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Airliner question for real pilots

PRB

PRB

Administrator
Staff member
Upon main gear touchdown, do you use the yoke to set the nose near down gently, or does it settle “by itself” to hit in a civilized manner, provided you're on speed, etc.? I've found that my nose gear almost always come crashing to Earth very soon after the mains hit, and only today, after all this time, has it occurred to me that I had some control over this, with the yoke. Tried it and it sort of works. It's a fine line to dance on, however, because at some point you're going to be going too slow to keep the nose off the ground, so if you "dilly-dally" too much trying to set it down gently, the opposite effect could be realized... :)

 
Depends on the pilot and depends on the runway and depends on the conditions. I always try to "fly" the nose down to the runway in order to prevent slamming it down. Some pilots kind of "quit" flying after the main gear touches down resulting in a firm plant of the nose gear (drives me crazy when I see that). However, in certain places (e.g., KJAC, KSNA, KSAN) with shorter runways you need to get the nose gear down so you can apply full reverse and the necessary braking in order to slow the aircraft down. When landing in high/gusty crosswinds it's better to get the nose gear down to aid with directional control on the runway during rollout. Additionally, there's the concern for running out of elevator authority as the aircraft slows (which could result in the nose gear coming down in a rather sudden manner :icon_eek:). There's also the possibility of a tail strike if you have too high an attitude in the flare and you run out of air speed before main gear touch down. All in all, I'm all for smoothness as I imagine my nervous Grandma as a passenger riding in the back. However, safety always comes first, and when you need to stop - you need to stop.
 
Paul

that is a bit of a high landing attitude! What happens with real planes is that one flys the nose wheel on, hopefully with some aplomb. If you wait it does come crashing down with alacrity. Various planes vary in the nose up pitch generated with spoiler extension and reverse thrust deployment. Between the 747 400 freighter and the pax bird there is quite a difference, the freighter really likes to pitch the nose up and it does take some judicious but correct fwd yoke.

As as with many things regarding elevators etc FSX does not always do a perfect job here.

Cheers. Tom
 
fliger747 said:
... that is a bit of a high landing attitude! ...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was a "bit" slow on that one... Could be part of my problem. If I didn't touch down with the nose 50 feet in the air to begin with... Interesting that you have to apply fwd stick in the 747 to get the nose down! As with many questions about airplanes, the answer is often "it depends..."
 
Depending on wt, approach speed for the 732 should be about 130 knots or so, slower or faster depending on wt. we use 1.3 VSO. Then at about 20 ft ease the throttles to idle and pitch gently about 2 deg or so and let it settle on. Fly the nose on and use reverses and appropriate braking. If one bucket doesn't deploy and nose isn't on ground, things could get exciting!

T
 
Flew some approaches at 130 and that seems to work better. Had been approaching at 120. Wish the MILVIZ documentation had an "approach speed vs. weight" chart somewhere. That seems to be difficult info to obtain, for any FS plane. I'll try Mr. Google...

EDIT: http://www.b737.org.uk/vspeeds.htm
 
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Don't forget that the landing depends on two very important factors either one of them can drastically determine the outcome. The first is obvious, the pilot, but the second is seldom taken notice of and that is the flight dynamics built into the model vis-a-vis the AIR and CFG files. In my development I have always wanted to meet an real world pilot who has also mastered designing realistic flight dynamics for FSX.
 
On the KC-135, we have to fly the nose gear to the ground and then apply full yoke forward pressure when applying the spoilers. This prevents the nose from popping back up and "aero braking".

-Jeff
 
With regards to the Milviz 737-200, I did the flight Dynamics and was a real life 737 Captain and flew all models except the 500 (prior to the NG planes) for a number of years. For the last 15 years I have been a 747 Captain and flown all models except the SP. Boeings tend to fly alike, but the biggest differences will be with the spoiler pitch on landing. Once the nose gear is on the ground it tends to stay there.

Proper approach speed varies with weight and is very important. Too fast and you will tend to float. We calculate the landing roll. braking and speed for each landing. Fly a faster speed and those calculations are out the window. We are not always flying on excessively long runways despite what you might think. A couple of months ago I was tasked with landing on a runway at a weight that calculated out a 175 ft stop margin? One can do better for a number of reasons, or worse as well!

The 737 is a real classic and a great gateway plane.....

Cheers: Tom
 
That MILVIZ 737 is a beautiful ship, Tom. And I'm confident it flies as close to real as is possible given the FS universe we're constrained by. I've managed to set her down is some pretty short strips already... :)
 
One of the more interesting places we went into was Dutch Harbor (PADU) of Deadliest Catch fame. Before GPS etc driving in there with the bad weather, winds, turbulence and 4000 ft runway could often be interesting!

