Author: David Jacobson

Don’t just take our word for it – What-other-pilots-say …

15.08.2018 , what-other-pilots-say

Don’t just take our word for it – What-other-pilots-say …

This review, from Marc Santacroce, a CFI from the USA, was also posted on 3 February 2015, on our testimonials page, www.jacobson.flare.com/testimonials  .

‘So, once again in my flying life (started in 1965), I am faced with getting back up to speed on my aviation skills after another extended absence. I am not a high time pilot, just now 2000 PPSEL hours, and I’m probably the ONLY pilot you know who will admit he’s NOT the best pilot of all time. I don’t test well, I have to constantly study to stay on top, and I have to frequently practice my basic maneuvers, as well as my instrument skills.

This last two year hiatus has taken it’s toll, for one I’m older, and aviation has changed in leaps and bounds the past five years. I have to work harder to keep up, and consequently look for any way to make life easier.

The Jacobson Flare App is one of those aids that make life easier. The App will cost you about what an hour with a CFI will cost, and it is worth every penny.

When I was transitioning from my PPSEL to working on my instrument, I couldn’t find one, not one, instructor who could explain why we teach VFR flight one way and IFR flight another. Of course I’m referring to the perennial debate over whether power or pitch control rate or speed.

Capt Jacobson takes you through a rational analysis of what happens using both methods, then presents a compelling argument of why the “flightpath” method is more effective, and easier to master, than the “airspeed” method.

Three months ago, when I first started using the Jacobson Flare (coincidentally with flying an airplane I hadn’t touched in over 5 years), I found his techniques a struggle. Then, after three practice flights, I nailed it – consistently. Two more months passed (when I couldn’t afford to fly), and I lost my touch again. I emailed Capt Jacobson and he quickly diagnosed my problem as “fixation” on the aim point and flare point. “Open your field of vision”, he said. Today I went up, in a newer, more powerful model of the same airplane and bingo, I got it down.

After 45 minutes of air work, when I was probably too tired to do my best, I hit the pattern for 10 landings. All but one were spot on, and that one was just a longer landing because I hadn’t reduced power as much, and as soon as I should have. I intentionally flew some steep, and some shallow approaches to landing, as well as the optimum 3-4 degree approach, and the J-Flare method works.

Once you earn to work with aim point and flare point, and not be so concerned about HAT, your landings will become more consistent and more predictable. On my way back to home field, I gave a newly minted multi- engine pilot a lift. He couldn’t believe my landing. I took the opportunity to sing the Jacobson Flare praises and give him a 30 second tutorial. His only comment was that the method made total sense. Let me commend it to you too. Everyone says that mastering the landings was the hardest part of learning to fly. Do it the Jacobson Flare way, and they won’t be.

Marc Santacroce
San Francisco CA, USA’

 

Wishing you many safe landings

 

Captain David M Jacobson FRAeS MAP

 

Would you care to experience that unsurpassed sense of accomplishment, derived from executing consistently beautiful landings, more often?

For starters, Download the FREE Jacobson Flare LITE, our no fuss/no frills introduction. Here we demonstrate, step by step, the application of the Jacobson Flare on a typical grass airstrip at Porepunkah, YPOK.

 

We invite you to browse the consistently positive comments on our Testimonials page. Many pilots, of all levels of experience, have downloaded our Apps. Read about their own experiences with the Jacobson Flare technique and the App.

Then download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare app – for iOS. You’re already possibly paying $300+/hour to hire an aeroplane: You’ll recover the cost of the app, in just ONE LESS-NEEDED CIRCUIT. Moreover, you’ll have an invaluable reference tool, throughout your entire life in aviation.

Download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare App for iOS devices now.

 

We invite you, also, to review our new, FREE companion app,

offering a convenient way of staying abreast of our latest blogs.

 

Download the Jacobson Flare NEWS App for iOS devices now.

Why inflict yesterday’s landing myths on tomorrow’s pilots?

06.08.2018 , simple-safe-logical-affordable

Why inflict yesterday’s landing myths on tomorrow’s pilots?

Of all manoeuvres flown in fixed-wing aircraft, the landing flare remains an enigma, It is usually the most precise flight manoeuvre that pilots are required to master as it is critical to the safe and satisfactory conclusion of every flight. I’t’s often stated that, ‘while take-offs are optional, landings are mandatory‘.

While everything else in aviation has developed throughout the last 100 years, landing training is still regarded, for the most part, as an ‘art‘. Conventional flare practices have involved a critical estimation of height  above the runway and are subject to quite a number of variable factors.

