RC Airplane World flight school

- lesson #9; landing your plane

Following on from lesson 8, this rc flight school page will teach you that landing your rc airplane needn't be so scary!

Whereas taking off is the easiest part of a flight, landing your plane is without doubt the hardest and most nerve-wracking, particularly when you're just learning to fly radio control.

But what goes up, must come down - so they say - and so learning to land your plane safely and well is something you must persevere at. The other thing they say is that practice makes perfect, and this is certainly true of landing a radio control airplane!

Your landing approach

The 'final approach' of your airplane is the last few moments before it touches the ground, and setting this approach up nicely is key to a good landing. If you're smooth and steady on final approach, then you're going to pull off a greaser of a landing!

The trick is to fly your airplane on a 'downwind leg' - this means flying past you and in front of you, either from left to right or right to left depending on which way the wind is blowing (like a take off, your plane needs to land into the wind so that it can fly as slowly as possible without stalling; if it's flying into the wind then its relative airspeed is increased because of the wind over the wings).

So, your downwind leg will be flying your airplane with the wind ie the same direction as the wind is blowing, before turning the plane 180 degrees ('base leg') into wind for the landing.

Landing your rc airplane - setting up final approach

Above, the basis of your landing approach (not to scale!)

Before you begin your downwind leg, the altitude of your airplane should be constant at, as a very general rule of thumb, 30 feet (10m) or so. Again, there's no hard and fast rule to this height and a lot depends on the type of airplane that you're flying. You'll get to know how high to fly the downwind leg, with practice.

Fly your airplane downwind until it passes you by, say, 50 meters or so (again, this distance is going to depend on a few things) and smoothly turn it back into wind so that it's coming towards you (remember that reverse control!). As you turn, slowly reduce motor power at the same time but be ready to increase it again quickly if the plane drops too much, too soon.

Use rudder to keep the plane in a straight line, and use motor power to control its rate of descent. You can use elevator also, but the proper control for rate of descent is in fact motor power; while elevator will certainly make the plane go up and down, it also directly effects the airspeed of the plane and ideally you want to keep this as constant as possible.

As the airplane nears the ground, reduce the motor power completely and gently apply up elevator to slow the plane's speed and reduce the rate of descent further, until the plane touches down. The timing of this 'flaring', as it's known, is crucial to a good landing - flare too soon and your airplane will stall and crash, flare too late and it will touch down too hard and fast, and more than likely bounce all over the place!
Getting the timing of the flare is something that only comes with practice, and the more landings you do, the better you'll get at it as you get to know your plane's flight characteristics.

Below is a short video of how you should set yourself up for a nice landing, with a right to left wind direction...

Missed approaches

A missed approach is when you've set yourself up for a landing, have it all under control but then at the last minute something goes wrong, or you lose your nerve, and so you open up the motor to full power to climb out and have another go.

There's absolutely no shame in missed approaches, and even veteran and professional rc pilots still need to do them now and again.
It's far better to do five missed approaches and land your airplane safely and in one piece, than to rush a landing and bring your airplane home in pieces.

As I said at the start of this page, landing your rc airplane is without doubt the hardest part of flying, and the part that needs the most practice when you're learning to fly radio control. But stick at it and learn to land well; don't just accept a bad landing without trying to improve on it the next time. With time, you will be landing without a single bounce!

Got a question about landing your rc airplane? Join the forum!

Just to recap, the previous lessons were...

So there you have it - RC Airplane World Flight School for beginners!
Hopefully these pages have helped you become familiar with and confident about flying your rc airplane. Please continue to use this site, and feel free to join the forum for further advice and assistance with learning to fly your plane, and enjoying your new hobby to the full!