Is there any need to adjust the throttle to idle on flare, if I leave the A/T on as is SOP for the 777?   I'm so used to the NGX I still move my throttle to idle even though it has no effect as the A/T is in control.  Force of habit.

Hey,

did you notice that flaring with the T7 takes you more pulling on the yoke? I am landing at the correct vref speed but need to flare way way more then the NGX. thoughts?

This is very dependant on whether you are landing with autothrust on or off.

 

With autothrust on, hardly any flare is required, and there's a tendency to float. In my opinion this is because the engines are spooling back to idle a little too late. Should be 25 feet, it's more like 15 in the PMDG 777. I need more tests to confirm that.

 

I would bet, those of you having to flare more, are landing with autothrust off? Listen for the altitude call out and use more finesse when throttling back. Nice and slow. Don't throttle back too soon.

Is there any need to adjust the throttle to idle on flare, if I leave the A/T on as is SOP for the 777?   I'm so used to the NGX I still move my throttle to idle even though it has no effect as the A/T is in control.  Force of habit.

Some company SOP's require autothrust on [bA I believe]. Some require autothrust off when hand flying and some leave it to the pilot.

 

 

The 777 will automatically disengage the autothrust and throttle back to idle upon landing. In my opinion, with A/T on, it's happening a tad late. I may be wrong.

 

EDIT: PMDG are adding the facility to manually override the autothrust in the flare. In which case, minimal flare requirement and tendency to float with autothust on shouldn't be an issue.

This is very dependant on whether you are landing with autothrust on or off.

 

With autothrust on, hardly any flare is required, and there's a tendency to float. In my opinion this is because the engines are spooling back to idle a little too late. Should be 25 feet, it's more like 15 in the PMDG 777. I need more tests to confirm that.

 

I would bet, those of you having to flare more, are landing with autothrust off? Listen for the altitude call out and use more finesse when throttling back. Nice and slow. Don't throttle back too soon.

I do land with autothrust off, I'm so used to the NGX!

It depends on your flaring technique. Some people flare like:  50...40...30...........20...................still waiting.................10..........***stall***....  BOOM!   Yeah, then you're applying the pressure very early and gently.

However if you decide to land a bit more realistically by flaring later: 50...40...30...20...10...***soft -50 ft/pm landing***, then you'll need to pull a bit harder on the yoke to go from -750 ft/pm to -50/ft pm. Even then with this technique 50% of travel should be sufficient if applied at around 40 ft and released at 10.

If you want to flare even later and still want a soft landing, then yes you would have yank on the yoke like that. 

The second technique is the correct one.

I agree flaring takes some getting used to in the 777 - for me its manual all the way - tend to flare at 20 ft, just working on them smooth landings.... 

However if you decide to land a bit more realistically by flaring later: 50...40...30...20...10...***soft -50 ft/pm landing***, then you'll need to pull a bit harder on the yoke to go from -750 ft/pm to -50/ft pm. Even then with this technique 50% of travel should be sufficient if applied at around 40 ft and released at 10.

 

If you want to flare even later and still want a soft landing, then yes you would have yank on the yoke like that. 

 

The second technique is the correct one.

 

 

No Arjen... a -50ft/pm landing is a BAD landing. Forget the greaser. In a big passenger jet like the T7 the objective is to land in the right place and not float. You most definitely do not want such a gentle landing. There's also a chance that the speed brakes will not automatically deploy with a landing that's too soft.

I do land with autothrust off, I'm so used to the NGX!

 

Now try it with autothrust ON, and you'll see my point.

 

After the service pack, when PMDG add the capability to override the A/T in the flare, A/T on landings will be better.

Have just tried with autothrust, flaring with it i a whole other thing.. I know understand why you said that.

 

 

No Arjen... a -50ft/pm landing is a BAD landing. Forget the greaser. In a big passenger jet like the T7 the objective is to land in the right place and not float. You most definitely do not want such a gentle landing. There's also a chance that the speed brakes will not automatically deploy with a landing that's too soft.

 

Martin,

A gentle landing doesn't mean you have floated the plane too much. I'm sure you've seen quite a few landings of 737s, and what is always so noticeable is that, just when you think they are going to land hard, they suddenly pull back, level off and land with a -50 ft/min in a matter of seconds. 

As long as you pick the right moment of flare and do it quickly, you can still achieve a soft landing without floating. The technique is not too pull back on the yoke to early: you might get this -50 ft/min too early (let's say at 10 ft) and THAT is what you'd call floating. You need to make sure this -750 ft/min transfers quickly into -50 ft/min at just the correct altitude (preferably a few inches above the runway) This is why you always hear the callouts so quickly in sequence in the real world and still see a soft landing. The flare is initiated late and quick to make sure you don't float but still land soft at the same time. 