From the dawn of aviation, before and during World War One until 1987, there was no definitive, universal approach and landing technique and, even more puzzling, little recognition of the need for one. The original pilots were self-taught. Their haphazard trial-and-error practices gradually blossomed into a loose collection of landing myths and legends that ultimately came to be regarded as gospel. Surprisingly, these practices have remained for the most part unchallenged by generations of flight instructors.

It is being realised, by many countries, that there may soon be a significant shortage of pilots, world-wide. When this period arrives, the proper training of many new pilots will present huge challenges, especially if there is no change to the status quo.

We no longer have to swing the propellors of modern aircraft, yet most flight training organisations still cling to yesterday’s obsolescence. It is time now to move landing training from the ‘artistry‘ of 1918 into today’s world, where a totally proven, universal, quantifiable and consistent approach and landing flare technique can define new standards in competency.

The Jacobson Flare is the world’s precision tool that enables us to avoid inflicting yesterday’s landing techniques on tomorrow’s pilots. Together, we can help them to be more precise, consistent, efficient and, above all, safer than ever.

 

Wishing you many safe landings

 

Captain David M Jacobson FRAeS MAP

 

Would you care to experience that unsurpassed sense of accomplishment, derived from executing consistently beautiful landings, more often?

For starters, Download the FREE Jacobson Flare LITE, our no fuss/no frills introduction. Here we demonstrate, step by step, the application of the Jacobson Flare on a typical grass airstrip at Porepunkah, YPOK.

 

We invite you to browse the consistently positive comments on our Testimonials page. Many pilots, of all levels of experience, have downloaded our Apps. Read about their own experiences with the Jacobson Flare technique and the App.

Then download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare app – for iOS. You’re already possibly paying $300+/hour to hire an aeroplane: You’ll recover the cost of the app, in just ONE LESS-NEEDED CIRCUIT. Moreover, you’ll have an invaluable reference tool, throughout your entire life in aviation.

Download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare App for iOS devices now.

 

We invite you, also, to review our new, FREE companion app,

offering a convenient way of staying abreast of our latest blogs.

 

Download the Jacobson Flare NEWS App for iOS devices now.

If you really want to impress another pilot with your landings, explain to them HOW you do it

29.07.2018 , captain-david-jacobson

If you really want to impress another pilot with your landings, explain to them HOW you do it

It’s a very natural thing … for anyone … to want to show your mates, your buddies, supervisors, or even examiners, just how well you can land your airplane. After all, you’ve now got the hang of it … on this airplane type. You’ve practised, you’ve mis-landed a couple of times, maybe; you’ve flared a bit too early and landed a bit long, but hey, that’s better than flaring late and ending up with a firm, short touchdown.

Now, you can display your skills … but can you display them consistently well? At any airfield? In challenging conditions? We’ve probably all thought (if not stated): “I’ll show you how it’s done”, only to find that the result was less brilliant than we had hoped for.

The problem:

The un-acknowledged, but honest truth is that NONE of us were ever actually taught HOW to land a plane. Sure, we were briefed on WHAT we were supposed to do; and it was demonstrated to us what we were expected to reproduce. But we were never actually taught HOW. Now, that is not really surprising, because the conventional skills needed to learn to land a plane may be compared with those of a child learning to hit a nail with a hammer. The more you hit, the better you get; but the best of carpenters still bend a nail, occasionally. The same applies to sporting stars playing any ball game; the best of them can still manage to mis-hit or mis-kick the ball … when it matters most. And the best of pilots can mis-land.

Has anyone ever seen a decent book or video on HOW to hit a nail with a hammer? No? This is because a sequence of physical motor skills is difficult to put into simple words and things like pressure, speed and other nuances are subtle and virtually un-quantifiable, without scientific instruments at hand.

And so, we resort to lovely words like judgment, perception, feel and experience, none of which can be taught; and we tell ourselves that if we practise, over and over, then the repetition will provide the results we are seeking. This has been handed down, without question, for over 100 years, while everything else in aviation has moved on.

We’ve even kidded ourselves that this airplane type or that one needs a special technique, so we were tutored to ‘forget everything you’ve been told and do this’ … such as the dopey part-flare and then roll-forward-and-reduce-thrust-back-to-idle party trick I’ve witnessed, often, on the beautiful B727, B737 and DC-9, only because certain pilots did not understand the correct flare height to flare those airplanes. When the roll-forward part was executed, with thrust still around 70% N1 (fan RPM), the airplanes took off down the runway, in ground effect, like scalded cats, often requiring heavy braking effort after a deep touchdown.

