Spot Me

The techniques that work in short takeoff and landing competitions might be effective for videos, but they’re unsafe for most of us.

STOL videos are aviation’s equivalent to NASCAR. The competitions began as an underground group of pilots taking heavily modified aircraft and doing incredible things with them for the sake of fun and bragging rights. The competitions can trace their lineage to commercial operators in Alaska and the mountain West, where landing short meant having the flexibility to take people and gear into places normal aircraft couldn’t go. And the popularity of these videos and competitions has energized a new aircraft segment, enabling a sort of gentleman’s backcountry pursuit.

Although the goal of STOL operations might apply to other types of flying, the tactics don’t. That’s because landing as short as these pilots do generally requires low, power-on approaches, hard touchdowns, heavy braking, and rapid configuration changes, none of which are conducive to more traditional flying. However, the foundation of STOL flying—being able to land on a precise spot—applies to all pilots.

It is a common misconception that the short-field landing task in the Private Pilot Airmen Certification Standards is all about landing short and stopping short. It’s in the name, after all. But the key skills in the task are hitting an airspeed and a spot. That’s because good airspeed control and touching down on or near a target translate to any aircraft you will fly, from ultralight to commercial jet.

It’s all about the speed

Without speed control it’s nearly impossible to hit a spot. FAA Advisory Circular 91-79B suggests that for every 10 percent increase in airspeed upon touchdown, landing distance increases by 20 percent. Do the math and it’s easy to see that in a Cessna 172 with a short-field landing speed of 60 knots, increasing the airspeed to only 66 knots will mean overshooting your target by 240 feet, beyond the FAA’s private pilot checkride limit. That’s why speed control is critical to nailing a spot.

Although you could practice landing after landing after landing in order to refine this skill, it’s sometimes more effective to go to altitude and simulate an approach. Get away from the ground and the stresses of the pattern, and drill constant-airspeed descents in the practice area. Try different configurations so you begin to recognize the attitude of each. Doing so will allow you to quickly dial in the right configuration and attitude, and it will translate directly to the pattern.

Incidentally, understanding why speed is the foundation of a good spot landing underscores one reason we practice short-field landings. It’s not only to get in and out of mountain airports, although that is a fun side effect. It’s to get better at speed control and landing on the first third of the runway. Going an extra 250 feet in a Skyhawk usually won’t cause a safety concern. But some day you may fly faster, heavier aircraft, and then it really starts to matter. A Cessna Citation CJ4, for example, will roll another 600 feet or more by being only about 10 knots faster upon touchdown. Float to bleed off airspeed and it’s even worse. When the landing distance is already almost 3,000 feet, you can see how it becomes easy to overshoot even long runways in jets.

Touching down at the target airspeed will result in minimal floating. In most trainers, after establishing a level attitude a few feet above the runway after the approach, the float should be no more than a few short seconds. Anything more than that and you are too fast. By contrast, having to make a big pull from the approach to the landing and add a bit of power to avoid touching down too hard are signs that you’re probably too slow. There’s no need to be on the ragged edge of stalling.

Once you are consistently hitting your final approach speed and touching down with minimal float, you can move on to the fun part.

Pick your spot

When students start practicing short-field landings, the first instinct is to try and land as close to the threshold as possible, and stop as close to the beginning of the runway as possible. Remember, this isn’t a contest. The goal is not to land short as much as it is to hit a spot. Forget about the threshold and the numbers. Each one represents an unnecessary risk, and aiming points are harder both to select and focus on off of a runway.

Any spot well past the threshold and in the first third of the runway will do. If the runway has aiming point markers, they make a great target. These large white boxes on either side of the runway centerline start approximately 1,000 feet from the threshold (which is why some people call them 1,000-foot markers). They are unlike any other runway marking, so it’s easy to recapture your focus after looking inside at the panel, outside for traffic, or elsewhere. Runway stripes are a decent second choice, but it’s sometimes difficult to remember which stripe you’ve chosen, or you to count each time you look at your aiming point. 

The aiming point markers are your best reference point, but they aren’t where you will touch down. The aiming point should be a few hundred feet down the runway from where you want to land. How far down depends on the aircraft and your final approach speed.

Once you’ve selected the aiming and touchdown points, it’s time to fly the approach. Again, speed control is key. Plan to fly a normal pattern with a normal final approach speed, less a few knots. As you transition from downwind onto base and then base onto final, keep an eye on the aiming point and note its position in the windscreen. If it seems to be traveling up in the windscreen, you’re likely to be short. If it’s traveling down, you are likely to land long. Keep your speed steady with pitch and your aiming point steady with power (more power if it’s moving up, less power if it’s moving down).

Where to put the point in your windscreen is a judgment call that takes practice. Once you get the elements stable, including the speed, location of the reference point, and pattern, you can start to adjust where to put the aiming point. Like sighting a gun, each airplane and pilot combination is unique, and only through practice can you know for sure how it’s going.

As you gain more experience, you’ll be able to use more tools in order to hit the spot. If you’re low, for example, you can turn onto base or final early and cut off some distance from the runway. Or you can delay adding flaps. But first, concentrate on speed and altitude through a normal pattern in order to get a baseline.

The temptation on spot landings, and thus short-field landings, is to fly a low and slow final approach with power. This technique of dragging it in, sometimes on the back side of the power curve, is fine for STOL competitions, but is unsafe in the real world. Yes, it makes it easier to hit a spot. You simply chop the power just short of your spot, flare, and land. But a safer technique is to fly a normal pattern at a slightly slower speed, each time refining your aiming point.

Once you start to regularly land with a specified runway stripe or at the beginning of the aiming point markers, or any other spot you’ve chosen, you’ll gain the confidence to better execute engine-out emergency procedures and tackle shorter runways. It will also serve you throughout your flying career, especially if or when you take the flight deck of a corporate jet or airliner. FT

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