Why is the steepness between the plane takeoff and the landing different to each other?

Question

I just noticed that when planes takeoff after leaving the ground, the plane steeply climbs up altitudes, however, before it touches down, the plane this time smoothly descends to the ground. Why is that the case?

In: 2

Answer 1

Note: I’m not a pilot but have always been fascinated by aviation and feel I can answer this. Landing and take off are both dangerous periods of time for an aircraft. I head a saying once: “for a plane speed is life, and altitude is life insurance.” A plane maintains flight by moving forward through the air and creating lift, if it slows down too much it will start to fall. Let’s say a plane’s engines all fail. If it’s high up it can glide for a long way looking for a safe landing, constantly trading some of its altitude for speed to stay flying. But if the plane is low there’s not going to be much gliding before it meets the ground.

When planes are on a landing approaching they aren’t using much power and are kinda gliding in, again constantly trading altitude for speed. Keeping the final approach long and low allows them to touch down softly and keep their speed up should they need to abort the landing. Check out [this video](https://youtube.com/shorts/Y3rEIPC_HXA?feature=share) showing the difference between air force and navy pilots landing their jets. The navy pilot takes a steeper approach and really slams the plane onto the runway, while the air force pilot tries to let the wheels touch before weighting them. The reason for this is that navy pilots learn to land on aircraft carriers where they don’t have the liberty of a long runway.

In regard to climbing quickly on take-off, again think of what the plane needs. It’s been blasting down the runway on full throttle to build up enough speed to liftoff. Once it can fly it needs to maintain that speed, but quickly gaining altitude is building up that life insurance. Say you have an engine failure one minute after takeoff, gaining as much altitude as you can in that time means you’ve got more gliding to work with to get back to safety.