NOTE: These are just my own subjective thoughts on how to land the Katana and should be used as a guide. It’s most important that you use your own judgment and also follow the teachings of your CFI. I am NOT a CFI and so these tips should be studied in that context. –Bill Snodgrass
My personal opinion is the Diamond Eclipse DA20-C1 or Katana is a great trainer and is very easy to learn to fly. Further I believe it is also a fairly forgiving plane and will allow students to make marginal mistakes without itself breaking. That is not to say that you cannot be vigilant. You must still follow all the practices that are taught to you as a pilot to keep yourself safe and protect the plane. It is just that I believe the Katana gives us greater latititude to learn by. However one area where the plane seems to be difficult to learn is with the landings.
Landings are without a doubt one of the hardest things to do as a pilot. And although some people may be pilot aces at obtaining great landings all the time, most students struggle with landings and most pilots continue to work on landings every time they fly. There are a number of books, documents or videos that can help describe landings and any or all of them should be studied, but the only way to have good consistent landings is to practice, practice, and practice. At the bottom of the document are some references to information on landings.
Before getting in to the tips on landing the Katana, I wanted to express a belief that might help relieve some of the stress related to landings in particular as it relates to getting your solo done. And that is I believe that instructors push some students to solo before they might be ready. This is not because they wish them to fail or because of some macho etiquette but may be because soloing has always been a kind of rite of passage (For instance during WW II, it was expected that if a person wanted to be a pilot, they would have soloed by their 8th hour.) or it might be monetary reasons. The FAR states that a pilot must have a minimum of 40 hours (FAR 61) to get your pilot certificate and I think this has a tendency to make students feel that they must have everything done before the 40 hours. Worse, because learning to fly is so expensive, there is usually a push by the student to try and hurry things up to save money. However, since CFIs make their money from students flying, I believe most of them would rather have their student take their time learning as much as they can and flying each stage of the process within their own time frame regardless of money. After all, being a good, safe pilot is what the instructor wants to graduate. On the other hand there of course has to be a reasonable progression of the students talents. So my point is simply, practice the landings until you know that you can do them and feel confident not when your instructor might think you are ready. Keep communicating with your instructor on how you feel and where you think you are and he will be on the same page as you and will feel just as comfortable when you finally do leave the nest.
Along those same lines I think it is also of great benefit to ride with other instructors. There a few good reasons for this the first being the obvious that another pair of eyes might see something different. Although most of the time your instructor is right on, another pair of eyes might see the problem just a bit differently. However, even though the different instructor might see something differently they will still tend to teach you in the same way. This is simply that there are very specific ways to land a plane and not too much variation. But sometimes hearing a different instructor say the same thing might cause you to catch the point at that time and make the connection. The other reason to fly with different instructors is that you continue to build up time practicing your landings. The more you practice the better you will get. And finally a different instructor can teach you other aspects of flying besides landings that your primary instructor will do differently. I have always felt that whatever instructor I went out with I always learned something new. Also one side benefit of flying with other instructors is that you build a larger support of instructors who care about you and are rooting for you to succeed.
Over and over your instructor will tell you to nail down the pattern and you will also read this in other books about landings. It might seem that you have to perfect the approach pattern to show your instructor consistency with the plane but really the main reason to have a good approach is to stay ahead of the plane as you reach the last part of landing. If your approach is consistent and correct every time, then as you get to the point of the landing (round out, flare, land) you will not have to be worrying about whether you are too high or too low, too fast or too slow but will instead be able to concentrate more on the landing phase. Further when you have to deal with crosswinds and turbulence, they will be less of a distraction if your approach is correct.
For the Katana I have been taught to fly the pattern at 80 knots on downwind, 70 on base and 65 on final. You can modify these to some small amount but what is more important is to stay consistent once you find the right approach. If you find that you fly better by lowering the RPMs to 1500 instead of 1600 during the downwind approach and are consistent then that is fine.
Before I discuss that last part of the landing phase it is important to remember another tip about flying the plane during landing. And that is that you must “fly the plane” during landing! When the winds are calm and you’ve set yourself up on glide slope and your instructor has coached you to a nice descent and you have nailed that round out and flared softly and touched down, it is easy to forget that even though the plane will land nicely sometimes, sometimes she won’t. If there is any reason for the plane not to land nicely, whether it be your ever progressing skills, the wind or weather, or just the karma of the moment, you must fly the plane and not let it fly you. You must manage every movement in three dimensions much more critically as you begin to land. We find that while flying out in the deep blue that unless you are practicing maneuvers, generally flying the plane is just applying slight aileron here and there or some elevator here and there while adjusting rudder here and there. None of the effects are as critical as when you are about to touch down so you must concentrate on being very aware of what the plane is doing as it gets closer to touch down and not become complacent. Fly the plane by gently but firmly controlling the ailerons, elevator and rudder as needed. Also almost all of the movements on the stick in the Katana need to be subtle. This is kind of hard to feel and also just requires time and practice. Even though I think the stick is easier to use over a yoke, it is much more sensitive and especially so in the light Katana.
