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Measuring Landing Distance?

Anne

Registered User
SE Michigan
Measuring takeoff distance is easy - from the time you start moving to the time you lift off. What about measuring landing distance? Is it from the time you level off? Flare? Touchdown to complete stop?

Anne.
 
Measuring from touch down to complete stop is useful to know, but stopping short is the easy part. When I'm practicing short field landings, I mark my intended touch down spot and measure from there to where my wheels stop moving. That makes you work hard at being precise on the touch down as well as stopping short. It doesn't do you much good to be able to stop short if you can't be precise about where you touch down.
 
in addition to what Ikatan said, if I'm practicing over an obstacle I'll measure from the foot of the obstacle, whether its five feet or fifty.
 
The only distance that matters is touchdown to complete stop. How long is a gravel bar between that driftwood and the waterline? The point being that the touchdown spot isn't determined by the contact of your tires, it's a pre-determined spot that you're expected to hit WITHOUT landing short, which, in the case of the driftwood, is painful.
SB
P.S. Landing long is also painful.
 
granted......but if I'm scoping out a landing spot from the air its easier for me to judge/time a distance from the object, rather trying to pick a point down the landing run to set down and measuring from there. For me it also builds in a little fudge factor as well. Current conditions will dictate for me wether I can get it down a little shorter or longer that particular day. Its all semantics though for me anyway, I hardly ever encounter a situation where it matters. Nor do I really want to. So in that case yeah it is about the touch down point in the end. Its more of a challenge for me than anything else seeing just how short I can get it down over an obstacle, thats just how I like to do it.
 
It all depends on who's doing the bragging, Anne. By convention, it's the distance to a full stop when crossing the button at 50 feet.

S.F.
Nick
 
I was on wheels for eight years. Most of my landings in the summer were off airport on gravel bars. You can call it what you want but it is when your wheels hit til you stop. You have to be able to put your wheels exactly where you want them on touch down. If you can't or don't do that the rest is BS. Here is a place I used to land in the Alaska Range. It is 500ft long. There is only one landing here and it is to the south sloping uphill. I would land there with up to a 10 knot tailwind. More than that I would not consider landing there. On this particular strip I would touch down on the end. My first consideration was not stopping but keeping the aircraft in the tracks. Outside the tracks and you are on your back. Once the aircraft slowed a bit and I was assured of directional control I hit the brakes. I have a lot of off airport landings.

strip.jpg


Torch
 
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