I had an interesting real-world learning experience about airspeed during short-field landings

Posted by WorkingOnPPL@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 69 comments

Last week the wind was coming straight down the runway at 11 gusting to 15kts. I am practicing short-field landings with an imaginary obstacle at the end of the runway that I need to clear. I am on final in a c172 at 70 kts IAS with full flaps, so I decide to bring the nose up just a touch to bleed off some airspeed to get us down to 55-60kts. While I am doing this, I adjust the controls slightly to keep us on center line...all of a sudden, my instructor calmly says "watch your airspeed, get the nose down." I look at the airspeed indicator and it was reading 45 kts. So I put the nose down, add some power, and land without incident. The sobering thing was that from the time I saw 70 kts IAS, to the time I saw 45 kts IAS was probably only 3-4 seconds. I know, because I try to watch the airspeed indicator like a hawk when close to the ground. Before this, I had trouble understanding how people get below stalling speed in the pattern. Now I am starting to get it.