A. Round out: This is still the most elusive part of landing for me. Essentially the round out (not to be confused with the roll out) is the transition of the plane from a nose down descent to a point where the plane can get ready to land. Note I did not say land because during the round out you need to set the plane up for the next part of the landing, which is the flare. If you round out too high then you will either float a long time in ground effect or stall and drop down hard, which might not hurt the plane but will bruise your ego. If you don’t round out in time you could hit the runway nose first and that will probably bruise the plane and break your ego! There are different techniques that instructors and others have to gauge the round out such as using your peripheral vision to gauge where you are, or use a hangars height or a trees height etc. Since I am not very good at this part I will not be able to give you any very good tips specific to the Katana. What I’ve discovered so far is that it is again a bit of a dance between pitch and power. Usually during the round out you are approaching your target landing spot and/or past the numbers and the instructor wants you to pull out the power. I have had times where I will pull all the power out and it feels to me that the Katana is pointed like an arrow ready to biff the runway while at other times if I gradually pull back the power and round out, she will drop fast almost ready to stall. Lately my instructor has been instructing me to still pull back the power although I can keep in a little bit, like about 800 to 1000 RPMs, and use that pitch to either keep coming to the runway if I am too high and/or gently pitch up to begin slowing the plane down. So as I think about it, the keys seem to be gradual reduction of power while still aiming for the landing target, using pitch to slow the plane down but not too much and looking down the runway. Although I’m not exactly sure how this technique came about I can say that for me, forcing myself to look down the runway, seems to force my eyes and consequently my mind and body to feel my position over the runway. One other tip that might help for the round out and with landings is to sit in the Katana while it is turned off and look around at where your height is in location to the ground. Ideally it would be nice if you could sit on the runway for a few minutes to see what it looks like out of the corner of your eyes but chances are you may not have that kind of time. You might ask the instructor if they can ask ATC to give you a couple of minutes, have him do the take off and just try to memorize the visual picture of where you are in relation to the ground.
B. Flare: The flare is an extension of the round out and if the round out has been done without any problems (not too high or too low and not too exaggerated) then the flare will usually go pretty smoothly. The biggest problem that I had in landing the Katana is that it did not want to land and instead I would bounce the plane. I did not understand for a long time why it bounced but was able to control it once a couple of thoughts were place into my head. Again, if you did the round out fine and now find yourself a few small feet above the runway and begin to gently pull back on the stick, the Katana will gently and eventually slow down and land. The problem is that because of the large wingspan of the Diamond Eclipse (modeled after her original sister design which was a glider called the Diamond Motorglider) she will float for a very long time above the runway. I believe that she could probably float over the entire Jeffco runway in ground effect with just a tiny bit of airspeed. Since there is a kind of an impetus to get on the ground, after all you came in to land, there is a tendency to either nose her down or let her slow down too much in ground effect without enough flare where she will stall and fall hard. Usually what happens is the first though, which is trying to place the nose down. When this happens with the Katana still speeding along, the tires and landing gears offer enough spring in them when you touch the runway that the plane will bounce back up. In other planes, like maybe the Piper Warrior, the smaller wings and heavier weight will keep the bounce small and the plane will stay on the ground. But for the light composite Katana, with all that air back under her long wings, she will simply take off again! And then of course she will arc over and start descending faster and hit again and bounce again and if it happens enough you will eventually bounce hard enough to break something. So the advice given to me by an instructor was to simply hold it off or better yet, try not to land the plane. On smaller runways this might be just as scary as bouncing but on Jeffco’s 9000 foot runway you actually have a ton of time to get the plane down before you run out of runway so try just holding it off. As you’ve finished the round out you are now approximately parallel or maybe just slightly nose high a few feet above the runway. Rather then think now is the time I land, simply keep holding back on the stick flaring more and more thinking to yourself, “I don’t want to land this plane. Hold it off, hold it off.” And the sweetest thing will happen…the plane will slowly, slowly reach stall right at the moment the rear wheels touch down and then you will ease back pressure off the stick letting the nose just touch down and you will think to yourself, “I am a pilot!”. Piece of cake (yeah right!). Gauging when to flare is the other trick. Once you’ve begun the flare, you pretty much just need to hold it off as long as you can. Or in other words from my instructor, be patient. As I mentioned earlier if you have too much airspeed when you begin the round out/flare, say your flying in above 70 knots, then you don’t want to flare very much since the Katana’s wings will want to take off. So instead you need to bleed off the airspeed in ground effect. I think this is another aspect to the Katana that is sometimes hard to work out. Since her big old wings want to fly and you are in ground effect where the plane has a cushion of air to fly on, it might seem that the plane is just not going to land. But what I’ve seen Lucas do is to actually point the nose down just a tich so that the plane is flying over the runway and looses airspeed and does not rise, then a few seconds later begin the flare. This just takes more practice to know where you are in that power curve. If your approach has been dead on, then more then likely you will not need to bleed off the airspeed and will only need to manage the flare by holding it off, don’t land the plane. If you are bleeding off airspeed, just manage the pitch very gradually so that as you bleed it off you are also transitioning to the full flare.
