path when trying to land as closely to brick one as possible . Experienced pilots know this is a fool ’ s game because judging the wheel touchdown point becomes harder as the glide patch becomes shallower . As it turns out , this is proven by the math : The round out from approach deck angle to landing flare is heavily dependent on pilot technique , to be sure . If you frequent runways short enough to require close examination of your landing distance charts , you ought to have a good idea how much runway your flare technique consumes . The Gulfstream 450 performance numbers , for example , are based on a very firm landing that you would be hard pressed to employ on a very long runway . But if you insist on those runway “ grease jobs ” you ought to know how to get the Airplane Flight Manual numbers when you need them . Of course I have a technique to remove the variability of my technique . Landing distances based on 3.0 ° glide path at 50 feet and 6 FPS sink rate at touchdown . A 6 FPS sink rate at touchdown equates to 360 feet per minute . That equates to cutting your approach sink rate by less than half ; it is a noticeable arrival . I ’ ve found that cutting the descent rate to 100 feet per minute gives you a soft touchdown while consuming less than an additional 400 feet . If you consciously try to avoid flaring to level flight , instead aim for that 100 feet per minute sink rate , you will be able to get close to those AFM numbers and forever avoid a floating down the runway landing . More about this technique . For example , a G450 flying a 3 ° approach at 125 KCAS will typically be sinking 600 fpm prior to initiating the flare , which should begin around 20 feet . Without a flare , the distance to touchdown from the 50 foot point can be found easily found with a little trigonometry : f we want to start a flare at 20 ’, which is appropriate in this airplane , we will
10 | MDN | www . mdnvirtual . org | January Issue