I've read most of the posts twice now and I can't wait to practice my landings this weekend. Up to this point good landings have seemed like happy accidents. With this information I now have some idea of what to look for and what to tweak when it doesn't work.

Sincere thanks to you all

Good luck. Let us know. Videos?

Some of my non-horrible ones with my trainer

takeoff and good landing (0 min 53 sec)

Flightstar small bounce cam fwds (0 min 27 sec)

Flightstar 40 smooth Landing cam facing rear (0 min 29 sec)

I have had some truly nice landings with my fokker, but no vids yet.

For a while during and after the learning phase (and occasionally afterwards!) we all go through that period where take offs are just getting into the air as fast as we can because it is safer "up there". While landings tend to be semi-controlled arrivals as we get closer to that be, hard, lump of earth which hurts aeroplanes. To some extent there isn't wrong with these aspects because at least the plane is kept in one piece.

The genuine pleasure comes later when a few things take place in your flying ability. One is that you really feel confident in doing low passes. Saying this I don't mean just buzzing the field but doing passes at lower heights and varying speeds that you control. Along with this can come nice controlled take offs where you really do what you choose during the take off phase. By that I mean directional (steering) control, handling of the throttle and elevator finally away with a smooth steady climb away . The same sort of things apply to the landings. Remember too during landing that altitude is dependant on throttle while speed is controlled by elevator.

No, I'm not being smart and suggesting I get these all right because I don't but when you do get these stages right your whole day will feel better.

I didn't get as much stick time in as I wanted. I was too busy getting things set up for everybody else to fly. Then replacing props and keeping track of spent batteries etc. One of these days I'm going over to the field by myself!

I did manage 4 or 5 landings. I made practice runs for each and the low, controlled passes were suddenly more fun than the loops and rolls. We land on a grass field so I've gone with larger wheels on some of the planes. Those have a much greater success rate for me. The one little trainer still has the small wheels and I even managed to bring it in cleanly once.

Congratulations.

One of the things I like is to be able to do a low pass along the strip at less than head height. Once one can master this consistently it is fairly easy to gradually pull the throttle off and turn this into a touch and go. Part of the trick is to avoid being scared of the ground and not get ham handed with the elevator. Obviously, I haven't said that during this learning phase it is better if the attempts can be directly into any wind.

If you can do this over time your friends will think you are really Mr. Cool!

Good luck with progress.

Originally Posted by David Hipperson

....but when you do get these stages right your whole day will feel better.

I'm wondering how long I have to wait for it to happen .
Anyhow, I found lot of invaluable inputs in this thread. I cannot wai for trying them all at the field.
Hopefully I'll let bad landing time after. Thanks a lot.

It took me a long time but mainly because I insisted for too long in making bad choices of models. Our problem is generally that those nice shiny boxes tempt us too much and we imagine we can fly anything straight away.

Sorry to ask but what stage are you at in your flying? Do you have an instructor or are you going it alone? If really in the primary stage are you flying on just rudder, elevator, motor or full four channel including ailerons?

A good instructor can shorten the learning process and reduce difficulties with aileron. If you are a lone flyer then it is much easier to fly just R.E.M. This is just because the aircraft if properly designed is (or should be) self stable. This means you can concentrate on direction, attitude, throttle setting etc. Nothing wrong with ailerons other than that it is yet one more thing to think about particularly in moments of stress.

It has been assumed over recent times that all "trainers" must have ailerons but this is no so. A good basic trainer, especially for the lone flyer, is better if it is of a reasonable size say about 1600mm span. Is nice and stable and in effect can fly hands off if well trimmed at average throttle power. This sort of model only requires steering and can get you used to looking at the attitude of the aeroplane, which direction it is going and which way it is turning, particularly at a distance.

Once all of this is second nature the move to ailerons is an easy transition. Once again the aircraft still should be easy to fly but somewhat more neutral in stability so that turns and rolls require input from the flier.

Once again I apologise if you already know all this but I thought a reminder might be worthwhile.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

That's not necessarily true. If you establish a flying height of an inch above the ground and reduce throttle you will land without bounce, provided you don't fly back upward again with up elevator. Even then it wouldn't be a bounce, it would be a touch and go!

Bounces happen because of too much vertical velocity when you touch down, not because of too much horizontal velocity. Therefore a bounce-free touchdown can happen at any velocity at which the plane has a sink rate instead of a climb rate.

Agreed .......

Nigel

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Bounces happen because of too much vertical velocity when you touch down, not because of too much horizontal velocity.

