The landing flare, also referred to as the round out, is a maneuver or stage during the

landing Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or " spl ...

of an aircraft. The flare follows the final approach phase and precedes the touchdown and roll-out phases of landing. In the flare, the nose of the plane is raised, slowing the descent rate and therefore creating a softer touchdown, and the proper

attitude Attitude or Attitude may refer to: Philosophy and psychology * Attitude (psychology), a disposition or state of mind ** Attitude change * Propositional attitude, a mental state held towards a proposition Science and technology * Orientation ...

is set for touchdown. In the case of tailwheel landing gear-equipped aircraft, the attitude is set for touchdown on the main (front) landing gear first. In the case of

tricycle gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', that is arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has one or more nose wheels in a single front undercarriage and two or more main wheels slightly aft of th ...

-equipped aircraft, the attitude is set for touchdown on the main (rear) landing gear. In the case of monowheel gear-equipped gliders, the flare consists only of leveling the aircraft. In

parachuting Parachuting and skydiving are methods of descending from a high point in an atmosphere to the ground or ocean surface with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or multiple parachutes. For hu ...

, the flare is the part of the parachute landing fall preceding ground contact and is executed about above ground. During a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

landing, a flare is used for reducing both vertical and horizontal speed thus allowing a near zero-speed touchdown.

References

External links

''The Effect of Synthetic Vision Enhancements on Landing Flare Performance''
{{Authority control Types of take-off and landing