If you do end up bouncing the plane, then there are two very good options to use. They both require using power. If the plane bounces, there is no way that it will continue to climb unless it has some power, so it is bound to fall back down to the runway and bounce again. If you add just a little bit of power, and remember with the Katana that might mean going above the half way mark on the throttle, this will keep the plane from falling all the way down for the next bounce and will instead slowly straighten out. At this point you are just as if you had rounded out and simply need to bleed off the airspeed and begin the new flare. You will have to re-gauge your height but you did not bounce that high so you will not be very high.
The second option is the one that should always be in the back of your mind as a safety valve, which is to add full power and do a go-around. Now it should be noted here that go-arounds could be dangerous too. If you are nose high during a big bounce and maybe have the elevator trimmed up, you could zoom upwards rather quickly with full power and stall. Which of course then you will fall back down to the runway. The other problem is related to being on the back of the power curve and just simply means that while in ground effect adding full power will not lift you out of it but will instead drop you down onto the runway with full power which will be difficult to control. But even with inherent problems with a go-around, it is still better to salvage a poor landing by simply adding full power and then slowly lifting yourself out of ground effect and doing a go-around. Even if you have touched down you will find that because the Katana likes to fly she will gladly get you back in the air quickly rather then deal with that mean old runway. Just make sure to control the go-around and not zoom it out of control either.
Of course don’t forget that once you are done with the landing that you still need to control the plane. For a full stop, simply apply brakes evenly and wait until the plane is completely slowed down and you are in control before even thinking about turning off the runway.
If doing a go on touch and go, make sure to keep some right rudder in and balance it as necessary as you apply full power. The Katana will pull to the left with full power.
Speaking of rudder. Even though I think the Katana flies great and it might seem that she does not need much rudder control, I’m starting to believe that she actually needs quite a bit of rudder control. It seems that even when flying her straight out on a cruise climb that I am holding in some right rudder. Make sure to keep vigilant watch on the rudder no matter what you are doing.
The last piece of advice or tip I guess is that flying airplanes are generally pretty easy. Most of what they teach us is how to deal with maneuvers and emergencies. But landing an airplane is hard. It might not be rocket science or nuclear medicine but it’s not as easy baking a cake or tying your shoes (not that I can bake a cake either!). Landing is an intrinsic hard thing to learn and do well. And the only way that you are going to get better at it is to practice. But realize that it is something that you CAN do. And WILL do. Despite how hard it seems now, eventually with practice, you will begin to understand how to do these landings and will become more confident at doing them. Just remember that as you are landing tell yourself “I can do this.” “I will do this.” And you will!
See you in the pattern, Bill
References:
Private Pilot Guide by Jeppensen – Ok but not too much useful information for landings.
Private Pilot Maneuvers by Jeppensen. - Better information but still lacking.
Making Perfect Landing’s In Light Airplanes by Ron Fowler – Nice simple book describing landings. Much better then most materials.
The Airplane Flying Handbook by the FAA – This is actually a pretty good book. I especially like the chapter on Faulty Approaches And Landings starting on page 8-27. You will see over and over that for a number of the problems the solution is…drum roll,,,EXECUTE A GO-AROUND. Tah Dah!
John S. Denker’s
See How It Files web site. http://www.av8n.com/how/
- Quite a lot of information on flying as well as landings.
Aviation Supplies &
Academics, Inc. http://www.asa2fly.com
Has the Diamond Katana DA20 Pilot Guide book as well as other odd assortment of Katana branded products like a Katana branded Log book!
Diamond Aircraft – In case you decide you want to buy one. http://www.diamondair.com