Spring is almost here - are you looking forward to landing on soft fields again ? If you ’ re planning to touch down on a grass or dirt strip soon , it ’ s time to brush up on your soft-field landing skills . Here ’ s how you ’ ll do it .
How Soft Field Landings Are Different
Soft field landings are pretty much the same as normal landings until you cross the runway threshold . That ’ s where you need to put your soft field landing technique into place . So what are the steps of a good soft field landing ? We ’ ll break it down into three phases : approach to landing , touchdown , and rollout . Approach To Landing To make a great soft field landing , you need to start with a stabilized approach . Being stabilized ensures that you touch down where you want , and that you transfer your aircraft ’ s weight from the wings to the wheels as gently as possible .
You should fly your traffic pattern the same as a normal landing . The
Airplane Flying Handbook recommends flying your final approach with full flaps at 1.3 Vso , unless your POH recommends a different configuration and speed .
The difference between a normal and soft field landing really comes into play once you cross the runway threshold . That ’ s because as you get close to touchdown , you want to hold the aircraft 1-2 feet off the runway in ground effect .
By holding your plane off the runway , you dissipate your forward speed , and allow your wheels to touch down at a slower speed . This is important for a very good reason : it reduces the noseover force on your aircraft when it touches down .
Touchdown Next up is the moment you and your passengers have been waiting for : touchdown . As you enter ground effect , you can use a small amount of power to level off and make sure you touchdown as slow as possible ( though power isn ’ t necessary ).
Your goal is to fly the airplane to the ground , with your wings supporting the weight of the aircraft as long as possible . Making this happen in a low-wing vs . high-wing aircraft can vary significantly . Lowwing aircraft will have more pronounced ground effect because the wing is closer to the ground , and it may not take as much power manipulation than it will to keep a high-wing aircraft in ground effect .
After your main wheels touch down gently ( nice landing , by the way ), you want to slowly remove power , if you had any in , and hold the nose wheel off the runway .
Rollout Since your main gear are much stronger than the nose wheel , you want to keep the nose off the soft / rough surface until your plane