What exactly do you mean by soft? Because quite a few simmers seem to think that the optimum landing is one where you touch down with 0.1 fpm. That is the soft landing people are arguing against here, ).

Thank you John. Precisely.

 

Something tells me that real world airline pilots don't respond in forums with terms like "garbage", and "hilarious"... they are far better mannered than that.

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You still seem to be focusing on vertical speed, you keep quoting figures as if they mean something. I don't think you understood my post, you should go back and re-read it. 

 

I, along with every professional pilot I have ever flown with, aim to make every landing as soft as possible. How it comes out is the result of many factors, they all work and affect each other and it is impossible to say "do it this way - every time" and you will be fine. What works one day, might not the next due to weight, local mechanical turbulence, wake, thermals, and many other things - all of which affect the energy state of your aircraft crossing the threshold. You are certainly not gonna float down half the runway with thrust on, but you never plan "I want to plant this one on".

 

What you can say is there are certain good habits you want to form, like looking towards the end of the runway for alignment and height perception. Or understanding the relationship of your visual cues and how things are supposed to look during the flare (ie, ascertaining bank/pitch from comparing the glare-shield to the end of the runway). Notice these are all visual cues, looking outside. You can not conduct a landing by looking inside, and flying the gauges too low is a good way to ensure driving the gear through the wings. It is a common noob mistake when manually flying a FD-coupled ILS approach. At some point you need to stop looking inside and transition to the other "glass" instruments (i.e., outside) 

 

Then you quote this:

 

 

 

Incredibly enough when to flare in the 777 is much like the same seat of your pants gut feeling that I got when I flew a Cessna 172 around, it simply feels right.

 

... as if it disproves what I said, when it really supports what I said;

 

 

 

First of all, the comparisons of a swept wing heavy airliner with a small straight wing Cessna are hilarious. Swept wings behave completely differently from a straight wing, hence they require completely different landing techniques. The cues you use to judge your alignment and height above ground might be the same, but you are talking completely different animals.

 

As i said, the cues or perception (some call it "seat of your pants", but it is really a very educated response from experience) - are all the same. That does not mean the techniques are the same. Swept wing airliners do not land at or almost at their stall speed, as straight wing aircraft do. You need more margin on a swept wing since its handling characteristics / drag effects are completely different around the critical angle of attack. This is why auto-spoilers are employed on most swept wing jets - the wing still has some energy in it when you touch down which you want to dump and prevent from bouncing back into the air. 

 

Sorry if my opinion offends you, that was not my intent. But reading so much speculation on a subject from people who don't really know what they are saying seemed a bit silly. I don't know what your profession is, but if I did the same, I'm sure you would find it just as ridiculous and I would fully expect you to speak up.

 

Hopefully we can focus on the thread subject, but if you would like to debate this further I would gladly do it on another thread.

 

:mellow:

I did my private pilot´s course about 6 years ago and my instructor never encouraged greaser or soft landings, he always emphasized holding a correct AOA on approach, looking at the runway lights for keeping two red two white, and landing in the correct point in the runway.

 

Safety is the number one priority in real life aviation not greased landings.

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 see what you're going for but soft landings are far from a "bad" practice.  Sure, the utmost priority is to land within the touchdown zone, but if you can pull off a soft landing and hit your touchdown zone than the more the merrier.

 

People throw around the "spoilers may not deploy if the landing is too soft" reasoning way too much.  Firstly, it is the job of the non-flying pilot to confirm the configuration of the aircraft upon touchdown and call-out the configuration changes as they happen (spoilers, thrust reverser positions, etc); of which includes spoiler deployment.  If the spoilers don't auto-deploy (if the airplane is so equipped with the arming system) than the non-flying pilot would deploy them manually as part of the normal landing procedure.

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

 

As a former flight instructor, and of which knows many other flight instructors and airline pilots, that is absolutely ridiculous if that instructor said that.

