Pattern and Landing

[Ernie Martin]

I go by the book, with some adjustments to ease workload and triple check gear down. My protocol is in the figure below*. Flaps to 1/3 and gear down abeam the opposite end of the runway at 1000 ft. altitude; do nothing but watch for gear down light; throttle to 16 abeam the start of the runway; maintain 1000 ft. until speed bleeds to 100 mph and then lower nose and adjust trim to maintain this speed throughout downwind and base; on final, flaps to full (with modest crosswinds, otherwise 1/3 to 2/3), props full fwd, adjust trim to 90 mph and put hands on throttles until touch-down; inside the fence and clear of obstacles, adjust trim (and, if needed, throttle) to 80 mph; when 3 - 5 ft. above runway, throttle all the way back and try not to land, slowly pulling the yoke back to keep flying 3 ft. above the runway (this is my trick for perfect landings, which avoids float and settles the aircraft down at the lowest possible speed). Obviously, short fields may need a different approach.

Note: I wrote the above before reading Jakes response, and I wanted to alert readers to the differences in speeds, because mine are in mph, and his appear to be in kts.

Ernie
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* Derived from my "Passenger is Suddenly the Pilot" document, which I keep in the glove compartment to assist passengers if I become incapacitated.