Hello all, here is a question I always wanted to ask but never got around to it. I was flying into kjax (as a passenger, I am not a rw  pilot) on an e745. My question is:

On approach, what causes the sensation of the plane actually braking (much like a car, actually) as it nears its final approach. Is it the speed brake? If so, I always assumed the speed brake was activated in intervals, ie 1/4, 1/2 etc. until the required speed was achieved?

This feels more like brake, release, brake, release. Speed brake or other?

 

Increased drag from the flaps and gear, as well as decreasing the throttle. Without thrust there is a fair amount of drag outside the airplane.

As Nick says, a variety of things will cause it. The feeling you get of brake, release, brake etc. is that once the desired speed is achieved the deceleration you feel will stop. Once you're going at the right speed, no braking sensation would be felt. When the pilot needs to reduce speed again, you'd feel the change. Same as a descent - initially you get the wobbly feeling of your stomach rising up, but once you're falling at a steady rate, you don't feel it any more. We only tend to fell the rate of change, not a steady state. You'd feel your ears reacting to the pressure increasing as you might see the ground getting closer, but apart from that you would not physically know.

Hey thanks guys. That certainly clears things up.

What is also the case, is that your other senses enhance that feeling. Unlike in a car, where you can see out of the front window when you brake, when sat in row seven of an airliner with perhaps only a side view, often of just clouds, you are deprived of the visual sense of movement, and as is the case with people who have a sense disabled, they are more aware of their remaining senses when deprived of the other. So when the gear drops or the flaps come down and cause a lot of drag, the liquid in your ear detects that movement, and you feel your body thrown forward a little too as inertia keeps you moving until the lap strap restrains you.

But without much visual reference to make sense of the feelings your body is detecting, i.e. touch detecting you being restrained by the seatbelt lap strap and your ear detecting movement too, you body will be a bit confused. This is why when piloting an aeroplane in low visibility you have to trust your instruments despite what your body's senses might be telling you, as it can sometimes feel like you are rolling over or diving when in fact you might be simply banking ever so slightly. This is also why those simulator rides you see at fairs and museums which look a bit like a full motion airliner simulator can do such a good job, if you watch one from the outside when it is giving people a ride, it at no point will go upside down even though it will move about a bit on hydraulic pistons, but go on the ride yourself and combine the movements it makes with an enclosed visual of perhaps an aeroplane flying loops and rolls, and you will be convinced that you really are rolling and going inverted because of the combination of the visuals with the body's senses telling you 'hey, we're moving'.

Thus it might feel like the airliner is doing something which it actually is not, simply because it is moving in some way; you can't unscramble the movement messages your body is receiving because of a lack of visual feedback to help make sense of it.

This kind of thing is actually good news for flight simmers, because even something like a buttkicker on your chair will do a lot to convince you of the visuals being more than just a picture, and this would be especially true if you built an enclosed box to house your home simulator in which deprived you of any other visual reference other than your monitor.

3 hours ago, Chock said:

even something like a buttkicker on your chair will do a lot to convince you of the visuals being more than just a picture,

I can recommend the buttkicker as a very nice enhancement to flightsim immersion..........and it has an added bonus that certain sounds/frequencies, particularly those produced by some piston engines, can, I suspect, reduce any need for laxatives!!! 😉

Bill

54 minutes ago, scianoir said:

I can recommend the buttkicker as a very nice enhancement to flightsim immersion..........and it has an added bonus that certain sounds/frequencies, particularly those produced by some piston engines, can, I suspect, reduce any need for laxatives!!! 😉

Bill

I guess they don't call it a "butt kicker" for nothing then, lol.

My thoughts too lol!!

7 hours ago, Chock said:

 

This kind of thing is actually good news for flight simmers, because even something like a buttkicker on your chair will do a lot to convince you of the visuals being more than just a picture

Interesting. Now I gotta do some research on this buttkicker thingie. 

14 hours ago, scianoir said:

I can recommend the buttkicker as a very nice enhancement to flightsim immersion..........and it has an added bonus that certain sounds/frequencies, particularly those produced by some piston engines, can, I suspect, reduce any need for laxatives!!! 😉

Bill

Ideally, the buttkicker should be installed on a commode ? Simples !

Regards

Bill