 

As I said, the utmost priority on landing is always airspeed and smashing the touchdown zone, but to also discourage soft landings in those areas (when you can safely satisfy the other priorities) is completely unnecessary.  I, nor any pilot I know, has ever said that (both from a student and instructor perspective).

 

 

I see what you're going for but soft landings are far from a "bad" practice.  Sure, the utmost priority is to land within the touchdown zone, but if you can pull off a soft landing and hit your touchdown zone than the more the merrier.

 

Exactly, it is not as though landing within the touchdown zone and making the touchdown smooth are mutually exclusive. The aim is for both. You can sacrifice a little bit of smoothness if needed for ensuring that you touch down in the touchdown zone, but only so much - at some point the safer option becomes going around.

 

 

I did my private pilot´s course about 6 years ago and my instructor never encouraged greaser or soft landings, he always emphasized holding a correct AOA on approach, looking at the runway lights for keeping two red two white, and landing in the correct point in the runway.

 

Safety is the number one priority in real life aviation not greased landings.

 

Well your instructor was probably trying to instill good habits into you, with the aim of setting a good foundation. He probably realized that smoothness would come later. After all, when you are first learning, your touchdowns are not gonna be that great initially. So yes, at that point, you need to concentrate on the fundamentals being solid. Besides, you are learning in a training aircraft. I've seen landing gear on training aircraft like a C-172/152 take a massive beating - it is designed to.

 

An airliner weighing hundreds of tons is a bit different. You will be lucky if it survives the first couple of bounces before it turns into a FedEx at Narita situation. 

 

You still seem to be focusing on vertical speed, you keep quoting figures as if they mean something. I don't think you understood my post, you should go back and re-read it.

 

 

 

Boeing themselves quote "figures". They quote an advised vertical speed on landing of between -150fpm and -250fpm. HOWEVER... not Boeing, not me, not anyone else is claiming that we should fixate on the vertical speed, "figures" are only quoted because "the poster" that originally sparked this debate quoted "figures" himself. He claimed we should AIM for -50fpm. Once again... you need to read ALL of the posts in this thread, understand the points being made, and understand the context.

 

 

 

I, along with every professional pilot I have ever flown with, aim to make every landing as soft as possible.

Which makes me doubt you are a professional airline pilot. There are occasions when a firm landing is preferred. The aim should be to land in the right place, safely, without structural damage, not "always as soft as possible". The bottom line is that A firm landing in the TDZ is a good one, a smooth landing outside the TDZ is bad. Thus landing in the TDZ is the priority, not "making every landing smooth".

 

I would certainly NOT want to fly with you, if you try to make ALL landings smooth as your first priority.

 

 

http://www.askcaptai...on-a-plane.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you can say is there are certain good habits you want to form, like looking towards the end of the runway for alignment and height perception. Or understanding the relationship of your visual cues and how things are supposed to look during the flare (ie, ascertaining bank/pitch from comparing the glare-shield to the end of the runway). Notice these are all visual cues, looking outside. You can not conduct a landing by looking inside, and flying the gauges too low is a good way to ensure driving the gear through the wings. It is a common noob mistake when manually flying a FD-coupled ILS approach. At some point you need to stop looking inside and transition to the other "glass" instruments (i.e., outside)

Err, yes, we already know this. AGAIN, read all posts and try to grasp the context. Consider WHY a vertical speed "figure" was quoted in the first instance.

 

 

 

Then you quote this:

 

 

... as if it disproves what I said, when it really supports what I said;

Actually no, the mention of a "Cessna" was something you rudely frowned upon. Pilotresponse's post was the only mention of a Cessna if I'm not mistaken. And he's a professional 777 pilot. A Cessna was never mentioned by me.

 

 

Sorry if my opinion offends you, that was not my intent. But reading so much speculation on a subject from people who don't really know what they are saying seemed a bit silly. I don't know what your profession is, but if I did the same, I'm sure you would find it just as ridiculous and I would fully expect you to speak up.