The problem is we didn’t then have a universal, quantifiable and consistent approach and landing flare technique.

The solution:

Since 1987, we’ve had such a technique – the Jacobson Flare – and now we have an intelligent and incisive explanation on HOW to land a plane. Now, you can really impress other pilots because you can explain, factually and simply, HOW you do it. You’ll also be able to show them.

 

Wishing you many safe landings

 

Captain David M Jacobson FRAeS MAP

 

Would you care to experience that unsurpassed sense of accomplishment, derived from executing consistently beautiful landings, more often?

For starters, Download the FREE Jacobson Flare LITE, our no fuss/no frills introduction. Here we demonstrate, step by step, the application of the Jacobson Flare on a typical grass airstrip at Porepunkah, YPOK.

 

We invite you to browse the consistently positive comments on our Testimonials page. Many pilots, of all levels of experience, have downloaded our Apps. Read about their own experiences with the Jacobson Flare technique and the App.

Then download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare app – for iOS. You’re already possibly paying $300+/hour to hire an aeroplane: You’ll recover the cost of the app, in just ONE LESS-NEEDED CIRCUIT. Moreover, you’ll have an invaluable reference tool, throughout your entire life in aviation.

Download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare App for iOS devices now.

 

We invite you, also, to review our new, FREE companion app,

offering a convenient way of staying abreast of our latest blogs.

 

Download the Jacobson Flare NEWS App for iOS devices now.

How to land a plane … with the world’s best practice.

21.07.2018 , simple-safe-logical-affordable

How to land a plane … with the world’s best practice

A senior flight instructor once suggested that there are 3 or 4 steps required for a successful landing … BUT:  no-one knows what they are!

If that was ever true, it is certainly not anymore. For a start, there are 5 – and since 1987, we DO know what they are.

In order to learn how to land a plane consistently well, a pilot must be able to understand and answer the following 5 questions – and flight instructors should be able to explain them – simply, clearly and factually; and be able to demonstrate them to their students, at any level of experience:

  1. Where to aim?
  2. How to aim?
  3. When to flare?
  4. How much to flare? And
  5. How fast to flare?

The main problems:

  • In my experience (over 50 years), most pilots usually aim at an area, like the piano keys or the runway numbers (they are 80-100ft/25-30m long) – rather than to a nominated aim point, suitable for the aircraft size and runway length available.
  • Many flight training establishments still teach their students to attempt to control the most precise manoeuvre most will ever have to master with the secondary effects of controls, instead of the primary effects; the result is, invariably an unpredictable roller coaster flight path … the final approach is not stabilised and the aircraft will never cross the threshold at a consistent height.
  • The decision on when to commence the flare is based historically on an ‘educated guess’ of vertical ‘flare height‘ above the ground. This assessment is inconsistent, subject to many variable and distorting factors and any errors in this assessment of height compound 20 times, along the runway, making touchdown and turn-off points unpredictable. Modern transport aircraft have useful radio altitude call-outs, but these still suffer the same 20 x times-compounding mathematical errors.
  • The assessment of how much to flare is nothing more than a subjective guess, while attempting to fly straight and level with power/thrust retarded to idle , just above the runway, for as long as possible, rather than continuing to converge with the runway surface … but less and less, each part/second.
  • Finally, the ‘flare rate‘ is another series of subjective guesses, based on ‘feel, look, judgment, perception’ and experience, NONE of which can be taught. They come only with practice, repetition and time. Mostly, they do come – after all, this is what we’ve all done for over 100 years … but at what cost? And with no consistency.
  • With a looming shortage of pilots, world-wide and especially in Australia, are airlines and flight training organisations really going to continue to adhere, blindly, to the myths, legends and mumbo jumbo that has been passed on as landing training, for more than 100 years – when EVERYTHING ELSE in aviation has developed – just a little?

The solution:

The answers to all of these key questions may not seem readily apparent – after all, have you ever seen them in a manual or textbook? But they are available and well proven, by thousands of pilots in at least 60 countries.

The Jacobson Flare landing flare technique

The Jacobson Flare landing flare technique – based on simple triangulation

The solution lies in the use of triangulation, as used, most effectively, by the RAF 617 Squadron ‘Dambusters’, in 1943. As well as considering ‘flare height‘, the Jacobson Flare offers a precise, complementary visual fix, along the runway centreline, short of the aim point, that makes the flare point visible to the pilot, instead of relying on a guess.

Offering the elegant simplicity of the safety pin, it eliminates the ‘mumbo jumbo’ from explaining how to land a plane.

