Fishin' for Greasers.

[Shiny Side Up]

That's what it is, the pilot might as well be jigging in an ice-hole, the way that control column moves. Three guys today trying to do this. Stop it! Oddly enough, each of these guys does a perfect landing off of the start, then proceeds to get worse with each successive landing.

"What are you doing?"

"I want one where I really grease it on!"

"Why? Your first one was good, if you try that again you might roll her into a ball."

Good landings are when the wheels touch where you want them, which should be in the vicinity of the numbers, and you keep it on the centerline until you stop. If you happen not to bounce it it any, that's icing on the cake. I've yet to be in an airliner where they "greased it on", there's always an assertive contact with the asphalt. I should say its usually the 100-1000 hour low frequency pilots that are obsessed with these. Personally I'd like to dispel the myth that exaggerates their importance to a good flight.

Here's the secret though: greasers do happen, but they only happen as a byproduct of endeavoring to land accurately and straight, not as an end unto themselves.

Anyhow, that's my bit of primal scream therapy for the day.

[Colonel Sanders]

My southern friends are hilarious:

"That boy is trying to kill snakes in the cockpit with that stick!"

Greasers are totally, completely unimportant. Nail the approach
speed, flare in the right place, keep it straight, keep it on the
centerline.

There might be something less important in aviation than a
greaser landing, but I can't think of it. Oh yeah, a high mark
in a written exam.

[iflyforpie]

The thing about fishing for greasers is it is based on chance... you might get lucky and get one... but chances are you won't.

Greasing a single Cessna product on is pretty easy... I make quite a few tips doing that while making all airliner pilots look bad. Even a meaningful thump is still smoother than your average WestJet. Just round out at the right height and keep the aircraft from touching the ground as long as you can. Proper speed and approach angle will make float disappear. But the greaser is just icing on the cake... floating past the touchdown point or touching down in the wrong attitude or crooked takes more points off my personal scoring system than a thump or even a bounce.

Whenever you operate any piece of equipment, it should be constantly towards an end or goal. You shouldn't be on and off the power... it should be set or gradually coming off. You shouldn't be back and forth on the stick... it should always be slowly coming back to the stop. The less you mess with the aircraft with meaningless or contradictory corrections and inputs, the better the final product will be. This goes for everything I can think of from cars to bikes to boats to snowboards. Even a fishing rod will let a fish off the hook if you are fiddling with it too much.

The problem is nascent or rusty skills. Look at a one year old walking vs a three year old, a five year old on a two wheeler vs a ten year old. In each the former is very wobbly... constantly correcting and over correcting while the latter are fluid and precise.

It's the same with flying, and even though we are much more developed physically.. the fine motor skills for flying disappear quite quickly. You can't just jump back into a plane like you can on a bicycle.

I had one renter on a checkout doing the fishing thing, but he was a 10,000 hour airline pilot who simply didn't know when the wheels were going to hit on a 172. He didn't feel good about it and I certainly couldn't blame him... but all he needed was some practice to get back into the saddle of a light aircraft.

[TTJJ]

When I was a brand new F/O on a DC-10-30 in '91, my very first line instructor was an old school Captain who told me:

"If you come back one day and tell me you greased it on, well that son is skill. Congratulations. If you tell me you greased two in a row, that is just luck. If you tell me you greased three in a row... you are either a bloody liar or bloody stupid. It cannot be done and should not even be tried. It is just plain dangerous. Metal belongs on the ground, not floating just above it."

He was right.
You are too slow and too low to be playing around.
Positive ground contact is the name of the game. It isn't as pretty as a greaser, but it is a lot safer.

Put it down where you want it, on speed, straight and on the the centerline (real or imagined). If you blow your flare, just plunk it down or go around. Don't be messing around trying to make a bad flare into a pretty landing. If you land off centerline, get back on it during the roll out. (You never know when you are going to be hit with a big gust, blow a tire etc. making you veer to the side.)

