Pilot's Life Blog

JANUARY 5, 2025

Learning how to land a Piper Seminole means becoming comfortable with these avionics, which help guide the aircraft through the landing procedure, ensuring optimal approach speeds and alignment with the runway. Once the flaps are set and landing gear is confirmed, begin your final descent to the runway.

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Descent Final Approach Approach Runway 52

Air Facts

JANUARY 13, 2025

More significantly, runway performance on landing isnt great. Landing a Cirrus on a 3000-foot runway is perfectly doable, but not if you land fast and long because the brakes will not save you from a bad approach. No rudder trim. Like the lack of nose wheel steering, the lack of rudder trim has always bothered me.

Airplanes 98

Airplanes Rudder Knot Pilot 98

Pilot Institute

JULY 12, 2024

You can only begin improving the touchdown if you’ve mastered positioning your aircraft above the runway threshold correctly. For example, if you fly a high-wing aircraft such as a Cessna 172, you can use the point where the runway cuts the wing strut as a reference. See if the runway appears to move relative to the windshield.

Descent 52

Descent Weight-Shift-Control Crosswind Runway 52

Plane and Pilot

AUGUST 18, 2024

We would launch from the paved runway, retract the gear, and head out to one of the nearby waterways to practice takeoffs and landings. He had to drag out his tent and spend the night waiting for the next high tide to release him from his predicament.

Airplanes 85

Airplanes Torque Tail Pilot 85

Plane and Pilot

AUGUST 18, 2024

We would launch from the paved runway, retract the gear, and head out to one of the nearby waterways to practice takeoffs and landings. He had to drag out his tent and spend the night waiting for the next high tide to release him from his predicament.

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Airplanes Torque Tail Pilot 83

Pilot Institute

MAY 4, 2024

Not only must you fly unnervingly slow, but you also have to pick a spot on the runway and hit it. It’s a runway that is too short for a normal takeoff or landing but still usable with certain precautions. This allows them to safely operate into and out of these tight runways. You’re not alone.

Weight-Shift-Control 52

Weight-Shift-Control Runway Density Altitude Descent 52

Jetwhine

JANUARY 17, 2024

You’d think pilot problems would be all about stick-and-rudder skills here,” he said. Steering happens through coordinated use of brakeless rudder pedals augmented by a handbrake, which looks like it was swiped from a 10-speed bike, attached to the control stick. Hold full right rudder and gently grab the handbrake.

Knot 52

Knot Rudder Pilot Checkride 52

Pilot Institute

APRIL 12, 2025

The reaction in the form of increased thrust allows the aircraft to overcome drag and accelerate or climb. Rudder The rudder is the panel on the vertical part of the aircrafts tail. This is where the rudder comes in. If you press the left pedal, the rudder turns to the left. It provides yaw control.

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Lift Torque Thrust Aileron 52

Pilot Institute

MAY 8, 2025

During certain phases of flight, you may retract the landing gear to reduce drag and improve climb performance. Instead of rolling on wheels, the aircrafts underside makes direct contact with the runway. Depending on your options, you may be forced to land on a runway, a field, or even water. But how does this happen?

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Air Traffic Control Runway Pilot Approach 52

Plane and Pilot

MAY 28, 2025

We chose to base our airplane at the airport, so with the amphibious floats, we have wheels that can land on a runway, and then we can retract them and land on the water. The next item on the list was a thorough walkaround to ensure the floats, water rudders, and cables were all in operational order. Ah, a Cub after all, I thought.

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Rudder Airplanes Pilot Gross Weight 94

AV Web

JANUARY 22, 2025

Most accounts point outcorrectlyhow decisions about spacing and glide path management, and even whether it was wise to hold the pick-up game contest in winds that caused cancellation of a larger, planned STOL Drag event, may have contributed to this crash. Mayday STOL Drag Races, a slow-flight competition. Those lessons are all valid.

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Final Approach Airplanes Drag Crosswind 52

Pilot Institute

APRIL 5, 2024

When the wind is blowing across the runway instead of along it, things get more challenging. However, the wind rarely aligns perfectly with the runway. Touching down with the aircraft’s longitudinal axis aligned with the runway. If the pilot makes no corrections, the aircraft gets blown off the runway centerline.

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Crosswind Longitudinal Axis Aileron Rudder 52

Plane and Pilot

OCTOBER 9, 2024

We learn all about aerodynamics, thrust, drag, lift, and gravity, study flight manuals, emergency procedures, and FARs, take oral exams and check rides, and constantly review everything we can find about flying. It was one of the few in the area that had a rotating beacon and runway lights.

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Runway Pilot Approach Weather 95

Flight Training Central

JANUARY 15, 2024

All pre-takeoff checklist items should be completed before taxiing onto the runway for departure. All engine instruments should be checked for proper and usual indications, and all controls should be checked for free movement as you enter the departure runway. Set flaps as appropriate – ensure that flaps come down equally.

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Density Altitude Indicated Airspeed Lift Runway 52

Photographic Logbook

AUGUST 11, 2023

No one wants the skin of their airplane to resemble a dimpled golf ball, Pollyanna commentary about drag reduction aside. Passing CICCA, still in IMC, I pulled the throttle back farther to increase vertical descent rate and decrease forward airspeed toward a runway lurking somewhere ahead and beneath the clouds.

Descent 52

Descent Approach Airplanes Runway 52

Plane and Pilot

JANUARY 7, 2025

She flew like a big, lumbering Cub of sorts, complete with a wooden rudder bar, tall wooden stick, and instruments that seemed like they were straight out of World War One. Imagine rolling down the runway, feeling like youre in a rocket ship, only to feel a metaphorical afterburner kick in that catapults you towards the sky.

Airplanes 98

Airplanes Tail Pilot Jet 98

Flying Magazine

MAY 6, 2025

Now, release the brakes and feel yourself pressed into the seat as you discover less right rudder is needed than you expect. The Garmin glass lived up to its reputation for being easy to program, and the autopilot did as it was programmed, even in turbulence, with appropriate rudder input. Can an airplane feel excitement?

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Gross Weight Horizontal Stabilizer Airplanes Rudder 78

Plane and Pilot

DECEMBER 16, 2024

With the F2, the rudder and vertical stabilizer are changed, with the rudder becoming a much smaller surface than before. You can sit there with full back stick, full aileron one way and full rudder the other, and its perfectly controllable. You might ask what happens with crosswind landings when you take away rudder authority.

Rudder 98

Rudder Airplanes Aileron Crosswind 98

Photographic Logbook

SEPTEMBER 22, 2024

Though renowned for its maneuverability, the Triplane struggled to pull away from the Camel, fighting against the fundamental drag of its triple tiered wings. Naming it Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (ORA), Palen built a turf runway and got those old airplanes flying again. Over time, he built an extensive flying menagerie. A Bristol F.2B

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Airplanes Runway Pilot Aileron 59