Do you find it difficult to land a 747?

[Guest]

HI everyone, I was just wondering if you find it difficult to maneuver a 747 for landing. I've flown narrow bodies especially the 757 most of my FS career, and I decided to try out the 747, and I found it a lot trickier to land than my good old 757...TIMMY!!!

[N562Z 4]

Timmy:It is definitely trickier to land than the 757's or 767's, but with enough practice in a closed pattern around an airport with an ILS approach, you'll master it as well. I think the trick with the 747-400 is to stay WAY AHEAD of the aircraft. In other words, give yourself a long enough final, say 15 miles at least, to set up the flaps and nail the approach speeds. With about 33% fuel remaining and full flaps, I use 155 knots as my approach airspeed. Use the autohrottle to help ease the workload here while you configure the flaps and adjust your attitude on the ILS. I usually disengage the autothrottle at the middle marker and then make what small adjustments in power that I have to by hand. This plane will stall or mush below the glideslope on you in a hurry, so pay constant attention to your airspeed! Use whatever pitch attitude it takes to hold the glideslope at 155 knots indicated airspeed. Sometimes this is 5-10 degrees nose-up, which means its tough to see the runway over the nose. Hit SHIFT + ENTER once or twice on the keyboard to lower your perspective over the nose. SHIFT + BACKSPACE does just the opposite.Again, if you fly her around the pattern a dozen times or so in increasingly challenging weather and wind patterns, you'll master flying this classic stahlwort in no time. Keep me posted on how you do.Best of Luck,Alex CN562ZKMSP - MinneapolisThermobulb@aol.com

[Guest]

hmmmm, someone once said in a review that the 747, during app, is like a "balarena". But I actually think that someone FS98 747s are a lot harder to land, then what we have today.Al

[JSACKS 0]

Not any more, mate! The 747 just requires practice. I'vwe been simming it for 4 years now. For landing the default 747, I usually have fuel of around 25 to 40K lbs and approach at around IAS 145-150 with flaps 25. In real life, flaps 25 is an acceptable setting for touchdown and IAS 145-150 is also quite normal. If heavier, your speed will be IAS 5 higher or so. I can generally hand-land most 747s well with as little as 7 to 8 nm from turn to intercept the GS (again quite realistic at many airports in the U.S.,) but FS2k2 may have difficulty doing this with the AP because of the way it adjusts to the localizer heading. Many simmers prefer to line up miles farther out, up to 20 nm away.You should disconnect the autothrottle by no later than 1000' AGL in order to have some room to fine-tune the N1; alternatively, disconnect it at 200' AGL because chances are the N1 will not change significantly between there and touchdown.Ideally, you want to be around 2 degrees pitch up on final. Then at 50' AGL, idle the thrust, pull the nose back a tad to about 4 degrees and wait for contact about 1500-2000' down the runway. Oh, and don't forget to set your autospoiler (SHIFT + /) since this helps to kill lift the instant the mains touch down. It takes a lot of practice but it works well. The default 747 flies very well generally, and is great on approaches. It will not float down the runway either unless your speed is too high and/or your attitude too steep.Do an approach and save the flight at 3000' when you are still below the GS. Ideally, set yourself at 3000' about 13 to 14 nm out, and be at around IAS 165 with flaps 20 by that time. That gives you time to adjust speed, more flaps, and gear over a period of several minutes. This way you can repeat without doing the whole flight again.The Queen rocks!Good luck.JS