As an educator I truly believe that mistakes are proof of learning. Unfortunately in aviation, mistakes can be costly, and that is why practical exams are so demanding, and have exacting standards. The short field landing is one, if you land short of your spot, you fail, and I know this the hard way.
My Commercial Practical was the best check ride I ever had. My oral went great, and the airwork was fun. Then came the short field – my first landing was long and fast, and on the second, the examiner calmly said, “you know you can always go around.” I failed to realize the calamity that was about to happen, the Piper Arrow got into ground effect, I thought I had it, and then the lift gave out. FAIL ( First Attempt in Learning)
It’s only money, right? Pay for a retest, pay for the plane rental, and pay to practice, or on a real short strip, pay for the overhaul when you miff it and land short or long and have a prop strike. I knew if I really was going to be a Commercial Pilot, I really had to learn short field operations.
So I hit the books again. I’ll tell you one thing, the Piper POH for the Arrow II is scant on info. So I also read numerous standardized procedures for various collegiate flight schools that used that model of aircraft. Then I had the multiple hangar talks with multiple opinions and ideas on how to land the Arrow.
Finally, I got up into the pattern. I always struggled with the trim yoke switch, as I never found it to be responsive. However, on my first run I had a pretty good stabilized approach, the airspeed came in nicely as I added flaps, and I had a good short roll and hit the first exit with no excessive breaking.
When I stopped to clean up on the taxi way, and reset to neutral trim, I realized the yoke switch wasn’t working, and it had been in neutral trim the whole time. So, if it worked once, would it work again? Well it did, and it did again, and again. Not only did I have consistent short field performance, my precision power-off 180s were more precise than ever before. I had been my own worst enemy. A plane knows how to fly, it just needs a pilot who wont screw it up.
We often talk about the “Art of Flying” and learning to feel the trim. But really its just a mechanical device. Yes, we must fine tune trim. But it shouldn’t be guess work every time. There is a reason you set trim to neutral for takeoff, and what goes up, must come down.
So get up into your airplane. Take a CFI or at least a safety pilot, and do some simple Airwork to see what performance you get from your airplane in neutral trim. First find level flight in neutral trim; what is the power setting and airspeed? This might come in handy, like during IFR work where you need a known performance setting. After level flight, give it the gas, and see what climb performance you get. Once you have safe altitude, pull the power at let the airplane settle, and then bring in flap settings, if you are in the white arc.
Coming into the pattern, especially into a short field, is not the time to figure out the performance of your aircraft in that loading configuration. You should already know how to find 1.3 Vso before you even take off.
As a an educator, I always have to be neutral, so as a Pilot in the Classroom learn how to stay in neutral too.