[cgzro]

Trying to get a greaser in some of the old tail draggers i fly is not a great idea either.
The gear geometry is really only going to track straight when it has weight on it so if you skitter along with two wheels at strange angles to the pavement the first contact is entertaining. A nice solid stall from a foot gets the gear spread to its proper angles and tracking is more predictable.

[Colonel Sanders]

People just don't understand that you can badly
hurt a tailwheel aircraft if you don't keep it straight.

And, you can plop a tailwheel aircraft down very,
very hard and not hurt it. As long as you keep it
straight.

I know of a Pitts pilot that did a +4G (seriously)
landing on the accelerometer on a wide runway,
and did not hurt the aircraft. IIRC Aviat has stated
that they have never seen a Pitts hurt, that was
kept straight. And they've seen plenty of hurt
Pitts.

Also, I have seen a Stearman dropped in hard
enough to put +5G on the meter. Again, no
damage because it was kept straight.

A greaser must be the most unimportant thing
in aviation. It's funny how so many pilots have
trouble with basic takeoff and landing skills - let
alone crosswinds - but they waste all their time
on something so completely useless.

It's amazing the number of pilots that I meet
that sweat the windsock, and the crosswind. I
couldn't care less what the windsock is doing.

And instead of working on their deficient crosswind
skills, they work on greasers. Frikken amazing.

[tommywcom]

The whole fishing pole in-and-out thing - that was a byproduct of how I was taught to land by my second instructor. I went on to get my pilot's license with him, and up until quite recently I didn't know there was a different way of doing it.

In fact, the same landing technique was reinforced by another instructor during a plane checkout. Although I'm not 100% if it had to do with him seeing me using this particular technique and he figured I was just missing one step with it. I was struggling with landing this one low-wing aircraft, and he gave me some pointers and I continued on fishing. The thing is it actually worked. I started greasing it many times immediately afterwards.

The technique i'm referring to is don't round out until you're just about the runway (say 3-5 ft). Then abruptly yank the stick / yoke back to fly level. Continued on until wheels touch. At this 3-5 ft height combined with the abrupt attitude change, ground effect, and power to idle, the plane tends to either balloon or sink. With his little "margin" (3-5 ft), you would need to make corrections very quickly. Hence the fishing pole in and out.

So I think it has less to do with trying to get a greaser than just doing whatever you have to do to land once you've put the plane in that situation.

I have since adopted a more conventional technique - round out earlier, look further down and hold the nose to horizon until touchdown. It's become just a series of gradually pulling the stick / yoke toward you until tocchdown, but never shoving it back in.

[tommywcom]

Sorry about a couple of typos. I'm on my iPhone and it's really hard to type correctly ...

[hairdo]

Greasers are nice and all, but if that is a pilots focus, then it's probably going to be a sh*tty landing. I've found that I do better by doing things in a consistent and stabilized manner. If it's firm landing, cool. If it's a greaser, bonus! On my current aircraft, I didn't get a greaser (nor did I try for one) until about 5-6 months and around 500hrs on type (and that was luck). I've flown with guys who have several thousand hours on type, and greasers are still a bonus to them. It's simply not important.

I've seen the 'fishing pole' method when I was flying with a former captain at our company. It didn't produce good results, and generally resulted in worse landings than if he'd stabilized the aircraft at ref and maintained a ref attitude to touchdown.

[trey kule]

Greasers may not be important, but the attitude can easily change to "I dont give a shit about my landing"....because.....well because they are just not important.
I see this attitude all the time in pilots...it is just an excuse not to try and do the best landing possible....greasers may be a bonus, and the odd bumpy one acceptable, but overall there is a real danger in not trying your very best because as long as the ELT did not go off, and we more or less make it to the ramp by way of each side of the runway, we have satisfactorily landed the plane..
Landings wont improve unless you continually work at them and dont accept...good enough.

my rant for the day.