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Chapter-10 The Roundout and Flare-V20_Sport Pilot Handbook 8/30/2021 4:38 PM Page 14

10-14 Rod Machado’s How to Fly an Airplane Handbook

The Aft Elevator Pull and How It’s Not What It Seems
One of the peculiar things about moving
the elevator aft during the landing flare is
that it becomes less effective in raising the
nose for a given amount of pull as the air-
speed decreases. The slower you go, the more
aft you must pull, as shown in Figure 18.
This provides you with the initially strange
experience of having to pull aft on the eleva-
tor at an ever increasing rate as you try and
maintain an ever decreasing descent rate
during the landing flare descent. Of course,
the amount of aft elevator movement applied
varies between airplanes and even between
the same airplane based on how it’s loaded,
Fig. 18
its trim condition, and so on. Nevertheless, it
does take a few attempts at landing to
“roughly” gauge the rate at which the eleva-
tor should be moved aft in the flare.
The important thing to identify here is that the aft elevator movement
required to flare the airplane isn’t linear. Starting the roundout at 30%
above stall speed, you’ll find that a little aft pull easily raises the
nose and levels the airplane’s longitudinal axis with the runway.
This is why it’s easy to overflare during the roundout but rela-
tively less so during the actual landing flare. As the airplane de-
celerates because of the drag caused by the increased angle of
attack, the aft elevator travel necessary to
keep the nose coming up in the landing flare Fig. 19
must increase noticeably (relatively speak- Elevator pulled
nearly full aft
ing). When the main gear makes contact
with the runway surface, the elevator is rel-
atively far aft from its position at the begin-
ning of the landing flare (Figure 19).
The amount of aft elevator travel
shouldn’t come as a surprise. You already ex-
perienced something similar during slow 2 1
flight practice, when you noticed how much
The aft elevator pull required to flare the airplane isn’t linear.
less responsive the airplane was to elevator
The slower you go (from position 1 to position 2), the more aft
control input. As a result, you had to pull the pull is required to flare the airplane. When the main gear
elevator control aft a considerable amount to makes contact with the runway, the elevator is often pulled aft
a considerable amount from its starting position.
sustain the desired slow flight attitude. Ad-
ditionally, the reduction in the wing’s downwash on the tail as a result of ground effect causes the
nose to pitch forward with decreasing airspeed. This requires even more aft elevator (yoke) deflection
(and pressure) to maintain the desired attitude for the landing flare.
That’s why, during the landing flare, you have to anticipate a relatively large aft movement of the
elevator control to maintain flare attitude and control your rate of closure with the runway. Keep in
mind that you’ve already gone through the motions of the landing flare even before you made your