No opinion ever offends me. What does offend me is when individuals cut into threads like a bull in a china shop, don't read all of the posts, misinterpret, take comments out of context, don't bother to consider WHY a comment has been made and throw around insults like "garbage" and mock others. Thus, if you truly are a real world airline pilot, you give the profession a bad name. Please note how polite and informative Pilotresponse was.

 

I love the way you have totally ignored the fact that I agreed to a 100-150fpm as a reasonable landing objective, despite the fact that such a figure is most definitely a soft landing. I also love the way you totally ignored the fact that it was obvious [if you had read all posts] that when I said soft, I was referring to the same -50pm vertical speed. Call it super soft if you like, the way you label it bothers me not.

 

I'm sure you would find it just as ridiculous and I would fully expect you to speak up

I might speak up, but first I would read all posts, and not misinterpret comments. I would also comment in a polite and informative way, without mocking others and telling individuals that had bothered to contribute that they talked "garbage".

@ pilotresponse, thanks for your contribution, it's very refreshing to see a fellow airline pilot contributing to our fellow simers in this great hobby.

 

@ M_ Sauce, take it easy buddy, these are fellow SIM pilots, not RL airline pilots. I'm actually flattered that these fellow simers "sim" what I do in real life. There's several ways to say one thing or to explain something, no need for arrogance.

 

For me its very simple; land on the centerline and in the touchdown zone of the runway. I have never had a passenger congratulate me after a very smooth "greaser" landing, however I have had many congratulate me on nice firm landings, notice I said firm, not hard, we don't want to break the airplane or put any undue stress on the aircraft either. I've seen too many new Fo's and Ca's eat up valuable real estate trying to grease a landing, it's unprofessional and wrong! I remember when I was flying the Embraer 120 (we used to call it the "embryo" lol. I was brand new Fo straight out of ioe and we landed so soft once that the airplane still thought we were flying so the antiskid, nosewheel steering, reverse thrust, etc. were still deactive because as far as the ADC knew we we flying, lol. We almost ended up on the grass at the end of the runway! We blew the onboard tires trying to stop this baby, and that's a small 30 seat prop, our landing weight that day was around 23k, nothing compared to a heavy airliner. So yes, landing too softly can bring unwanted issues.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Btw, I couldn't tell you what my V/S was on my last landing, it's all "seat of your pants" you just feel the landing, however, we don't have that luxury in our desktop sim, so I can see why people are so inclined to look at the VSI on touchdown.

I see what you're going for but soft landings are far from a "bad" practice.  Sure, the utmost priority is to land within the touchdown zone, but if you can pull off a soft landing and hit your touchdown zone than the more the merrier.

 

 

You need to go back and look at the context in which this was said. I was responding to the claim that -50fpm should be aimed for in a 777. I labelled -50fpm as "soft. You may label it super soft, or indeed a greaser in a big airliner.

 

At no time did I claim a smooth 100-150 fpm landing was in any way bad. You would probably define this as smooth. That's where the confusion may lie.

 

 

The problem we have in this thread, is labels.

 

How do you define a greaser, a soft landing, an acceptable landing, a firm landing or a heavy landing. Objectively, the only way to do that is in terms of vertical speed.

 

 

As a former flight instructor, and of which knows many other flight instructors and airline pilots, that is absolutely ridiculous if that instructor said that.

 

 

 

I've heard this several times, on the Majestic forum, and I recall twice hear.

 

gusifer, has said the same above, during his instruction.

 

The key is "priority" perhaps. Greaser frowned upon as a priority.

 

I guess like in any profession, there are different opinions.

 

For me its very simple; land on the centerline and in the touchdown zone of the runway. I have never had a passenger congratulate me after a very smooth "greaser" landing, however I have had many congratulate me on nice firm landings, notice I said firm, not hard, we don't want to break the airplane or put any undue stress on the aircraft either. I've seen too many new Fo's and Ca's eat up valuable real estate trying to grease a landing, it's unprofessional and wrong! I remember when I was flying the Embraer 120 (we used to call it the "embryo" lol. I was brand new Fo straight out of ioe and we landed so soft once that the airplane still thought we were flying so the antiskid, nosewheel steering, reverse thrust, etc. were still deactive because as far as the ADC knew we we flying, lol. We almost ended up on the grass at the end of the runway! We blew the onboard tires trying to stop this baby, and that's a small 30 seat prop, our landing weight that day was around 23k, nothing compared to a heavy airliner. So yes, landing too softly can bring unwanted issues.