Regards from VHHH... Tom
 
Rgr that Tom. Dang, I've been to Hong Kong, some years ago, from CVN-65. Good thing you didn't have to land at the old Hong Kong runway! :) Havn't tried Dutch Harbor (yet...)
 
Back in the old days we did use Kai Tek via the famous IGS approach, checkerboard and all. As busy as HKG is now hard to believe that they were able to get by with the old airport as long as they did. I once told an old girlfriend once that we picked up a guys laundry on the wingtip...... Because we are perceived as responsible, people are sometimes slow to realize we are pulling their leg.

T
 
Heck, watching some of the video of planes landing at the old HG airport, I might have fallen for that one...!

So, if the nose pitches up when you open the spoilers, even when the mains are rolling along the runway, what happens to the airplane when you open the spoilers in level flight? Does the nose pitch up, while the aircraft looses altitude? What do you do to control the plane in this case? Push the nose over to maintain attitude? But that would cause you to loose altitude faster... FS planes, of course, do a variety of different things when the spoilers are opened, depending on the flight model. Some pitch up, some pitch down, some gain altitude, some loose it. The only constant is that they all slow down.

Ok, here I am landing at Dutch Harbor... I'm working on "improving my attitude"...

 
After touchdown all the spoilers extend fully, which causes the pitch up, in flight only the roll spoilers and speedbrake spoilers extend and only to the inflight limit. Pitch change is rather minor in flight.

Cheers Tom
 
At Dutch we touched down much closer to the threshold, and the VASI was not quite so far down the runway.

Cheers: Tom
 
As Flieger said, the flight and ground spoilers are different, but in general, the 737 doesn't really have any great pitch up tendency.

It touches down nicely, then requires some (but not excessive) backstick to keep the nose from just falling to the runway. Relaxing the back pressure is enough to lower the nose to the deck without too much difficulty.

However, there are a couple of things that are probably worth mentioning that I don't think I've seen yet.

1. Autobrakes change the equation somewhat. Autobrakes, unlike manual braking, will activate with main wheel spin up IIRC. This definitely will have the tendency to pitch the nose down, especially MAX autobrakes. If you aren't ready for it, it will snatch the nose down pretty dramatically and you need to catch it as soon as it tries to do that.

2. You don't really full stall a transport category airplane onto the runway like a utility plane. Instead you more or less fly it on before you reach stall. One of the reasons is that the main gear is behind the center of rotation. So, if you are sitting ten feet above the runway slowing to a "conventional" landing, as you raise the nose, you are driving the mains into the dirt which, with a little settle actually makes for a harder landing. Instead, you would ideally almost stop your rate of descent, then lower the nose very slightly and actually rotate the mains up as you touchdown. This is obviously something of an art and I am not at all sure if it is represented very well in FSX.

3. The importance of proper airspeed has already been emphasized here. Another reason that you don't want to either come in too slow or allow yourself to get too slow on landing is that at some point you will have insufficient airspeed over the elevators to provide any nose authority. In other words, if you come in dragging it over the fence and holding your nose up for too long after touchdown, your nose will eventually drop...just not at a rate that you have any control over. ;)

Deacon
 
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Deacon211 said:
... 2. You don't really full stall a transport category airplane onto the runway like a utility plane. Instead you more or less fly it on before you reach stall. One of the reasons is that the main gear is behind the center of rotation. So, if you are sitting ten feet above the runway slowing to a "conventional" landing, as you raise the nose, you are driving the mains into the dirt which, with a little settle actually makes for a harder landing. Instead, you would ideally almost stop your rate of descent, then lower the nose very slightly and actually rotate the mains up as you touchdown. This is obviously something of an art and I am not at all sure if it is represented very well in FSX....
Click to expand...

This is interesting. I tried this approach (as it were) with the 737, and I mucked it up repeatedly, but I'm pretty sure it was me, and not FSX! It makes sense that one ought to be able to land this way in FSX, if the rotation point is in the right place, that is...
 
PRB said:
This is interesting. I tried this approach (as it were) with the 737, and I mucked it up repeatedly, but I'm pretty sure it was me, and not FSX! It makes sense that one ought to be able to land this way in FSX, if the rotation point is in the right place, that is...
Click to expand...


Believe me, you are not alone. If you don't do it just right, it can be a pretty solid landing. If I were to be totally honest, I never had the stones to really do it full on. I generally did something of a compromise by stopping my rate of descent a few feet above the runway then easing the nose over a fraction to put the mains on the runway.

Some guys though would no kidding bunt the nose over and I'd say that the best of them were only 80/20 on the landings.

The worst of course is the most common tendency to try a perfectly normal Cessna landing and keep rotating the nose up with the mains a couple of feet off the ground. It feels like an entirely normal landing maneuver until you stick the gear into the runway and, unless someone tells you why, it can be a bit of a mystery why you can't ever seem to grease one on. ;)

Deacon
 
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