Seneca III Landings
I have owned my Seneca III now for 10 months, have about 80 hours in it, and over 150 landings. I have achieved competence in short field, soft field, short soft field, extreme crosswind and tailwind landings. My normal landings are acceptable but just not grease ons. I have read everything I can get my hands on but it just seems I can't keep the nose wheel off the runway very long after the mains touchdown. I have tried all types of configurations, full back trim as I am flaring and just can't seem to get the combination of power off and full trim timed perfectly to make the landings very smooth when the nose wheel comes down. I wonder if it is just the design of the plane or I am just missing something. I can pretty much grease on an Aztec or 310 just can't some to accomplish it in my Seneca. Any advice or comments would be appreciated.
Comments
I'd say that you're probably flying the plane using the elevator during the higher performance landings and you're falling back on bad habits and using the trim to flare on "normal" landings.
1. Any pilot no matter how petite should be able to hold the yoke fully aft in the flare. Control forces decrease as the plane slows down as long as the plane is trimmed at a proper approach speed.
2. Should you need to go-around, you may find the plane uncontrollable. Have your CFI/MEI demonstrate a "trim stall".
3. You are actually decreasing elevator authority. If you have the yoke all the way aft, trimming "up" moves the anti-servo tab on the stabalator down decreasing the down force.
4. You flare with the elevator, not the elevator trim. You will "run out" of trim way before you run out of elevator.
Also, check your W/B and make sure that you're well within the envelope. I might help a bit to move some luggage to the back.
Do NOT use the trim to flare!
PilotKris
Keeping power on through the flare is bad technique.
You want to land with the lowest energy state possible. That means full stall, power off.
Adding (any) power to "smooth" the landing is a crutch that just masks bad technique and increases landing speed, distance, increases wear/tear and increases the possibility of "runway loss of control" incidents.
The exception to this is, of course, soft (but not short) field landings were minimum vertical speed is paramount.
PilotKris
In my Lance I need to keep a bit power on to avoid a 3 wheel landing. The Lance is so nose heavy and the elevator authority marginal that it is the only way to land at stall speed without falling from the sky
Just my 2 cent
Some Seneca pilots put a bag of sand in the back if they are flying solo.