It's better to land firmly rather than float and use up valuable runway. Also I guess the autoland system would not be certified if it damaged the plane structure. I also said it will give a ball park figure for vertical speed. This figure can then be compared to the numbers given in the original post to see if those numbers are excessive.

As an airline pilot buddy of mine once told me.. "Why work so hard to grease it, your paychecks the same either way"... lol. All kidding aside.. the 737 seems to be a pretty unusual bird with its landing characteristics. They land incredibly flat and there seems to be really no flare at all.. especially if your a little hot on the speed. The important thing to realize (thats already been mentioned above) is that you have to rely on visual cues on whats out the front window rather than staring at the instruments... I only glance down every once in awhile to check speed. Aside from that it just takes getting used to the quirky behavior of this bird.. heres a video I made of an approach to MDW in the -700.. I think im gettin the hang of it!

As an airline pilot buddy of mine once told me.. "Why work so hard to grease it, your paychecks the same either way"... lol. All kidding aside.. the 737 seems to be a pretty unusual bird with its landing characteristics. They land incredibly flat and there seems to be really no flare at all.. especially if your a little hot on the speed. The important thing to realize (thats already been mentioned above) is that you have to rely on visual cues on whats out the front window rather than staring at the instruments... I only glance down every once in awhile to check speed. Aside from that it just takes getting used to the quirky behavior of this bird.. heres a video I made of an approach to MDW in the -700.. I think im gettin the hang of it!

Nice vid. Are those scenery lights the ones from Ultimate Terrain X?

Thanks AJ.. and yes, its UTX lighting.

Hello Maor, assuming you're from Israel(: your landing looks really nice, it's not always about how soft the landing was, it's also what you had done before the landing.BTW my landing stands of average -93, according to JETVA.co.uk web, that i am flying for, good luck mate.

Hello Maor,What was your flap setting during your video landing??Christos

As some others have said, if you are looking at your instruments during the flare, then I can guarantee you will drive the gear through the wings. From about 200ft down you should be mostly looking outside. At about 100ft you should only be looking at infinity, past the end of the runway. This will tell you if you are landing with any crab and will give you the most sense of height, regardless of cockpit height. Some people focus to much on their aiming point, which also results in a hard or firm landing. Now, as far as landing airliners, I find that I get the smoothest landing by slightly pushing the yoke forward just before touchdown. Keep in mind, you need to be just about touching down before you do this, or it could make your landing a bit harder. Remember, the plane pivots around the CoG. The main wheels are behind the CoG, so when you push slightly (more of a relaxation of back pressure than a push), initially, the tail and main gear go up. So if you can imagine the main gear is descending and then right before it touches down, you push slightly on the yoke and reduce the rate of descent of the main gear. So basically, as you are coming down the ILS or following the PAPI, you know the pitch and power you need to maintain that 3 degree approach. As you begin to transition to all visual cues you want to maintain that pitch attitude and power down to when you are ready to flare. You should now be looking at the end of the runway, or pretty much infinity on the horizon, to judge at what height to begin your flare. You will pull back slightly and hold that pressure to arrest your descent rate. Assuming you are not carrying too much excess speed, you should begin to retard the power/thrust slowly at this point. On the 737, with underslung engines, pulling thrust off will cause a pitch down moment. You need to take this into account and you can use it as needed. And just before you feel you are about to touchdown, relax the back pressure on the yoke (which has the effect of reducing the rate of descent of the main gear slightly). This relaxation of back pressure coupled with the ground effect cushioning will give you a very smooth landing (smooth enough to make you rely on the auto-spoiler noise to know when you are actually on the ground!)As soon as you touchdown, you want to use back pressure on the yoke to keep the nose from slamming down hard. Some airplanes this is more critical than others. It all depends when the Autobrakes or spoilers activate and when you select reverse thrust. On the Embraer 145 the nose would slam down hard and you had to time it perfectly to catch it before it came down. On the B747-400, you don't want to pull too hard or you could make the nose come back into the air.Anyway, try it and see how it goes.

I prefer to watch outside at about 100' while scaning the VSI and airspeed indicator. I mostly land with the following procedures:100' - Switch my eyes to the runway touchdown zone. Check airspeed and decent rate50' - Check airspeed and decent rate again30' - Set throttle to idle position smoothly. If your airspeed is high, you may reduce thrust earlier. If airspeed is low, don't move the thrust lever until 20 or 10 feet.25 - 20' - Flare by pulling the yoke. How much do you pull depends on your vertical speed. Also, if your are descending fast, flare earlier. 10' - Stabilize v/s to about -300fpm. Continue flare to about -100fpm. If there is wet runway, strong crosswind, or an emergency, you may want to keep this v/s until touchdown. Touchdown - V/S is Normally around -100fpm. After touchdown, gently lower you nose gear. Don't keep you nose wheel in the air or the landing distance will be long. Note that a long flare will result in long landing distance. Safety is the most important thing.

Thanks for comments , and i use 30 degrees flaps every landing ( Except innsbruck ) .

Worry about getting it on the deck safely without dropping it in. Sure, passenger comfort must be considered, but the passengers are going to have a VERY bad day if you go off the end of the runway. ;) One characteristic not very well modelled in FS is ground effect, floating for ages as if you landed. That has caught more than a few crew out over the years. Failure of operation of the spoilers and/or autobrake (if armed) can be one clue, inability to select reverse thrust is another. If you have that happen - GO AROUND - do *NOT* force the throttles into reverse (this happened IRL too...).http://en.wikipedia....nes_Flight_1248

A preliminary NTSB advisory says: "The flying pilot (Captain) stated that he could not get the reverse thrust levers out of the stowed position....The 737 skidded during landing; subsequently, witnesses said the nosegear collapsed, the aircraft crashed into a barrier wall surrounding the airport, and came to rest on South Central Avenue just south of the 55th Street intersection at the northwestern corner of the airport.

It would seem that they didn't land hard enough, and failed to activate the "Weight on Wheels" switches in the oleos as a result of insufficient compression of the struts. Soft landings are discouraged for exactly this reason. Should be FIRM, not hard. If it is soft, you're doing it wrong.Best regards,Robin.

Why do so many people ruin otherwise interesting videos by slapping unrelated and hideous 'music' on top of them?

-300 would be considered a hard landing. -150 or better would be considered a good landing and under -100 would be considered excellent.Also you can see all the animations of the NGX if you use FS-Recorder instead.

100 is not really called excellent in bad weather for example. Only when the conditions allow you to, you might go for a greaser (long runway, good weather)Anyway a landing outside the touchdown zone is basically unacceptable.Boeing describes 150'/min as a proper positive landing and that's what is does during an autoland.Bert Van Bulck

Basic flying rule pitch controls airspeed and power controls alt.