Micromouse wrote:That sounds like a loaded question - I'm assuming I posted in the right area, and I have been sticking to a single thread as I'm trying not to spam.
Nothing remotely spammy about your posts, and there's loads of interest in the content.
Your work seems well produced to me - it would be great if you could use one of those filters (??) that get rid of the slow-rotating prop effect, but video production is way above my pay grade.
But I'm always interested in thoughts and comments, otherwise why put things in public view
Fair play. And while we're about it, a welcome from me. You're obviously growing in confidence, and having a great time, and I wish you loads of happy safe years flying.
Now, to my point, and of course you spotted the loaded question above
. I've agonised long and hard about whether to post this, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I'm not your instructor, I'm not even an instructor, I'm just some gobby pilot off the internet. Secondly, what I'm going to say is none of my business, and of course for both these reasons you're completely free to ignore me, and tell me to sod off. I won't be offended, and there will be no hard feelings if you do.
The reason I'm posting is, as you may have noticed from other things I've written in the Student forum, I have a real passion for teaching and learning, and when I see things going a bit Pete Tong, I find it quite difficult to just leave it all alone. Sometimes to my cost, but there it is. So as well as my hope that you'll benefit, I also hope that other student pilots who watch your videos from this thread will read this and make their own mind up about what they're seeing.
Enough preamble. I've looked in quite a lot of detail at three of your videos: the first solo, the Sandown trip, and 'More solo landings' from July 22.
The one that concerns me most is the last of the three. There are three issues, all related:
- You're approaching too high, and too fast, so you're touching down way too far down a short runway
- You're touching down way too fast
- And you're letting the nose wheel clonk down almost immediately after the mains touch. This is understandable, given the first two, as of course with touch and goes, and running out of runway, you'll want to get off again very soon after touching down.
Your PA28 is one of the most forgiving of all training aeroplanes. Its undercarriage, and nose gear in particular, can take a lot of punishment. If, on the other hand, you were flying a
Grumman AA5 or one of its variants, which is another similarly powered low-wing 4-seater, and landed it like that,
you'd stand a pretty good chance of writing it off.
This is my concern - a PA28 will mask bad habits on landing, and they'll become ingrained. However, if you want to learn to fly tailwheel, or a nosewheel aircraft with a relatively weak and undamped noseleg, these bad habits will ultimately cause you a lot of trouble. IMHO you'd be much better off getting the technique right, even in a forgiving aeroplane. And if you do, even in a PA28 you'll be safer overall, and be able to get into shorter and bumpier strips.
So what should be different?
Did you notice that the stall warner only bleeped once briefly on your final landing in that last video? If it's set right, it should sound 5-10 knots above the stall. You should know when, from your stalling practice in that aeroplane. If it isn't sounding continuously in the hold off, you're still flying well above stall speed when you land. I noticed you saying "70 knots, 70 knots" to yourself on short final in the 1st solo vid, so presumably your instructor has told you to fly that speed. The POH speed for the PA28-181 is 66 knots on short final, so you've got 4 knots to spare at least. So you can close the throttle earlier, and be in the flare before you come over the numbers - as you did, in fact, on your first solo, which was much better speed-controlled, as was the landing at Sandown.
Even in those, there was no bleep from the stall warner that I could hear, and you didn't hold the nose off after touch-down. Holding the nose well off - and lowering it gently just before it comes down on its own - gives you much better aerodynamic braking (with all the drag from the wings and fuselage), which is far safer on grass than relying on the brakes to stop you. You can very easily lose control if you need to brake hard in the wet.
As the book says, you should be aiming for a touch down at the lowest possible airspeed, which means holding it off until it won't fly any more, with the stall warner blaring until well after touchdown.
One final thing:
watch this video. Your landings weren't as flat as that, but if the high landing speed habit gets too ingrained, it could get that way. Don't be that guy!
Hope you take this in the spirit that it's meant - I watched the rest of your flying and it seemed pretty good to me. Just get the approach height and speed more disciplined, hold off for longer and keep the nose off for longer, and it will both open up lots of opportunities at shorter and rougher strips, and make transitioning to other types a lot easier.