Recent advances in the resolution of multi-channel ℋ_∞ control problems via nonsmooth optimization are exploited in this paper to provide a novel design methodology in the challenging context of flare control systems optimization. More precisely, the objective is to control the vertical speed of an aircraft before touchdown while minimizing the impact of airspeed variations, windshear and ground effects. A realistic and rather complete aircraft benchmark (freely available from the SMAC project website¹) is also described in the paper.