Of course in some planes you don't want to land THAT soft with regard to the speed brakes deploying, I am aware of that actually.

Arjen...

 

This isn't something that's open for debate.

 

Soft landings are bad practice in an airliner. This has been debated before and real world airline pilots have confirmed as much.

 

Again, spoilers can fail to deploy and floating is more likely.

By definition, a minimal sink rate landing extends the landing distance. And the "attempt" to execute a greaser can increase the risk of floating.

I'm not going to join in the debate (what?!?!?) but I will say that VAs didn't do anyone any good by adding those stupid V/S at Touchdown statistics and making it a competition...

I recall that the last time we debated this, even a light aircraft pilot remarked that his instructor frowned upon the greaser.

Arjen...

 

This isn't something that's open for debate.

 

Soft landings are bad practice in an airliner. This has been debated before and real world airline pilots have confirmed as much.

 

Again, spoilers can fail to deploy and floating is more likely.

By definition, a minimal sink rate landing extends the landing distance. And the "attempt" to execute a greaser can increase the risk of floating.

Soft landings are bad practice you say? Then how come so many landings are so incredibly soft? The only planes landing are as far as I have seen are the 777 and A380, probably due to the reasons you mentioned about the spoilers. As I have said already, soft landings can be achieved without floating as long as you flare late. I have no experience in an airliner, but I take my conclusions from what I see on YouTube, and I see that as enough evidence. 

Here, I consider this a very soft landing, but the flare was still fairly late not resulting in too much floating

 

 

Or here: all landings were extremely soft including the one of the 777 with the exception of the 737. Again, soft but no floating. I define floating as "floating above the runway at a few feet with zero vertical speed for like 5 seconds"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6kWnJk14Zw

 

 

 

 

 

I recall that the last time we debated this, even a light aircraft pilot remarked that his instructor frowned upon the greaser.

But greasing is still a different thing than landing softly, isn't it? As far as I have understood greasing is keeping the plane above the runway as long as you can which you often see in general aviaton. But you can still landly softly if not softer without doing this. Again, you just gotta flare later and pull back a bit harder and takes a lot of practice.

 

There's enough evidence on youtube that airlines land extremely softly, but don't grease/float. Again, I define them as two completely different things. I don't float in FS either, but do land softly. You see so many people in FS go like 50...40...30...20..................10........................., which is obviously wrong. But I go like 50...40...30...20...10......*soft landing*. 

 

Of course, too soft is not good because of the speedbrakes, but -100 ft/pm is optimal: not too hard and not too soft.

The first landing (Air China A330) in the second video was really quite bad actually. By that, I mean that even though the wheels touched the ground early on, watch how long the pilot holds the leading edge axles of the main bogies off the ground. That entire time, no spoilers are deploying and no braking is happening. That pilot must have eaten up at least 1000 feet from the start of the flare to when the spoilers actually deployed. Yes, it may have been "soft" but by no means was that good.

 

(I deleted this paragraph because it was stupid...)

 

My completely uneducated opinion is that instead of doing a quick flare starting at 10 feet - which requires EXACT timing to prevent a float or hard landing - you should aim for a more gentle flare starting at around 30 feet. That gives you just a little more time to adjust for a sudden gust, etc. And aim for about -100 to -150 fpm.

And actually...I originally meant to reply to the OP's observation. To say my honest opinion...I find the behavior of this particular aircraft on approach to be very inconsistent. I find myself having a hard time maintaining a constant rate of descent on final. It just seems very "touchy" and weirdly enough, it seems to behave differently if I have an ILS tuned or not. I was performing the ILS29 to KOAK last night, and after I disconnected the A/P (left the AT on), I started to drift a little low on the glideslope. Well, without really making any further inputs, the nose came up a bit and my VS went from -800 to about -650. I have no idea why that would happen on it's own. The whole approach just seemed very not smooth. It didn't seem characteristic of a large passenger jet at all. Oh, and it had nothing to do with the weather, I already thought of that.

 

On the contrary, today I flew a visual approach to KMSP (AP off AT on again) and it was silky smooth this time. No weird changes in pitch like I experienced at KOAK.

 

Then, no matter what type of approach I fly, nailing a consistent flare path is very difficult. Sometimes I swear this aircraft tries to flare itself. Even with no wind or a constant light breeze, sometimes the flare is nice and easy, and sometimes, I end up floating down the runway. It's almost like the FBW just needs a little tuning or something...and trimming on approach is a whole other story. Very strange.