Make a Short Field Landing
Making a short field landing involves several very critical steps and decisions.
Contents
Steps
- Be familiar with your landing surface.
- You should know beforehand if the strip is grass, concrete, or asphalt, since breaking will be different on each surface under different conditions.
- Look at the slope of the strip. You will brake more quickly on an uphill approach.
- Be familiar with runway and airport markings, especially when landing on unimproved surfaces where markings may blend in with their surroundings.
- Be aware of the effects of any water, ice, snow, or mud that may be present and adjust landing distances accordingly.
- Be mindful of any close in obstacles, climb-out or go-around instructions, and any other special considerations for the airfield.
- Check the wind direction and wind speed, either by observing the windsock, or calling the airfield tower if there is one. Plan your landing into the wind, to decrease your ground speed and shorten landing distance.
- Stay on speed throughout the landing profile. Speed is a logarithmic or exponential function of energy in that a doubling of speed requires four time the energy. A too fast approach can make energy dissipation on the landing roll difficult or impossible.
- Use the entire runway. When making your final approach, touch down as near the approach end of the runway as possible.
- Use your flaps, brakes, and runway available to their maximum effect to stop the aircraft.
- Deceleration is not linear; it should take the first half of your computed landing distance to dissipate the first 25% of your speed. This can make monitoring landing rollout tricky when there's not a lot of runway available.
- If the runway is wide enough and cross-winds are not a factor, it is possible to use large S-turns to effectively increase the overall landing ground roll.
Tips
- Practice short field landings and takeoffs until you are proficient before attempting an actual short field landing.
- Make sure you are carrying the minimum amount of fuel needed before attempting a dangerous landing.
- Do a familiarization flight with an instructor or pilot experienced with an airfield's peculiarities before attempting a challenging landing by yourself at a strange strip.
Warnings
- Do a thorough risk assessment in your pre-flight planning before attempting to fly a challenging approach and landing.
- Be mindful of pressure altitude (PA) considerations. A mid-day take off from a remote high altitude air strip following a morning landing might be impossible due to loss of performance (PA climb during hottest part of the day).
