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The landing “flare” is the transition between the steady descending “approach” and the “roll-out” along the runway to a stop. Its beginning and end are the “flare point” and “touchdown, ” respectively. It is a maneuver caused by control action; the motions are transients; there are accelerations both of flight path and velocity – and so, of course, they are governed by Newton’s Law.
Noteworthy, Naval Aviators don’t flare during aircraft carrier landing since they have to maintain a precise, consistent glide path to snag one of the flight deck’s arresting wires with their tailhook.
Ron Wagner, former US Air Force T-39A pilot, recalls on Quora;
‘You’ll laugh at my story about Navy simulators.
‘I’m an old USAF guy, you know, the wusses who like our runways long and planted in terra firma.
‘A few years ago, I got a shot at every USAF pilot’s dream: Flying an F-18 full-motion sim.
‘I always figured the cat shot would be easy, and, yeah, no problem if you simply do nothing for the first 2–3 seconds.
‘So, then I flew a nice pattern and got her lined up for the back of the boat. The sim instructor was a pro and knew what it meant that he was dealing with an old USAF and airline pilot. He kept telling me, “don’t flare, don’t flare . . . .”
‘I tried. Oh, damn I tried. But 10,000 hours of programming in my amygdala made my wrist twitch a few feet above the deck. BOLTER!
‘Well, s**t, did that guy laugh. He harangued me for being an Air Force pilot all the way until I turned to final again. (Good natured, though. We were having laughs together.)
‘Then he freezed it and said, “Look. Even if this was a real F-18, you can’t hurt the gear. They’re designed for this. Do not flare. You had it perfect until you twitched. Just keep going. You can’t hurt it. Oh, and by the way, did I mention, it IS a simulator!”’
Wagner concludes;
‘Even after that speech, he didn’t trust me—I told you he was smart—so on short final he kept up the steady patter to just drive it on, don’t flare, don’t flare, you can’t hurt a simulator . . . on and on.
‘Well, thanks to him I caught a wire on that second approach.
‘But I still prefer 10,000′ concrete runways that are, well, you know, embedded in solid ground.’
Photo credit: Link 3 Communications
