That perfect landing

[Guest Coneman]

You guys ever experience this? I think I have just once. I even remember the airport...San Diego in a 737. Everything just came together. Right on power and glide slope. I couldn't really tell I had touched down it was so smooth. It just felt perfect. Most of my landings are fairly decent, but that one was special. It makes it challenging trying to repeat that.Todd

[Deaf Pilot 1]

Thats happened to me a couple of times... where everything just goes just right, and the only way you can tell you touched down is the sound of the tires humming on the pavement and youre no longer descending... its awesome.P.S. Lets have an All Todd thread... :-lol

[Guest crashing_pilot]

happened to me not long ago for the first time....it all came together,and only the squeeking of tires told me my dc8 was back on terra firma ;-) ... i was really proud,cos normally i just yank the thing onto the pavement with a big blow of tiresmoke ;-)nice to see practice pays ;-)now if i only can forget my fubard visual into miami,in front of 37 other pilots :-lol

[Guest]

in 1961 at Penscola's Whiting Field North, I had just completed almost 6 months Advanced Instruments all under the hood. My first visual landing was greased on like the fellow above described. What a feeling. And why not? Six months under the hood learning to control the aircraft by encirling the stick with my hand without touching it, then breathing on my hand and letting the reflected breath move the stick will make a smoothie out of anybody.Lt. Will Risket

[Guest]

I'm sorry, I just find it horribly ironic that someone with the handle, "Crashing Pilot" would post in a thread with the title, "That Perfect Landing" :-lol :-lol :-lol !!I mean no disrespect at all, and am speaking very tongue-in-cheek, but it just struck me funny :-hah.On the subject, believe me, it feels just as great when you do it in real life. I love it when it happens in FS though.Glenn

[Guest jordan]

That is a great feeling indeed.One thing that helped me a lot was cross-training. I spend most of my time in the helicopter. Normally pushing my precision skills as far as I can take them in terms of altitude, speed, and heading control. So every once in a while I set up a good full flight in the KingAir and run through a bunch of IFR and pattern work. I find that I can grease the landings about 99% of the time. After spending a lot of "serious" time in the helicopters your touch begins to become much more refined, and your situational awareness will also benefit. I find I can control the airspeed and glide ratio without even thinking about the gauges, just by being more aware of the visual changes around me. However, like a good pilot, I still cross check the gauges. heheWant to get really good at zero visibility IFR work? Do it in the helicopter at slow speeds without an autopilot! At first, it requires a great deal of concentration. Then when you go back to fixed-wing you'll wonder why you ever thought it was hard...LOLGreat to hear about your landing! Keep it up.

[E 0]

It sort of happened to me last night by accident! I was switching views at an inopportune moment, lost my internet connection, and of course windoze had to popup and tell that right then! I ended up greasing it in... don't know how I did that after all the yawing and rolling when I got my view back and myself back into FS!

[Guest RSmith]

Touchdowns are easier for me, than post landing steering (no pedals). I find the Falcon 50 to be one of the best, for maintaining a reasonable line, even with moderate cross winds - at least I have a chance to counter the wind, before I'm blown off the runway !I remember the forum thread about "ground effect", and thought FS did "not" program in the cushioning affect of the compressed air under the wings. On good landings, and almost always with the KA or Falcon, I still think there "is" a ground effect in the program :-)Ron

[John_Tavendale 453]

I remember the first nice landing I made with my yoke, took a while to get used to! I made a pretty nice landing into JFK earlier, think it was 13R, the one where you turn in Kai Tak style, looked nice in replay mode too :-lol

[MarkRey 16]

On a slightly different note, on a wet runway a 'perfect' landing in a heavy jet is to plant the mains down firmly to reduce the risk of hydoplaning - pretty sure I read that from a r/w 767 driver some time back - sure changed my opinion of the Delta crew that slammed it down at KFLL on a flight I was on once.Regards,Mark:-wave

[Guest crashing_pilot]

:-lol guess i should've warned that i do not always practice my "handle"even so,i'm getting better at it every day,that's what makes it fun for me....otoh...what will i do when i've mastered all the planes??

[sskoup 0]

I have perfect landings almost every time. Here's my secret.1)You must have your approach speed nailed. Too slow and you mush into the ground when you flair, too fast and the airplane still wants to fly when you flair. And due to ground effects and inertia some jets will float forever until you run out of runway.I once heard a British Airways 747 pilot yell at an inexperienced tower operator in San Diego when he told the 747 pilot to hold 180 kts till the FAF, the pilot yelled back, "I can't hold 180 till Reebo, 160 is the best I can give you, I have to land this 'bloody bast--d' you know". This continued on the ground when the same tower operator told the pilot to exit on "bravo 6" taxiway. The pilot yelled back "I can't get off on 'bravo 6' it'll be 7 or 8".An old flight instructor (a guy in his 80's) once told me, "you never land an airplane, you make it stop flying and it will land itself". Most landing accidents where an airplane slides off the runway occur when the landing speed is too high and crosswind gust blows you off the runway.2)Because you can't reproduce a 3 dimensional world on a 2 dimensional screen you can't believe your eyes(use the Force Luke). You have to use the instruments.You must know the runway altitude and when the altimeter indicates about 50 feet above the runway start a sloooow flair maneuver watching the VSI carefully and hold the VSI at one dot below center.This works every time.SSkoup

[Guest jordan]

I certainly don't want to dim the accomplishment, because the experience is very cool. However, I once read in an aviation magazine that most airlines train that a landing that is so smooth that the pilot can't feel the ground contact is "too" smooth. They want the pilot to know for sure when they are down. Cases where the pilot floats in ground effect, thinks he's made contact and then slams the jet from an altitude of 1-3 feet are quite common, and tough on the airplanes and passengers. I'm sure anyone here who flies a lot knows the feeling. I've experienced this on at least 2 or 3 flights in the last 2 years of traveling. I think in the sim though, we'll take em as smooth as we can get em! right.

[Guest]

don't know if that is the case.hydroplaning has more to do with speed than with touching down firm or not. think about it, whether you touch down firm or not you're still going the same speed. the speed is usually estimated by:SQRT(Tire Pressure) x 9.

[brucek 38]

Hi Todd,When I land the real C172SP, I sometimes get it "just right" and can almost not feel the contact with the runway also- and I can never stop talking about it for hours afterwards!Bruce.