I have to disagree here. Yes, the amount of recoil to touch down is proportional to the vertical velocity. However, the effect that recoil has is dependent upon the horizontal velocity. If the airplane is stalled at the moment of touchdown it will take a recoil force that is essentially greater than the weight of the airplane to get it back into the air. That's usually a pretty hard hit with a lot of vertical velocity. If the wing is still flying at the point of touch down then it takes progressively less recoil, which means less vertical velocity to get it back into the air, than it would if the wing was stalled. The faster the horizontal velocity, the greater the lift, and the less recoil needed to get the airplane back into the air. At a horizontal velocity substantially above stall speed very little vertical velocity is needed to rebound the airplane. The best way to prevent bouncing while landing is to touch down at, or below, stall speed.

Larry

How much 'weight' is on the wheels is a factor, I think there's yet another factor- often if not usually with 'bounce' there will be positive attitude change, if the airspeed is high this will result in the plane climbing upwards without any elevator input.

I have put in 4 flights on my WWI biplane over the past 2 days (weather has been crap), just after some repairs, and one landing was a little off to the side but all were pretty decent (no bou7ncing no groundloops gentle touchdowns) just-off-the-ground pull-pull-pull that elevator until it stalls touchdowns.

A big reason for that is I just said the heck with trying to save a messed-up approach and I went around on about 3 of those (4 landings, but 7 approaches). Saving a bad approach is good practice for dead-stick landings, but I grew too accustomed to saving a hideous approach with my trainer, and my bipe just doesn't like that type of treatment.

The bipe doesn't really like elevator-for-speed throttle-for-altitude landings, the speed at which the plane will fly that way slow enough for approach is slow enough that the smaller-than-scale ailerons and elevator lose most of their effectiveness.

What it likes is a shallow descent with a fair bit of power (but I don't like being that close to the ground for that long), or a steeper descent with a bit more speed but little or no power (almost dead-stick or dead-stick). The steeper descent favors my runway when I'm landing to the south as the north end has an obstruction.

After nigh on 45yrs at it .. i would like to eliminate landing bounce !!

It's fine all the technical and various details why it happens ... but in real world when a gust of wind blows ... changes direction .... engine gives a blip .... the thousand and 1 things that bedevil us occur ... we bounce !

I don't reckon anyone ever stops doing it now and again !!

Nigel

Originally Posted by CNY_Dave

............ have put in 4 flights on my WWI biplane over the past 2 days (weather has been crap), just after some repairs, and one landing was a little off to the side but all were pretty decent (no bou7ncing no groundloops gentle touchdowns) just-off-the-ground pull-pull-pull that elevator until it stalls touchdowns.

A big reason for that is I just said the heck with trying to save a messed-up approach and I went around on about 3 of those (4 landings, but 7 approaches). Saving a bad approach is good practice for dead-stick landings, but I grew too accustomed to saving a hideous approach with my trainer, and my bipe just doesn't like that type of treatment.

The bipe doesn't really like elevator-for-speed throttle-for-altitude landings, the speed at which the plane will fly that way slow enough for approach is slow enough that the smaller-than-scale ailerons and elevator lose most of their effectiveness.

What it likes is a shallow descent with a fair bit of power (but I don't like being that close to the ground for that long), or a steeper descent with a bit more speed but little or no power (almost dead-stick or dead-stick). The steeper descent favors my runway when I'm landing to the south as the north end has an obstruction.

A WW1 bipe is subject to a lot of drag and slowing her down will result in as you say - lack of control authority.

I flew a scale Nieuport 28 years ago ... what a beautiful model - but OH what a dog to take-off and land !
Bring her in slow and nice descent ... BOUNCE !
Bring her in with throttle to grease in ..... she'd land and then ground-loop taking the wing-tips with her ...

Nigel

Originally Posted by solentlife

A WW1 bipe is subject to a lot of drag and slowing her down will result in as you say - lack of control authority.

I flew a scale Nieuport 28 years ago ... what a beautiful model - but OH what a dog to take-off and land !
Bring her in slow and nice descent ... BOUNCE !
Bring her in with throttle to grease in ..... she'd land and then ground-loop taking the wing-tips with her ...

Nigel

What's unfortunate is the Fokker D-VII has fairly large ailerons and elevators, where the control surface actually sticks out past the end of the wing/hstab, forwards of the pivot, really reaching out and grabbing the airstream, but the model doesn't do this, and only has small strip ailerons (on the lower wing instead of the upper). So, it's much worse than scale...