"You'll get the knack," I comforted. After all, it was early in this student's training.
Six weeks later I wasn't laughing. He was still dropping the airplane in on every landing. Sometimes I could coax him to within two or three feet of the ground, but then he'd flinch, pull back the yoke, and we'd balloon. Worst of all, though, was the look of horror on his face each time we got close to our touchdown point.
I had to face it - he was good pilot material, but he was ground shy.
Wanting to help him, I spent some time trying to figure out exactly what "ground shyness" was. Was he afraid of heights? As the airplane neared the ground did he regain the sensation of speed and height that seemed to be missing at altitude?
Some folks find the sensation exhilarating, while others cringe at the sight of the ground rushing under them. This student actually froze, fixating on the terra firma whizzing directly under his nose. There was no way he could transition from watching the aim point to watching the far end of the runway get flat in the flare.
He said he wasn't afraid of heights, and he loved roller coasters. So what could it be? On the next flight I watched him closer. As we entered the pattern, I could see the cogs in his brain begin to spin faster as he tried to process the landing checklist, our distance from the runway, the aim point, and the touchdown spot.
We turned to the base leg, and I had to remind him that the tension in his arm was causing us to pitch up. We weren't descending - and we were getting dangerously slow. He relaxed for a moment and the nose slid downward, but we were too high. He added flap to increase the descent, but the airplane ballooned. He hadn't yet adjusted the power - so he did. But he was tensing up again so the nose didn't drop. I reminded him to relax. But we were approaching short final - high and slow. He let the nose pitch over and then wham, I saw his eyes lock on the aim point and stay there. The CPU in his head had had enough. It was as if I could see a giant Microsoft hourglass emblazoned on his forehead.
"Go around!" I shouted. That broke the spell. Climbing out, I said, "Let's try that again, a little slower."
Clearly, CPU overload was part of this student's problem. I could cure that by having him fly a slightly wider pattern at a steady trimmed speed of 80 knots on downwind, 70 on base, and 65 on final. We made the power and flap changes a ritual, and he got better. We eliminated touch-and-go landings so we could critique each landing individually. His CPU responded to the slowdown by processing information all the way through touchdown. He didn't have an intuitive sense (that seat of the pants kind of knowledge) about landing, but he was mechanically correct and, as long as the wind didn't change or gust, he got better.
But his flares, mechanical as they were, were still scary, and still high. I took the "cure" one step further. At a nontower airport we found a 7,000-foot runway with no significant obstacles, and at slow-flight speed we buzzed it. How low? You know what the flare is supposed to look like before a full-stall landing and a greaser touchdown? That low. I helped him get down close enough to the ground to make the pass count, and I helped him set the power and the attitude. Then I made him hold it there for two-thirds the length of the runway.
A couple of passes was all it took for him to get the picture. The same technique works on takeoff if you are willing to accelerate to rotation speed, begin rotation, and then pull the power back so that the wheels don't leave the ground. Let it roll awhile just like that.
That student recently passed his private pilot checkride with 90-odd hours and lots of landings in his logbook. The examiner called me to say the student was sharp. "How were the landings?" I asked tentatively. "Real greasers, and on the mark, too," the examiner replied.
I just smiled.
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