Tricks of perfect landings

[rwy12 16]

HiI have been simmimg for over a year and my landings have not got any better-I just miss the center line everytime.I have the side winder 3d joystick and recently bought the ch pedle,thinking this will help.wrong-landings are still just as bad.Could somebody please suggest some ideas/tricks of trade regarding doingthat special dead on the center line landings.Many thanksQas

[briansommers 74]

try lining up with the runway by looking at the far end, give that a try and see how it goes

[windycloud 30]

ILS frequency on both NAV radios and two autopilots turned on APP. mode.

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Landings in flight sim are great fun and you will master them if u follow simple rules:1. Use the visual indicator - that V-shape that appears on windscreen. I think its on the "Views" menu. Once you get good at landings you can turn this off.2. Make *SMALL* corrections. A *little* twitch of the joystick, watch the result, another *tiny* twitch...and watch what happens. Do not have a vice-grip on the stick and dont make big corrections. Also make small corrections to power.3. Be at correct airspeed & correct flap setting on approach.4. Land from virtual cockpit view zoomed internally to 75%..this will let you see thru side windows and will help with flare.5.Create your own "landing-view instrument panel". Heres one I did, it sits low down on the screen so u see a nice view of the runway. Only the essential instruments you need for landing are there.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/Thr...aBA11Medium.jpg6. Watch the replay of your landing to see what you are doing wrong.Practice practice :)And lastly:Everyone has bad simming days...if u get frustrated at your landings shut down the sim and go play some GTA San Andreas :)

[Guest william273]

ditto...what throttleup said will get you a good landing. also you can find a spot on the panel and use that to line up with the white line if you don't use the visual indicator. they use stuff like that in the real world. william

[delta november 0]

Qas; If you'll look at the far end of the runway, as Brian suggested,Plus visualize keeping the center line between your feet...you'll nailit most of the time. All the rest of the pointers are good too.

[tunnelcat 1]

Qas,Also make sure you turn off all winds at ground level. Nothing will make a bad landing like a good crosswind. Another suggestion is to get a CH Yoke to go with your rudder pedals and make sure that autocoordination is turned off so that you can use those rudder pedals effectively. The yoke is much more realistic feeling when flying in general aviation and with airliners, except of course the fly by wire Airbus jets. Keep practicing and you will get the hang of it.Kim

[markadeane 272]

One thing to remember is that a good landing comes from a good, stabilised approach. Get established on the localiser and glideslope (or use the PAPI/VASI lights if no ILS) by 10 miles if possible, 5 miles at the latest. Once on the approach path, stay on there!Conversely, a poor, unstable approach WILL lead to a poor landing, if it doesn't, you're not skilled, you just got lucky this one time! :-)On the approach, most airlines require you to be 'stable' by 1,000 feet if on instruments or by 500 feet if visual.'Stable' means:- In the landing configuration (gear down and flaps as required)- Speed constant and appropriate for the landing (eg vREF + 5 knots)- On the ILS path OR on profile with a descent rate appropriate for speed. (FPM = IAS halved, then x 10: eg 140 knots / 2 = 70. x 10 = 700 feet per min)Not being stable at the nominated height means Go Around, no ifs or buts.As for the landing itself, some good pointers have already been given, one thing to keep in mind though is that a feather-soft landing isn't always the safest option, particularly in airliners. Airliners are designed to be put on the ground firmly but smoothly so as to get on with the business of braking and deceleration. If you flare it 2,000 feet down the runway, you are actually making a bad landing!

[brucek 38]

Hi Qas,When you learn to fly you are almost always in a small trainer such as a Cessna 172 or similar. There's a good reason for that- these aircraft are built to be very stable over a range of airspeeds, although the trade-off is with speed and cruise performance. If you were to poll a selection of airline pilots and ask them what they first used to make a landing, most would likely say the old C172 or similar.I don't know what you are using to try your landings, but if it's basic airmanship that you are trying to achieve (as it sounds like), then try something basic- at least until you get some landings that you consider OK.The golden rule is that each good landing needs a good approach. You have to be stabilized and trimmed for the correct speed ( about 70 knots for the C172). The real C172 gets into a nice 3 degree descent with about 1600 RPM, which at 70 knots is a little less than 500 fpm.Once you get the vertical profile stabilized, and properly trimmed, you can focus on the lateral approach. As someone else here said, look at the far end of the runway. Think of driving- when you first started driving you no doubt looked at a spot 10 feet in front of the motorcar- not good for safe driving at speed. The same applies to flying- project your vision in front of your position. After all, you have the vertical profile sorted out by now, right? :)Have fun. Bruce.

