"You can't get there from here."

If you can't get to New Hampshire from New York, but must first go to Vermont, isn't that the same thing as going from New York to New Hampshire? Maybe the expression applies more to places in our mind rather than places on a map. If you are in a state of anxiety and agitation, you cannot get to a state of relaxation simply by trying harder; you must go somewhere else first.

More to the point, if you are anxious about attaining the knack of landing a plane, you will tend to do worse as a result of trying harder. As one awkward attempt piles up upon another, people tend to become frustrated and fixate upon the landing as an objective that they must forcefully conquer. Slowly, the idea of courting the graceful airplane down a primrose-lined runway takes on the fevered and single-minded determination of a woman killing a snake.

When we are tense and nervous, our vision becomes focused on one particular spot. We develop a sense of tunnel vision, where our eyes seek information from only one source. There are greater challenges in life than learning to land an airplane, but not many. In any case, challenges are what we make of them, and if a person has decided that landing will be a challenge, then it probably will be.

Over the years I have sat next to many people as they have learned to land. Sometimes it comes easy, and sometimes it can be a struggle. It is easy to take credit for the quick learners, and it is a great feeling to help someone learn to land, step by cautious step. The most memorable people are the ones that spent ten or a dozen lessons trying to land, and always left hoping that next time things would come together for them. Finally they just left, drifted away, and I remember them because I feel that there must have been something else I should have done.

Just one of the mysteries of learning to land involves the flare or the roundout, the smooth but expeditious raising of the airplane's nose at the end of the approach, so that the plane skims level over the runway and finishes decelerating before touching down. An instructor can show someone how to do this, and can explain where to look for clues to decide when to do it, but in the end, it is experience that teaches. No instructor can actually make someone see, feel, or think.

It is not uncommon for people to stare just over the nose of the plane as they approach the roundout, trying to judge when to level the plane. Invariably this causes them to level the plane too late, and they almost fly it right into the runway . . . even as they are trying their best to avoid just that thing. The secret is to look all around, look way ahead and look off to the sides and gauge the perspective of all the objects around and ahead of the runway area. The view directly ahead of the nose is worthwhile too, but is not the most important.

Just like I cannot make someone see the right thing, I cannot prevent them from looking at the wrong thing. I can tell them to look to the sides and de-emphasize the view just ahead of the plane, but if the brain thinks that the most important information is just ahead of the plane, that is where it will send the eye. The cure for this problem came to me by way of an older instructor who said that the cure for this sort of thing was to hold a folded map in front of the student's view during landing.

He pointed out that people who learned to fly in tandem-seated planes like the J-3 Cub did just fine despite having absolutely no forward view of the runway as they neared the ground. These planes were flown solo from the rear seat, and the pilots had no choice but to rely upon the array of peripheral cues to judge their height. Holding a folded map in front of the student landing a contemporary side- by- side seated nosewheel plane might work, but I had some reservations about the efficiency, consistency, and overall safety of the technique.

I took some scraps of aluminum and made a "J-3 simulator." It is a five by eight inch piece of aluminum that can attached to the top of the instrument panel with duct tape. Mounted on a hinge, it can be flipped up as necessary to block just the right amount of the student's forward view.

The "simulator" was built especially for one student, and I introduced the concept to him by first taking him to the Warplane Museum hangar and letting him sit in the back seat of an old Aeronca, just to appreciate the complete lack of forward visibility offered by these once-common planes. We then went to our plane and I showed him the "simulator."

The flight report? Excellent. The tendency to roundout too late was instantly eliminated once the student was removed from the hypnotic influence of the view close to the nose. Like I said, I can't make a student stop looking right over the nose, but I can make it so there is nothing there to look at!