks and your style of teaching. But hey, It's Miller time! Right?

Like the fast taxi for an extended look at the landed sight picture

that's interesting, the way you are explaining landings is pretty much exactly how my instructor taught it to me (and consequently how I've been doing landings for years now). I'm not sure if that's a difference between the US and the EU or if it was just my instructor.

When I learned it was not until I looked at far end of tne runwat that I judge descent rate and transition point. I still do that, i calculate approach speed based on density altitude and weight to get close then adjust appropriately.

I’ve done something like 15,000 landings. Each and every landing has been just as you have described. The only difference is that in bug smashers I used to fly slower. In a 172 I used to approach at something like 45 kts plus wind correction and 60 kts in a 206. That was based on Vs x 1.3. My speed would vary aircraft by aircraft. I did not use one number. This same Vs x 1.3 (plus allowances) worked on all gliders, singles, twins, turboprops and jets.

Great 👍🏾

This cfii is awesome. My cfii is not good at teaching at all. In fact he is horrible and I don’t have anyone to compare him to except these cfiis on RU-vid. I really like the way this instructor teaches.

I get my students to aim progressively down the runway, so for us it's aim at first displaced arrow, then the 2nd, then the numbers then a few white lines. We can't mess about with a Tomahawk on our 3,000 foot runway.

Centerline discipline 👍👍 I'm not a pilot, but when i land a plane in a simulator from 172 to fighter jet, i always use that reference as well to get the centerline as center as i can when i lost the far away reference somewhere at the other side of the runway. I dont even know that it called Lindbergh Reference tho hehe... I just google it, and i got that reference is actually a name from one of the legendary aviator, Brigadier General, Charles Augustus Lindbergh. Awesome... Thanks sir 👍👍

Another great practice idea! Thanks Jason.

"How high to flare?" In most training planes, the "flare" sight picture at landing is the same, or slightly lower, than Vy. Teach them to climb at Vy by glare shield against the horizon (or horizon slightly below the glare shield in the "Lindbergh reference), and then you can teach them that the flare is just about raising the nose to slightly below Vy once the plane has lost enough energy to keep it from climbing in that condition.

All you have to make a landing is make a stable approach at the right speed, cut power at 50ft, pull back gently to maintain a constant sink rate. thats it. Some planes with a heavier nose will make things easier with trim, but using trim as a crutch can cause issues in a go around event.

This is probably the 5th video I’ve seen you talking about the Limburge reference…..sounds like that is important lol

I use to teach my students first to fly the whole length of the runway at a constant height from threshold on. Once they get to stay at a constant height above the runway and execute a go around they know how to use the elevator and which power to maintain level flight at V tgt and learn to go around each time anything is in doubt. Now all they have to do is to idle and try to land by not to land from that height and hold the panel slightly above end of runway about 5 ° pitch up. Besides looking always staight ahead to maintain centerline never to the side its to distracting for a novice whom is busy enough especially when forward slipping to compensate crosswind.

If Oshkosh or Sun-N-Fun happen next year, it would be a fun panel to have a "Battle of the Jasons" over the term "flare." :) And I'm referencing Jason Schappert. I get your point though. You want to do "something" to land on the mains and not a 3 point or even worse, a nose wheel landing.

Pretty interesting, but it is far simpler than presented here in this video. Background I'm a full-time FAA gold seal independent flight instructor and I've given over 7,000 hours of instruction in over 16 years of full-time instruction. First thing eliminate the words push and pull from your vocabulary as it relates to flying - the yoke is never pushed or pulled. Always think in terms of pressure forward pressure and aft pressure. If you trim well past the abeam the numbers position with that first notch of flaps in, especially with a cessna, each subsequent application of flaps will bring you to the correct airspeed if you've trimmed well at that abean position. As this video and many other videos like to quite rightly point out if you start with a stabilized approach it makes the rest of this quite a bit easier. So big question concerns when to round out that's where you convert the aircraft from pointing at the runway to level over the runway.? So on a 75 ft wide runway which you see a lot of at general aviation airports, basically the point where there's the illusion of the runway starting to expand out to the edges that's approximately where you should begin your roundout to level flight. When you convert to round out which is level over the runway, and this is the part most instructors get wrong, what you want to do is direct your eyes to a distant point that appears to have zero relative motion. For instance say there's mountains or hills in the distance. Direct your eye at that point never look at the end of the runway look at the distant point that has no relative motion. Our brains are wired to be attracted by motion. The reason for directing your forward vision toward a point that has zero relative motion is then your eyes will see the sink, in your peripheral vision. It is the peripheral sink and the rate at which you sink that gives you the cue as to how much back pressure to apply on the yoke. And what you want to do is treat it as if you're trying to keep the plane flying, you don't want to climb, but you don't want to land keep your eye on that distant non-moving point that you're using as a referent and continue to respond to the peripheral sink - more sink more back pressure back pressure keeps flying back pressure keep flying back pressure touchdown. If you TRY to land a plane it'll be a sloppy landing every time if you use the mindset of trying to keep the plane flying and keep your eyes at that distant point of zero relative motion you'll land well each time. Again I always tell my students to throw the notion of push or pull out of your head when it comes to applying the aircraft controls. All the aircraft controls think in terms of pressures smooth pressure forward smooth pressure back whatever the control surface may dictate. If you think of flying as sort of a sky ballet with all the movements smooth and fluid you're 99.9% there of getting the trick of all of this Aviation stuff,not only landings but in flying the plane effectively. Anyway there's my two cents.

Another excellent video. Most pilots are in way too much of a hurry to get the nose wheel down when landing because they do not feel comfortable with the nose up while the mains are on the ground.

Hie, Jason! Ever tried mounting a 50mm lens to get an approximate view of what the eyes might see while doing the flare?

Power reduction on short final is important as well. Too much and you get sink, too little and a long float. Can you discuss timing of power reduction? Thanks

My LSA wants to take off again if it is flared like a GA plane. I use no flaps and plenty of nose down trim which works pretty well even in gusty conditions .(not above 14 knots)

Nice video! Just a short question. Larger airplanes, like malibu, tbm, turboprops, jets etc do not require such big angle of attack during landing. It's even dangerous for possible tail strike etc. They just need like 15-20 degree nose-up for nice landing. And holding off is very short, much shorter for skyhawk/Cherokee. Can you advise from your experience starting from which types (examples) landing technics changes from "pull back as much as you can" to "make landing angle a bit nose-up and keep it till touch down". Also is it not dangerous to get used of landing with with very big angles like skayhawk example and move then to larger machines, which are not suitable for it? Thank you in advance!

Follow-up question. When you want to practice your wheelies... er I mean... your high speed taxis with the nose in the air 😜, may I assume you're coordinating that with the tower? What do you say in your radio communications to announce your intentions and how does that go over with the tower and other traffic that wants to land or take off? Thanks very much Jason!

Yep!🙏🙏🙏👌🌞

I've been 50/50 with my landings.. and it's frustrating, because some days my landings are perfect. I don't think I've ever used my side windows reference, just focused on keeping eyes down runway. I think I'll try to master that part and see how it effects my timing.

Do ALL GA aircraft have a Lindberg reference window? I usually see you in. C172 etc but does a low wing plane like a Piper Archer or Arrow have a similar sight window?

Thank you very much for your tips, they really do help me during my flights) Greetings from Ukrainian student pilots🇺🇦🇺🇦