The discussions here in the Pilot's Lounge at the virtual airport range from prosaic to fairly intense. Last Sunday evening some of the regulars returned from their annual mid-October color tour on a particularly windy day and got into it over speeds to fly on the approach. The group had "ooh"-ed and "aahh"-ed at the colors, then landed at Mackinac Island, an airport that is renowned for attention-grabbing gusts, swirling winds and shear when landing to the west. Moments later, they had watched a Cessna 210 approach with partial flaps as the wind gusted to 30 knots. They heard the pilot chop power over the threshold, but then juke and jive and float 2/3 of the way down the runway, with the clearance between the airplane and the ground varying impressively, before he finally bled off enough of the massive excess of airspeed he was carrying to touch down. They then held their collective breath as he swerved to the right at the very end of the runway and stopped at the edge of the pavement. Their observations of the hapless gyrations of a pilot who hadn't figured out that excess airspeed in the flare is not a terribly good idea on a gusty day, sparked a conversation that somehow evolved into the speed to fly on the ILS and how to make the transition to visual references and land.Look, I never claimed that discussions in The Pilot's Lounge follow logical sequences, I just report them.A couple of the instrument instructors spoke up and said that they were getting increasingly concerned about what seemed to be a common thread among pilots with whom they'd flown. In the last 400 feet or so above the runway on the ILS, unpleasant things were happening. A pilot would have done a decent job of keeping the needles near the center as he or she neared decision altitude; airspeed, descent rate and heading would be appropriate, but when the pilot spotted the runway it was Katy bar the door. There would be a whirlwind of activity in the left seat as the power was slammed back, flap deflection increased and the dive for the threshold of the runway commenced. It was as if there were some sort of prize to be obtained for landing short. It made no sense to the CFIs; the airplane had been nicely established on the localizer and glideslope and, just because the pilot thought he or she could see the runway, it was suddenly time to make all sorts of speed and configuration changes, despite that fact that they had yet to get as far as the approach lights.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/features/the-pilots-lounge-80-the-ils-that-last-400-feet