ALL of those 5 questions are answered, factually, with full explanatory solutions and the result is the world’s first universal, quantifiable, consistent, safest and simplest approach and landing training technique.

For 30 years, the most common feedback from experienced pilots is that ‘it finally explains what we’ve probably all been trying to do, subconsciously, all these years.’

 

Wishing you many safe landings

 

Captain David M Jacobson FRAeS MAP

 

Would you care to experience that unsurpassed sense of accomplishment, derived from executing consistently beautiful landings, more often?

For starters, Download the FREE Jacobson Flare LITE, our no fuss/no frills introduction. Here we demonstrate, step by step, the application of the Jacobson Flare on a typical grass airstrip at Porepunkah, YPOK.

 

We invite you to browse the consistently positive comments on our Testimonials page. Many pilots, of all levels of experience, have downloaded our Apps. Read about their own experiences with the Jacobson Flare technique and the App.

Then download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare app – for iOS. You’re already possibly paying $300+/hour to hire an aeroplane: You’ll recover the cost of the app, in just ONE LESS-NEEDED CIRCUIT. Moreover, you’ll have an invaluable reference tool, throughout your entire life in aviation.

Download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare App for iOS devices now.

 

We invite you, also, to review our new, FREE companion app,

offering a convenient way of staying abreast of our latest blogs.

 

Download the Jacobson Flare NEWS App for iOS devices now.

Your students go solo in far less time … isn’t that bad for business?

14.07.2018 , captain-david-jacobson

Your students go solo in far less time … isn’t that bad for business?

Throughout my 50-year career as an Australian professional pilot (1965-2015), it was considered normal for civilian student pilots to attain the proficiency required to achieve their first solo flight after an average of 10-12 hours’ dual instruction.

More lately, anecdotal reports indicate that many students haven’t reached solo standard by 30-35  hours! That number happens to be around the minimum required for a restricted Private Pilot Licence and frankly, is just ridiculous.

Are landings that difficult? … Or have conventional landing techniques passed their use-by date?

Do flight instructors really know HOW to teach landings? … Or have they just accepted the conventional wisdom that it takes time for students to ‘get the hang’ of learning how to land a plane. After all, the ‘watch what I do and copy it’ approach has served us well for over 100 years … hasn’t it?

Because the longer it takes a student to solo, the better for business, right?

Or is it?

Many flight training schools and colleges have been established to meet the initially-perceived-but-now-actual shortage of pilots, world-wide. And they are still teaching the old, tired methods, based on trial-and-error and developing judgment by repetition …why? Because we’ve always done it this way.

Well, this head-in-the-sand attitude is going to cost them dearly, because many enter into fixed-price contracts training cadet pilots for customer airlines and, with extended training times to first solo, the income will be quickly consumed. That’s a real cost which could be avoided.

Then, what about the wear and tear on instructors and students, each group with their own frustrations and lack/loss of confidence?

Next, how about the totally unnecessary wear and tear, and damage to airplanes … even loss through accidents? And possible injury and loss of life?

Even at schools where the student base is centred on discretionary spending on a new pastime, how long will they persist, if they are achieving little or slow progress?

Since 1987, a more efficient, simpler, safer and cost-effective universal technique has been available. And since 2014, this technique has been within easy reach. A training technique that employs sound mathematical principles, rather than guesswork, myths and legends will get student pilots solo in half the time …

How can that be bad for business?

 

Wishing you many safe landings

 

Captain David M Jacobson FRAeS MAP

 

Would you care to experience that unsurpassed sense of accomplishment, derived from executing consistently beautiful landings, more often?

For starters, Download the FREE Jacobson Flare LITE, our no fuss/no frills introduction. Here we demonstrate, step by step, the application of the Jacobson Flare on a typical grass airstrip at Porepunkah, YPOK.

 

We invite you to browse the consistently positive comments on our Testimonials page. Many pilots, of all levels of experience, have downloaded our Apps. Read about their own experiences with the Jacobson Flare technique and the App.

Then download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare app – for iOS. You’re already possibly paying $300+/hour to hire an aeroplane: You’ll recover the cost of the app, in just ONE LESS-NEEDED CIRCUIT. Moreover, you’ll have an invaluable reference tool, throughout your entire life in aviation.

Download the COMPLETE Jacobson Flare App for iOS devices now.

 

We invite you, also, to review our new, FREE companion app,

offering a convenient way of staying abreast of our latest blogs.

 

Download the Jacobson Flare NEWS App for iOS devices now.