In the course of a lifetime of flying, you will land the airplane thousands of times. With a few rare exceptions, all of them will be completely safe, most of them will be uneventful and somewhat routine, and a few will make you feel like a god after your passengers ask whether you've actually touched down. Those you will remember for a few days. But some you will never forget—although you would certainly like to.
Even though it was 11 years ago, I can remember the details of one landing better than I can remember what I had for dinner yesterday. I was working on my instrument rating. My instructor was in the right seat, and a friend and fellow instrument student was observing in the back seat. We were shooting a back-course approach into Gainesville Regional Airport in Florida.
During instrument training most approaches are simply a descent to the runway, followed by a go-around. It’s assumed the student already knows how to land, and landing takes time, so most don’t take approaches to a landing. For reasons I cannot now remember, we decided to land after this approach.
After touchdown the airplane veered to the left, and I tried pretty much every control combination before realizing I was completely without any control. It’s not that the airplane wasn’t responding. I wasn’t responding. I felt utterly helpless, and more than a little nervous that we would run off the side of the runway. That’s when the instructor took over.
I had made generally decent landings in the past. And an instructor hadn’t intervened on the controls since the middle of my private training. It was devastating. “Don’t you know how to do a crosswind landing?” he asked. Embarrassment had taken over at this point (did I mention my friend in the back?), and all I could manage was a meek, “I guess not.”
The instrument lesson was put on hold and we flew one or two patterns, first with the instructor demonstrating and then with me trying. “Ailerons go into the wind and rudder keeps the nose straight,” he said. And that was all it took. I haven’t felt overwhelmed by a crosswind since.
Looking back, I’m glad it happened. Not realizing I didn’t know how to land properly in a crosswind, the instructor allowed me to take full control of the situation and only intervened when safety became an issue.
Moments like this can be a fantastic learning experience, especially if you’re like me and learn things the hard way. Too often the instructor will stop the student long before he or she gets into any trouble.
I was also fortunate to have only an ego-killing experience on landing. Up to that point, I felt more or less invincible with landings. I hadn’t experienced a landing learning plateau during my initial training, so I felt like I could handle any situation. Seeing that I had limits was powerful.
This month’s cover story, “The Last Six Inches”, talks about the many aspects that go into a good landing, and why the last few seconds of flight may actually be the least important. Unless you’re in a crosswind, that is.
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