They say that you could teach a chimp to fly an aircraft, but that it takes skill to land it, especially if you ever want to it to fly again.  Maybe that's true and maybe not — my only experience with the great apes is limited to when I played rugby football on a regular basis.  However it is my experience that most fliers have little difficulty in staying airborne, or at least wandering around the sky in a vaguely guided manner, whilst there are very few who can place an aircraft on the ground, exactly where they want it, on every occasion.

Our friends who fly those nasty, smelly, powered aircraft have the advantage of having machines with the glide characteristics of a house brick and an engine to drag the model on to the landing strip.  It is rather more difficult for us more enlightened pilots, who aviate without the need for noise.  Trying to place a large, efficient glider exactly where you want it can be a soul-destroying experience.  Watching it float past you at shoulder height, heading for that barbed wire fence fifty yards away is enough to make a grown man cry.

So what is the secret to performing accurate landings every time?

I wish I knew!

First of all, let me say that it is impossible to get it right every single time.  No matter how good you are, sooner or later you will misjudge your landing approach and land in a location other than intended.  However that is what it is all about — judgement.

The Model
To begin with, let's look at the aircraft.  It really does not matter what type of glider you are flying, if you have some form of glide control fitted to the model then your chances of achieving accuracy are vastly improved.  Most thermal models have the option of being equipped with airbrakes, spoilers or flaps, all of which will effectively adjust the model's glide angle.  By the way, I don't include the elevators in this category; they are for speed control only and should not be used as a substitute for glide angle control.

Slope soaring pilots needn't switch off at this point as there is something here for them too.  Many slope models carry flaps these days and reflexed ailerons are also reasonably effective at glide angle control if set up correctly.

Airbrakes, like the brakes on your car, should be used proportionally.  You would hopefully never regularly slow your car by applying full brakes, followed by no brakes, followed by full brakes, etc. (If you do, then let me know – I really don't want to be in your car, the car in front or the car behind!)  The same should be true for air brakes.  I know of people who have their brakes actuated by a switch and the brake blades can often be seen flicking up and down on approach.  Not very efficient!  Have your brakes actuated by your throttle stick or a slider switch.

I will add a little extra point to this.  I know of at least one serious competition flier who disables the brake control in flight with a switch on the transmitter, enabling it again when he wants to make his approach.  I have also watched the same flier trying to actuate the brakes as his model approached the landing area, with no response.  He hadn't switched the brakes back to enabled.  The air turned blue as his model swept through the landing area and he missed his bonus points.  A case for "Keep It Simple" if ever I saw one.

When you deploy brakes they generally have an effect on the trim of the model, either pitching the nose up or down.  I have found that spoilers usually pitch the nose of my models downward while flaps/crow braking pitch the nose up. With modern computerised transmitters you should be able to mix in some elevator compensation to minimise this pitch response. Take the time to do this, and set to it up properly.  When you are on a landing approach, especially if it is in a competition, the last thing that you want is to be fighting with the model just before touch-down.  I personally prefer to have the nose of my models dropping slightly when I deploy the brakes as this helps to maintain the aircraft's progress towards my chosen landing spot.

It is common these days to see slope soaring models using reflexed ailerons for glide control.  It is also common to see them whistling in at extraordinary speeds.  One has got to understand what is happening to the model in order to make the most of this form of braking.  The action of reflexing the ailerons has two effects on the model.  It alters the wing section, effectively washing out the tips, or the whole wing in some cases, and it increases drag.  When deployed, the usual effect on the model is to cause it to sag in the air and also to accelerate towards the ground.  To get the best out of this braking method we must RAISE the nose of the model to a high drag position, and a fair amount of up elevator compensation will usually need to be programmed into the transmitter.  The reflexed ailerons will keep any tendency to stall under control.

The Approach
The key to landing exactly where you want is to carefully set up the approach. This starts when the aircraft is still at a good height.  There is not a lot of point in having the aircraft at 6 or 8 metres altitude upwind of yourself and then trying to perform a hurried circle into the landing area.  Nine times out of ten you are going to miss.

I regularly see pilots trying this in competitions. In order to let them fly out the remaining required time, they will hold on up-wind until the very last moment, in the hopes of finding a little bubble of lift.  They appear oblivious to their diminishing height until it is too late.  The resulting panicked attempt at landing usually sees them coming dangerously low over other competitors and transmitters before planking their aircraft in the grass somewhere down-wind of themselves.  Sport fliers in particular are not immune from this type of landing.

Break away from your thermal search in plenty of time.  If you are going to find a low-level bubble of lift, you are just as likely to find it on your base leg as up-wind.  Do a proper down-wind leg, followed by a turn onto the base leg. If the down-wind leg is conducted with sufficient altitude, you should arrive 30 – 50 metres down-wind of the landing area with more than sufficient height to make your final approach.

Exactly what height?  Well that differs for each aircraft and the weather conditions on the day.  However it is fair to say that too much height is far better than too little.  I usually try to arrive on base leg with about 50 ft /15m-20m of altitude.  This gives me lots of options for either lengthening my glide time or coming straight in to land.

The final part of your approach should ideally be conducted from exactly down-wind of your proposed landing area. You should increase the speed of the aircraft a little to ensure that you have plenty of control response and penetration into whatever wind there is. Your airbrakes should ideally be deployed about half way.  If you still appear too high, open the brakes a little further.  If it looks as though you are going to undershoot then shut them a bit.  This is why I advocate having the brakes on a proportional control.  You should be aiming the nose of the aircraft at a point on the ground two or tree metres down-wind of your landing spot.  Just as you are about to touch down you can apply elevator to flare the aircraft right onto your chosen landing spot.

There, wasn't that easy?  The nose of the model is sitting right in the middle of the landing area.  So now go and do it again, and again, and again.

That's right, the secret is practice.

I regularly throw my hat down in the middle of the landing area as a target.  The closer the nose of my aircraft is to my hat the more satisfied I am.  On the slope, I regularly shoot half a dozen landing approaches just for the practice, before I finally land off a good approach. (That's right, I have to practise too —  my name is not Perkins or Wurts)

With regular practice you should be able to get within a metre on more than half of your landings.