[ShezA 176]

Try and use your trim to make small corrections if needed. I find that this helps in FS, not sure if it is prescribed for real flying...Shez

[scoob 18]

start with the little cessnas (172 or 182). when you can 'nail' landings (with real winds, gusting with a croswind component), then move up to the twin engine king air 350. as with the cessnas get good with the 350. move up to the lear45. then the heavy metal of the 737 ... then the 747/777.real pilots start small and 'work up'. being good at FSing requires the same 'steps.' the positive is in FS you can 'restart' if the landing is a little hard. ;-)--

[rwy12 16]

Many thanks to all of you for the help and advise-I do try to follow most the of things suggested.My nightmare always starts about 100ft of landing-I have got the 747 pmdg-keeping it lined on center line becomes impossibel-it ALWAYS veersstongly to left/right etc.I am okish with the 737 or lighter planes-the 747 beats me everytime.Someone has suggested cancelling the winds at ground level-I don't know how to do that-I will try find out and give it a go.I thought it was my old sidewinder joystick and hence the reason for the pedles-I have heard that the yoke offers better stabilty-Could somebody confirm that and I will get it too-won't tell the missesthough-she already thinks I am married to my flightsim=-:)Could you please tell me what do you mean by 'the plane should be trimmed',I have very little understanding of landing principles-I normanly have flaps 30 and the suggested speed in the FMC-and I keepchangeing the trim to maintain reasonable approach.Once again many thanks to you all for the help.Qas

[ahinterl 1]

During the years of simming and flying mostly planes of the size of a Saab 340 and way up, I've discovered these three important things:Despite the common recommendation to start in small planes like the C172 and then slowly upgrade to bigger ones until the 737 or so is reached, I never saw any big advantage in such an approach.Small planes fly, start, land and handle completely different from the heavies.So, I could never learn something in the small aircraft that I could use in the big ones.I always practice with what I want to fly, regardless of the size.A prerequisite for doing so IMHO is enough practice with flying the sim planes in general, of course.Then, get a plane with good or excellent flight dynamics. These are extremely rare, and aircraft with over sensible or bad dynamics are candidates for the trashcan IMHO.And last, I long left the way of being established on glideslope/localizer 10NM before touchdown. My opinion is that everything that's written in the POHs is nice theory, and should be followed as closely as possible of course, but it's theory and reality is often more than different.So, landing is more a thing that can't be really learned, you need a bunch of "feeling" for it to do it right.I seldom use ILS at all (and use autopilot for landings only in the higher CAT levels where I don't have a HGS and visibility is 0), and many airports I fly to don't even have VASI/PAPI or such. So, I love to get my 727, 737, 737 etc. "manually" down: keeping the ILS centered is more of an effort IMHO than to fly at 90 deg towards the centerline approx. 2-5NM from the threshold, then doing the 90 deg turn, align and land.When watching the various aviation videos, and according to my own real life experiences, flying "the last mile" seems to be more of a brute force, strictly hands only and very dirty and raw thing.Do whatever it takes to stabilize and align her (middle of monitor=where the plane's nose is), aim the thick 1000 ft marker, and at 10-30 ft AGL gently flare - worked for me always, even with 90kts gusts and sharp crosswinds from either side (last time I "crashed" was an engine out situation in FFS 340 where I couldn't get the engines back on in time due to lack of reading the user guide ;-)).And, often even real life pilots don't de-crab in crosswinds, so even here I can't give any suggestion.Any landing where the machine is re-usable is a good one ;-)Practice makes the master...Andreas

[garydpoole 183]

Three suggestions:-1) As mentioned previously, get a CH yoke. This product makes such a difference when landing compared to a joystick. A must.2) Save a flight 12-15 miles out and use this as a "benchmark" for practising your landings. Adjust weather conditions as you get better.3) Get a copy of Matthias Neusinger recorder module here avsim (recorder_1-3.zip) and use this excellent utilty to replay and analyse you landings.Hope this helps

[mnmon 0]

I'll just reiterate what has been mentioned before, with a slight addition: LOOK AT THE FAR END OF THE RUNWAY. I first learned this while working towards my solo flight in a C152. I kept trying to bend the landing gear, or infinitely floating down the runway. My instructor finally realized I was focusing on a point about 50-100 ahead of the plane. Once he told me to focus on the far end it gave me the 3d perspective to accurately judge my height above ground and alignment. I soloed the next week :-) Despite the limitations of a computer screen, the trick works extremely well for flight simming also. What's fun is making the transition between the C172 and a 747 :-sae Mike