Don’t Let Turbulence Ruin Your Landing
It might be caused by neighboring mountains, a front passing through, mechanical turbulence caused by nearby obstructions, or even thermal convection. An otherwise simple approach to landing may become challenging due to turbulence. While the turbulence may disrupt your aircraft, it’s usually not severe enough to keep you from landing safely and smoothly.
Fly A Power-On Approach
The FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook (8-18) states that “Use a power-on approach at an airspeed only a little bit faster than the typical approach speed for landing in turbulence. When there are severe horizontal wind gusts or up and down drafts, this allows for more effective control of the aircraft.”
You are aware that your airspeed indicator might experience some rather extreme changes if you are flying on a windy day. Furthermore, it’s preferable to be a little bit on the rapid side rather than excessively slow when you’re being beaten up in the pattern. The goal is to use your momentum and active control of the aircraft to offset turbulence. A sudden ʟᴏss in headwind from a gust may bring you ᴄʟᴏsᴇr to stall speed than you’d like if you’re on speed or just a little slow on final approach. And if you’re anything like us, you’d prefer not to deal with that. The FAA advises you to increase your final approach speed by half the gust factor when dealing with a windy day.
Use Less Flaps
In some aircraft, lowering the flaps can also lessen turbulence. You have two benefits when you land with fewer than complete flaps. First of all, you won’t need to modify your pitch as much as you would when going from final approach to touchdown because your plane will have a higher pitch attitude.
Second, you’ll land at a faster pace, giving you better control over the aircraft when it touches down. Remember, though, that speed isn’t always better. Flying too fast on your final approach can make you float and miss your landing spot. However, if you keep your airspeed to half the gust factor, your landing will be precise with little float.
Avoid Over-Controlling
You ought to pilot the aircraft with a minimum of control inputs during takeoff and landing. In an ideal scenario, you would take off, trim the controls, release your hold, and never again touch them. At least until you need to turn or ascend or descend more quickly. Pilot-induced oscillations frequently happen when the airplane approaches touchdown on windy days with strong gusts. Pilots frequently add strong left/right, left/right aileron inputs for extended periods of time to compensate for windy conditions.
You start continuously ғɪɢʜᴛing your own massive corrections instead of tiny ones. This not only makes the approach unstable, but it also makes it more difficult to land safely. You should feel at ease accepting a few minor variations in airspeed and ground track as you approach the runway, much like a flight through turbulence en route. Most of the time, the worse the turbulence can become the more you try to battle it. As little corrections as you can are preferred.
How To Avoid Hard Landings In Turbulence
The FAA advises delaying putting the throttle to full idle until your wheels have touched the ground when landing in turbulence. A abrupt ʟᴏss of power could worsen a quick descent in turbulence and cause an overly harsh landing.
Keep in mind that you will touch down in a flatter-than-normal attitude if you fly approaches with more power and fewer flap configurations. To prevent wheelbarrowing the aircraft down the runway after you have touched down on your main gear, avoid applying nose-down pressure.
Putting It All Together
Fly slightly faster than usual during your approach, make small adjustments to compensate for turbulence, hold off bringing your engine to complete idle until your wheels touch the ground, and avoid applying too much brake pressure once you have touched down. It’s the secret to the ideal landing in choppy conditions.
Take the next step.
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Let’s see the girl Pilot Landed the Boeing 747 Smoothly in Atlanta Airport in the ᴀᴡᴇsome video below.
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Video resource: Captain Boeing
