Hone Your Short-Field Skills

It's important to set a target and establish a stabilized approach when making a short-field landing.

Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 01:16 PM ET

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Transylvania County Airport (formerly 22W, now 3NR3) requires landing 'right on the spot.' [Illustration: Clare Nicholas]

Key Takeaways:

The pilot's experience at Transylvania County Airport underscores that real-world conditions (like trees shortening a runway) can differ from published data, requiring precise short-field landing techniques.
Short-field landings are precise maneuvers using a "power approach" where throttle controls descent rate to maintain a specific airspeed (around 1.3 times stall speed) for landing on a designated spot, with an emphasis on being ready to go around if the approach is unstable.
Tools like an Angle of Attack (AOA) indicator enhance safety and precision in short-field landings by providing real-time information on lift and stall margin, which is more reliable than airspeed alone in varying flight conditions.
Practical application, such as setting tangible goals to fly to challenging airports, makes mastering short-field landing skills more engaging and effective.

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For a couple of reasons, we didn’t want to land at the main airport (KAVL) at Asheville, North Carolina.

First, we had looked ahead on airnav.com and saw that the fuel prices there for 100LL tacked at least an extra dollar per gallon onto what we could procure elsewhere in the area. Second, I had landed at Asheville before, and I always liked a new challenge. Third, well, I was not getting much love from the controller on Asheville Approach when I asked for VFR flight following through the area—cementing my idea of finding elsewhere to land.