Landings De-mystified: Jacobson Flare-AI takes a look
Even a century on, landing an aircraft is still considered by most as an art form. Can it be de-mystified?
The landing was something to be mastered through experience, intuition, and a fair bit of guesswork. But what if landing could be de-mystified from a stressful guessing game into a precise, repeatable skill, based on a universal, quantifiable and unassailable framework? Enter the Jacobson Flare, a revolutionary technique that leverages visual geometry and physics to eliminate uncertainty and deliver consistently smooth landings.
The Century-Old Problem: Guessing Height
Traditionally, pilots have relied on their perception and judgment to execute the landing flare—the critical moment just before touchdown when the nose is pulled up to soften the landing. This approach is inherently risky and inconsistent. The mathematics behind the glide path reveal a staggering one-to-twenty ratio: a one-foot vertical misjudgment translates into a twenty-foot error along the runway.
This means a tiny mistake in height estimation can result in overshooting the landing zone or a premature, jarring touchdown. Many flight schools still teach the “speed descent” method, which uses the elevators to control speed and engine power to manage descent rate. This creates an unstable, roller-coaster-like flight path, making precision nearly impossible.
Flipping the Approach: Path Descent and Stability
Finding a key to solving this problem is to reverse the conventional wisdom. Instead of controlling speed with the elevators, pilots must use this primary flight control to aim their eyes at a specific point on the runway, and lock in a stable three-degree glide path. Engine power is then used to maintain speed. This concept is certainly not new: airlines and defence forces have embraced it for years.
However, many civil flight training organisations still cling to their the dangerous mantra, ‘We’ve always done it this way’ The stable path approach is the foundation for the Jacobson Flare, ensuring the aircraft is perfectly positioned for the next steps.
“Fortuitously, my original Assistant/Chief Flying Instructor, Jim Noonan, first introduced me to this method back in 1965, at Civil Flying School, YMMB Moorabbin VIC. I utilised this method on every aircraft I ever flew, including sailplanes. Yes, sailplanes – gliders – still using the elevators to ‘fly my eyes’ towards the initial aim point 1 and the ‘air-brakes’ to control the airspeed. You see an aircraft simply reacts to an acceleration of a deceleration. Naturally, it cannot discern between reducing power, or increasing drag. And vice versa.
I felt vindicated, as the first two elements of the approach and landing started to become de-mystified for me – Where to aim and how to aim. Instinctively, even at just 17 years of age, I had wanted to fly this way, but my first instructors wouldn’t permit me. They (and I) simply didn’t have the experience on much larger and faster airplanes to understand the requirements for a stable approach; or to realise that aiming with the elevators and controlling airspeed with power was equally relevant to light aircraft, when on powered approaches.”
The Geometry of the Flare: Erasing Guesswork
David Jacobson, a former Qantas captain with 55 years and 24,500 hours of flight and flight training experience, researched and introduced a game-changing concept: using the runway as a visible, calibrated ruler. He was inspired, as a seventeen-year-old, by the World War Two RAF 617 Sqn ‘Dambusters’, who used intersecting spotlight beams to provide two position lines, creating an accurate visual fix for the low-level delivery of 6-ton ‘skipping’ bombs from just 60 ft over still water at night. They also developed a simple Y-shaped bomb sight, again based on triangulation, to refine the bomb-aimers’ release point. Their targets were several large dams in Western Germany, which were heavily protected by steel nets suspended in the water – to eliminate the use of mines or torpedoes. In addition, anti-aircraft fire was a grave risk. The Jacobson Flare applies similar and simple applied triangulation, using the airplane’s own cockpit geometry.
For a start, the first position line is the pilot’s standard -3º downward line of sight, aimed at a specific pre-calculated point on the runway, suitable for the size of the airplane and called aim point 1 (AP1). The bigger the airplane, the deeper along the runway this point must be, to assure proper threshold height clearance of the main landing gear – MLG, this being the lowest part of the airplane while on approach to land.
