Great bit of footage of nighttime landings I Can't Stop Watching This HD Video Of Nighttime Carrier Operations
I would imagine it is just like riding a bike, you keep your eye on a bit of hedgerow and eventually you hit it.
At my local,(grass) airfield,they put 4 red lights in a rectangle ,one either side of the runway at the downwind end,and one either side about a third of the way along it.(Theres a rotating beacon maybe 10m away from the"square",so you don't try to plant it at some traffic lights by mistake...).There's also a big red light marking the upwind end of the runway The trick is to descend with the nose of the plane aimed between the first pair. When you get to maybe 40 or 50ft of the ground ease back on the column and let the plane sink gently on to the ground....just keep looking out of the side window,when the ground gets higher than your shoulder you know you're about there....you should be down before the second pair whistle past at,(what seems like),the height of your ears...if you don't feel the rumble of wheels on grass by then,nail the throttle/raise the flaps to 10 degrees and hope that you've got a positive rate of climb as that "End-of-Runway", light,gets awfully close awfully quickly... Fantastic feeling the first time you do it on your own.......like putting it onto a black blanket,almost like a video game. I have done circuits at places with hard runways and PAPI's,equally satisfying but in a different way,more precision but less guesswork
Reminds me of my gliding days Lightning, only we didn't have an engine. Join the downwind leg at about the right height, judge when to turn onto base leg depending upon wind strength, turn finals, line up and aim about 1/3 of the way along the runway, maintain speed with stick, control rate of decent with airbrakes, the aiming point moves away slightly as you descend through the wind gradient, let it glide on a bit in ground effect keeping the airbrakes constant and hold off gently for a perfect touchdown. Great fun.
My only gliding experience is was in my days as an ATC cadet,(based at the same airfield as mentioned above). Sedberghs and T31's,(like flying in bathtubs).I never once took the controls though I was invited to,plenty of times. One of the great side-benefits was lunch in the Sergeants mess,one shilling for an all-you-can-eat two course meal..woe betide you though if you put something on your plate and didn't eat it.....there was an eagle eyed NCO patrolling the tables to make sure the little ATC cherubs fattened themselves up nicely for a few bumpy winch launches in the afternoon....
I have only ever aero towed, never winch launched. A standard tow was to 2000' agl but you could release early if you flew through lift or stay on up to 4000' if you chose. The chances of contacting lift increased enormously with the extra height, a good tuggy could even take you and drop you off in lift.
You were lucky to get 5 minutes off a 1000ft winch launch most days-British weather/fairly flat agricultural terrain and a thick draggy old wing section...there's a very eerie silence when you get to the top,and you fervently hope the cute little yellow ball-on-a-string plays it's part as a cable release. And two words used for the very first time on this website? Cosim Variometer!
616 Gliding School at RAF Henlow in the late Sixties,I lived about half a mile from the airfield so if they were short of help at a weekend our CO would call up and ask if I'd help out,running the wing/operating the Aldis (!) lamp etc. Not in this shot as I think it's a year or so before my time,and I was never an official member of the school anyway Having said that,you did what you were told,so might be one of the backmarkers in the pic.
