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Chapter-12 Advanced Landing Concepts-V20_Sport Pilot Handbook 8/30/2021 4:35 PM Page 20

12-20 Rod Machado’s How to Fly an Airplane Handbook

As with the short-field landing, consider doing an initial flight over any field on which you antic-
ipate making a soft-field landing. A low pass allows you to see potential divots, grooves, boulders
and other objects that could possibly damage you and your landing gear (and airplane) during land-
ing. You might also get some idea about how wet or soggy the field is, too. Ducks paddling around
are a sign that you should quack open the list of alternative airports.
If, during an emergency or precautionary landing you had to land on a field that looked rough
and studded with stones or foreign debris, the soft-field landing technique would be the technique
of choice. So choose it. It reduces the chance that you’ll damage the landing gear, and minimizes the
possibility of a flip-over, cartwheel or ground loop.
It turns out that the soft-field landing is one of the most challenging landings to do well. It requires
a considerable amount of skill, timing and coordination to pull off a good softie. This is why, during
flight reviews, I often ask pilots to demonstrate this maneuver as a means of assessing their piloting
proficiency.
180 Degree Power-off Approach
When is a normal approach and landing not a normal approach and landing? If you said, “When
it’s not normal,” you are correct. There are several non-traditional (non-normal, if you will) ways you
can make an approach and landing that challenge your pattern skills as well as help you develop new
landing skills. One of these is best known for helping you develop your ability to estimate the air-
plane’s glide performance. It’s known as the 180 degree power-off approach. Let’s see how this is done.
This 180 degree power-off approach to landing begins with reducing power to flight idle at a po-
sition abeam the chosen landing spot when downwind at an altitude 1,000 feet or less AGL (Figure
23). The chosen spot can be any spot on the runway and not necessarily the runway threshold. For
our purposes, we’ll elect to land on the end of the runway numbers, since they are easy to detect for
this example (but please don’t mistake these numbers for the numbers on top of a passing police
car. You’ll end up with a bad landing and a rap sheet).

The 180 Degree Power-off Approach

Complete the “Before Landing
Checklist” on downwind leg
The 180 degree power-off approach
begins abeam the chosen landing
spot (the threshold) at an altitude of
1,000 feet or less above the ground.

Begin abeam runway
threshold at 1,000 feet or
less above ground level

Touchdown within 200 feet
of this spot but not before Identify landing spot
Fig. 23