Landing help please

[ScottyB]

Hi, Could somebody please give me advice on how to land properly and smoothly?? Eg: Navigation, speed, flaps, etc, etc.

thanks.

[ardypilot]

It varys with each aircraft of course, but generally just remember the P.A.T rule- thats Power, Attitude, Trim which you adjust in order to control your sink rate. This is most likley explained in greater detail in the fs2004 flying lessons...

By the way, please stop using **** in your topic names. Thank you

[benwynn]

It depends what aircraft and all sorts- Weight etc-

For Example, I will use your other post.

52 Knot Crosswind- You wouldnt normally land in that, but if so- A Power on landing, for a crosswind landing and the chance of windshere. And say you were half full, your looking at a Landing Speed (vREF) Of around abouts 150-160 knots with Full Flap (30) Of course if you have PSS or other payware aircraft, it will calculate this for you

EDIT- For the landing, you wana flare at around 50 feet. At 50 Feet, Retard (Close) the throttle and pitch the nose up slowly. This= Perfect Landing

[Alex]

As others have said, it will depend on the individual aircraft as to what speeds you use and flap settings etc.

Basically, I plan to have myself fully in the landing configuration (flaps set how I want, gear, lights, autobrakes (if applicable), spoilers etc etc) above 1000ft before I touch down (so AGL).

You want to get a nice steady descent rate going on, and as you get really close to landing, reduce that rate to <500fpm. Its hard to say what makes a perfect landing on the sim, but experience is definately something that really helps. Just practice at an airfield, do some circuits with touch and goes and you'll get heaps better in no time.

Alex

[HardCorePawn]

There have been some interesting discussions on PPRUNE about Power vs. Attitude when it comes to controlling an aircraft during final approach... what that boiled down to was that light aircraft work slightly differently to the heavies.

In a light aircraft, its power controls height, attitude controls speed...

In a heavy aircraft (due to enormous momentum and the fact that turbofan's take a while to spoil up) it seems to be the opposite... ie. power controls speed and attitude controls height...

As mentioned by the others, the only way to get good is to practise (hence those of us learning in real life bashing the circuit for hours to practice practice practice)...

You will want to find the documentation (Pilots Operating Handbook - POH) for your aircraft as it should tell you want the 'standard' 'V' speeds are...

eg. in a 152, its 70kts Base, 65kts Final, 60kts over the threshold. You then adjust these numbers for the conditions and/or the type of landing you are doing... eg. Flapless, add 5 knots to all speeds. Shortfield, you're aiming for 60kts finals with 54kts over the threshold.

As I dont fly the heavies that often, I can not really help with those...

[Chris Donaldson]

Speaking with a friend of mine who's a pilot for Air NZ on the 772. He says that they only flare the plane at 30ft above the runway and reduce the throttles at 50ft otherwise your plane is just going to drop and you'll have a very hard landing.

I've been doing Flight Sim for a long time and I would say I land smoothly most times but I still have the odd bad landing just because I might pull the nose up to quickly or not have enough speed on and sink. But it's just different for each aircraft depending on weight etc, that's where FMC a/c are great because they can calculate your correct approach speed and you go with that.

Take a 737 up for a flight, half full it with payload and fuel, when your on approach have flaps set to full and speed around 140-150kts, you will need to be adjusting the trim slightly throughout the approach segment, and you should be coming over the runway threshold at 50ft meaning you should be touching down right on the touch down markers. When your over the threshold slowly reduce the throttles and I find just watch the runway come up the cockpit window and gently raise the nose as you get lower.

Hope this helps