 

Hope this helps,

 

 

 

 

Precisely! great post.

 

This is precisely what I have been saying.

 

 

I might speak up, but first I would read all posts, and not misinterpret comments. I would also comment in a polite and informative way, without mocking others and telling individuals that had bothered to contribute that they talked "garbage".

 

I guess we disagree on what is considered "contribution". 

 

 

 

Which makes me doubt you are a professional airline pilot. 

 

I guess I will have to call in unfit for my flight tonight and let the company call in a reserve to cover the trip back. 

 

I wonder if they will be able to find someone as knowledgable as yourself though, that might be tough. 

 

:lol:

I wonder if they will be able to find someone as knowledgable as yourself though, that might be tough. 

 

 

Thanks for another insult and more mocking with a laughing emoticon. So mocking us and telling us we talk garbage wasn't enough for you.

 

 

Real world airliner pilots have agreed with my stance, see dmncnpilots's response above. However, at no time have I claimed to be any kind of an expert. I have merely complained about your arrogant and very rude manner.

 

I can see I am just feeding a troll here.

I basically "lock it" when I am at 10ft off the deck. No elevator movements from 10ft downwards. I find that any considerable flaring will cause excessive floating when landing the T7. Someone with expertise on the T7 would certainly be able to refine it more.  I have found that I personally land it more like I do in the real-world Baron that I burn around in, in regards to the "locking it" technique that is. Whether this is right or wrong for the T7, I don't know but it seems to work nicely. 

We can sureley argue about what is a "soft"/"hard" landing, but i think we can agree that the following was TOO hard...:

 

http://avherald.com/h?article=43bb2a4b/0000&opt=0

 

TD-Rate: 1200fpm (on a A332!)

 

Still amazing what the undercarriage is able to withstand [even though with some damage]

For me its very simple; land on the centerline and in the touchdown zone of the runway. I have never had a passenger congratulate me after a very smooth "greaser" landing, however I have had many congratulate me on nice firm landings, notice I said firm, not hard, we don't want to break the airplane or put any undue stress on the aircraft either. I've seen too many new Fo's and Ca's eat up valuable real estate trying to grease a landing, it's unprofessional and wrong! I remember when I was flying the Embraer 120 (we used to call it the "embryo" lol. I was brand new Fo straight out of ioe and we landed so soft once that the airplane still thought we were flying so the antiskid, nosewheel steering, reverse thrust, etc. were still deactive because as far as the ADC knew we we flying, lol. We almost ended up on the grass at the end of the runway! We blew the onboard tires trying to stop this baby, and that's a small 30 seat prop, our landing weight that day was around 23k, nothing compared to a heavy airliner. So yes, landing too softly can bring unwanted issues.

 

While I've never flown an EMB-120, how is the ADC switched between modes?  WoW?

 

I could certainly see that becoming an issue on certain aircraft, but most heavier airliners have multiple fail-safe switches for forcing the ADC into ground or air mode.  For example, I believe the B737 has multiple fail-safe switches for detecting ground mode, such as: main landing gear strut compression (Flight spoilers), right main landing gear strut compression (Ground spoilers), thrust reversers at idle, and radar altimeter less than 10 ft.  There are, of course, multiple checks and balances that go between systems for verification.  In fact, you can even open thrust reversers on the 737 with a radar altitude of less than 10 ft.

 

This is also why you see, upon touchdown with auto-spoilers armed, that upon initial touchdown (and before the landing gear struts fully compress) that initial spoilers will pop up quickly (as the spoilers have just been deployed into Flight mode) and as the struts compress more spoilers will pop up and all spoilers will increase their angle (as Ground spoiler mode is now enabled).