Today, I took Jim Dulin aka "contactflying" up on his offer to get "hands on" experience of the things he wrote about in his E-Book. We didn't do all of it, but I have to say I'm impressed. I simply would have never believed my aircraft was capable of such things. After a few demonstrations and a few uncontrollable Holy Bleeping Crap's subsided. It started to make sense and sink in. Jim was a really good sport about it, I'm very glad we got together and he was willing to share his knowledge and experience with this rookie. I so very grateful to have a basic understanding of a skill that could very well save me, my family, and my airplane. If worse comes to worse. The energy management turn in all cases is going to make me a better safer pilot.
Thanks Again Jim!!!

Sounds like fun! I really hope to fly with Jim someday.

Jason did a fine job handling a fine airplane. He and an older pilot in a Stinson at Iowa Falls are the only two pilots who actually approach slow enough to make ol contact get a little impatient. They both appreciated how the apparent brisk walk rate of closure lets them go a little faster way out and still causes effective slowing on short final. I look forward to flying with him again soon.

When I get an airplane I plan ok coming down. Hopefully sometime late this summer.

!Bueno!

Jim,

What airport do you fly out of?

Aurora, Missouri 2H2.

I have kicked around the idea of offering to buy him a plane ticket here to Anchorage to be able to get some dual with him in my pacer. I ordered his paperback book several years ago and have read it through more than once. Now that I'm getting some time in the plane and getting used to how it flies, I've been putting some of what he teaches in the book into practice. Not sure I entirely understand the brisk walk apparent rate of closer approach, but I'm learning how the controls feel at different speeds and almost never look at the ASI on approach anymore.

Student BCP,

When flying at a thousand feet , targets on the ground appear to be closing with us slowly. It makes little difference what our airspeed or goundspeed is. When we get lower and closer, however, targets like the numbers appear to speed up.

The apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach makes use of this optical illusion to cause a gradual reduction in airspeed and groundspeed from about a quarter mile out and about five hundred feet up.

All we do is use elevator to keep this normal apparent brisk walk from speeding up on short final. We use the throttle to maintain glide angle.

Because we are slowing, to maintain the apparent brisk walk, and getting slower as we get lower and closer, we will have to keep adding more power.

If we maintain apparent speed with elevator and glide angle with power , it delivers us to the numbers slow enough to land with just a bit of flair. We have eliminated the need to round out and hold off. If a bit too fast, we will have to pull throttle before touchdown. If right on apparent brisk walk, we will pull power at touchdown.

In a strong headwind component, we will have little ground speed and higher airspeed. In a tailwind, we will probably go behind the power curve requiring lots of power to maintain glide angle.

Done correctly there we do not approach high ground effect stall speed until in low ground effect. If we get too slow and shake and mush, we add power to touch down softly.

If we have to round out or make a gravity thrust hold off, we know we need to go slower next time. Short final is where the apparent brisk walk becomes a stampede if we don't control the rate of closure with elevator.

I hope to make it up that way sometime. Have fun,

Contact