How to approach a runway which has misleading visual cues

Sounds good. Aiming at the beginning of the runway usually gets you more or less there. Being too fast will make you float for too long. I’ve found that in my case (SR22) 77 kts on short final allows me to pretty much touch down where I was aiming at. I tend to ignore the look of the background for the runway but simply start, like you, at the calculated point and control the speed.

I fly the circuit as published by the airfield operator.

In mountain flying, you take an aiming point in front of the runway and keep the distance between this point and some reference of your plane (e.g. the engine cowling) constant, while carefully keeping your speed constant as well. Before starting the roundout, you abandon that aiming point and focus on the place where you want to touch down. I guess the judgment where to start the descent is part of training/experience as it is on a “flat” runway, but with more variables to the sight picture.

The 3 nm/1000 ft method sounds viable as well (if you have a DME or a point on the threshold that you can use for a Direct To in your GPS), but I have never done that. Actually your description reminds me of the long final into Vesoul LFQW which I did yesterday. This field (also called “the aircraft carrier”) is on the top of a hill, the runway has an upslope of 70 ft, and for its length of 1408 m, the width of 20 m is relatively narrow. I used the “visual” method for the approach described above and it worked very well, but also because I was familiar with the aerodrome. It’s certainly a good idea to include runway length/width/slope in any briefing for an unfamiliar runway.

I do all approaches the same way. Downwind, base, final, at least on all non towered fields. Sometimes when cleared directly to final or base on towered field, it’s just a matter of “interpolating” the position in space and hit it (a normal final “starts” at 500 ft AGL, same distance from touchdown as an imaginary downwind leg)

@Stephan_Schwab
Have you tried to fly even a bit slower when approaching a short field? The way I do it in the SR22 is 77 kts minus 1 kt for each 100 lb below MTOM. But I do not fly slower than 72 knots on short final, even when very light, because the controls feel too mushy for my taste. Touching down at 69, 70 you can use any short strip.

To expand Rwy20’s explanation, the start of descent to an altisurface is determined in the same way, i.e. by reference to the windscreen or cowling. It sounds a bit iffy, but it works.

You can check it like this at your local big airport:

• Fly a level approach with your usual power and trim/speed setting to intercept the PAPI glideslope, just as you would an ILS
• Pick a dead fly on the screen which coincides with the PAPIs when you see 2 red and 2 white
• Beak off the approach and intercept the glideslope again with the PAPIs turned off, using your dead insect instead
• Have the PAPIs switched back on, and see how close you were.

With this method you can intercept your usual glideslope, or a steeper one if you prefer, anywhere, anytime. No ATIS, no PAPIs, no QNH, no DME or GPS, no precise field elevation, not even any defined “runway”… no problem.

Your airspeed combined with your VSI will give you a pretty good indication whether you have been mislead by the visual illusions.

If your VSI is indicating higher than what you normally would expect, and you are maintaining your normal Vapp, you have been tricked into approaching steeper.
If your VSI is indicating less than what you normally would expect, you have been training into approaching shallower.

But really you should already have picked this up by using the visual sight picture (VFR). The VSI will confirm that you are flying the correct approach.

The aimpoint method works really well, and your aiming point should be the only point that is rock steady in your windscreen. You can draw a dot on your windscreen where the aimpoint should be for a certain weight/approach speed. Everything else should be disppearing to the edges of your peripheral vision.

GS (ground speed) vs VS plus keeping an aiming point does gove you everything you need. It is however quite disconcerting to do an approach over down-sloping terrain which gives you the impression you are low during all of the approach, unless you are accustomed to it.

For short field or bush flying, this is one of the reasons for always doing a low approach with possibly a touch down with the wheels at unknown landing landing sites. Yo get a feeling for the landing site, the “slopiness” etc before you actually make a landing.