The second position line is an additional line of sight from the pilot’s eye, this time as a tangent, just glancing down the fixed lower visual cut-off angle of the airplane’s glareshield or dashboard, which blocks the pilot’s view over the nose, from the seat. This angle forms part of the design of the airplane cockpit. In older generations of aircraft, with analogue instrumentation, this angle is commonly of the order of -13º. Modern airplanes with digital instrumentation (known as EFIS – electronic flight instrumentation systems) tend to have lower visual angles of approximately 20º.
As the pilot flies down the ‘locked-in’ -3º glide path, the dashboard eventually eclipses a second longitudinal point on the runway, short of the aim point. This called the flare cut-off point – FCoP. This point is pre-calculated (just once for each airplane type) from the manufacturer’s-recommended or operator-desired flare commencement height.
When the airplane glare shield advances along the runway, while the pilot continues to aim at aim point 1, the glareshield will ultimately overtake and eclipse the FCoP, creating a definitive visual fix. This signals the exact moment to begin the flare, eliminating the need for vertical height estimation, and it’s inherent, long-overlooked mathematical 20:1 error . The whole process is quantifiable, mathematical, and clearly visible from the cockpit and absolutely assists in de-mystifying the landing manoeuvre.
Five Steps to Perfect Landings
Jacobson breaks the landing process into five sequential steps, replacing vague instructions with a universal system:
Where to Aim: Identifying the pre-calculated precise aim point 1 on the runway; Note: a point, not a vague area;
How to Aim: Flying a stable glide path using the elevators to aim your eyes and the throttle to control the airspeed.
When to Flare: Responding to the visual eclipse of the dashboard/glareshield over the flare cutoff point;
How Much to Flare: Adjusting pitch to focus on a new, second aim point, usually at the upwind threshold of the runway; and
How Fast to Flare: Execute the flare over four seconds for a smooth, exponential curve, while simultaneously coordinating an appropriate gentle reduction in power or thrust.
If any of these parameters are not met, the framework prioritises a go-around as a logical safety decision, rather than a last-minute panic manoeuvre.
The Four-Second Flare: Bending the Flight Path
Conventionally, the timing of the flare is crucial was never measured. By counting evenly to four seconds while easing the nose up, and commencing to reduce power or thrust, the pilot creates a perfect exponential curve in the vertical flight path. In the first second, the descent rate may be rapid, but as the pitch increases through seconds two and three, lift is generated, flattening the descent. By the fourth second, the wheels are dropping at just a few inches per second, easing to a gentle kiss, at touchdown. The maneuver is guided entirely by the pilot’s shifting visual aim point, ensuring safety and precision. Just as when throwing a ball, the aircraft politely follows the pilots line of sight.
Universal Precision: For Every Airplane
A common misconception is that this level of precision is only suitable for large commercial jets. In reality, the Jacobson Flare is universally applicable. Whether you’re a student pilot in a small Cessna or a seasoned captain landing an Airbus A380, the same mathematical principles apply. For student pilots, the technique reduces training time and costs by providing a repeatable relationship instead of a guessing game. For airline professionals, it enhances safety and consistency. For passengers, it means smoother, more comfortable landings every time. Finally, the landing is de-mystified.
The Elegant Simplicity of the Jacobson Flare
One pilot described the Jacobson Flare beautifully, as having “the elegant simplicity of the safety pin.” Following thirty-five years of aerodynamic research, Jacobson distilled a century-old problem into a brilliantly simple, universal and unassailable visual technique.
So, the next time you watch a plane approach the runway, visualise those intersecting lines, the eclipsing dashboard, and the four-second exponential curve through the flare. Landing is no longer a matter of feeling for the ground, while you’re wishing and hoping—it’s a precise execution of mathematical geometry. And the entire flight profile is fully visible to the pilot, like a real-world head-up display.
Final Thoughts
The Jacobson Flare represents a paradigm shift in aviation, turning landings into a safe and consistent skill, rather than either an art or a science. By leveraging visual geometry and physics, pilots can achieve unmatched precision, safety, consistency, confidence and comfort. Whether you’re in the cockpit or the passenger seat, understanding this technique changes your perspective on flying forever.
Wishing you many safe landings
Captain David M Jacobson FRAeS MAP
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