Landing Analysis

[brucek 38]

I fly the C172S in real life. It

[Guest SuperFortress]

>I fly the C172S in real life. It

[Guest jshyluk]

A TrackIR helps a lot to help you get a sense of what your aircraft is doing. And it can help induce queasiness, if you really want to. First, set your monitor to the >lowest< refresh rate you can. Then play at random with the TrackIR settings. Or pick a profile that you think you would never like. Run FSX in as dark a room as you can and still have the TrackIR work. Fly around a bit, and unless you are a steely-eyed aviator or are a heart-of-oak sailor (I am an avowed brown-eyed passenger, and until I cut out caffeine, I would get the occasional cardiac flutter) you can induce some motion-induced queasiness. Do not try this stunt of you have a history of epilepsy or seizures!I think you can learn to overcome motion sickness to an extent, but age and genetics can work against you. It's a fascinating field of study that I don't want to ever know about. I'm getting butterflies just writing about it on this thread. A sailor friend of mine says it helps if you have something constructive to do on the craft. When I started to get sick on his boat, he let me steer, and that helped a lot. If you are down below and sucking on diesel fumes in a 9-foot swell, well, that's gonna turn you green right there. @ Danon O: I suspect you might be right about the replay animations. Replay files themselves aren't actually movies of your flight, but are generated in real-time based on your recorded flight information. Maybe there just aren't enough key frames generated by the recorder, and the computer fills in the missing data with made-up stuff. I've had times where I've made a slight jolt or correction and although I could see it in the instrumentation, it didn't seem to show up in the exterior animation. Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[Guest Sinnerman49]

RE: The Posts regarding the aircraft looking like it's on rails during an approach (playback).Get. FS. Recorder.Then, when you play back you approaches, everything looks smooth and realistic. The gear even expands and contracts as it should. The Default Replay feature in FSX/FS9 is a bit lacking, it doesn't record all parameters. I use FSRecord for all important approaches, that way I can watch them over and over again - and even step back into the cockpit at certain points and refly them!Get FSRecorder!!! It's free!

[BoeingGuy 0]

I can't access the AVSIM Library from here, but if you do a search for the 'Landing Gauge', you'll get an FS9 gauge that works perfectly with FSX. It tells you your -FPM and Touchdown Speed. I'm not sure how to tell if a landing is smooth depending on FPM. Anybody have a good scale?For example, I have achieved a -87 FPM landing in a 777. Would this be classified as smooth?I've also achieved a -125 FPM landing. Smooth? Medium?Then I've done a -387 FPM landing. Hard, I guess?Thanks,Regards,

[dokelly07 0]

Thanks Jeff,I was pretty sure I was not going insane in noticing this, and what you said is exactly what I was trying to say. The lack of data points seems to be the issue...Danon O.

[Guest NoobPilot]

Thanks alot! I knew I had seen it, and I thought that it had been in one of your posts as well. It's landspd.zip in the library.

[timcook 0]

>For example, I have achieved a -87 FPM landing in a 777. Would>this be classified as smooth?>>I've also achieved a -125 FPM landing. Smooth? Medium?>>Then I've done a -387 FPM landing. Hard, I guess?I've done some calculations, and reckon that:87 FPM is equivalent to jumping off a 2ft high wall125 FPM is equivalent to jumping off a 4ft high wall387 FPM is equivalent to jumping off a 39ft high wallTim

[Guest NoobPilot]

That's only what you feel if your aircraft has solid steel landing gear, steel tires, no flex or shocks at all, and an aluminum seat.

[Guest thx1137]

I have been missing this kind of feature too so last night I wrote a program to display some stats for us.It has two windows, one is "Realtime" and the other "Landings". Realtime is updated as you fly. Landings is updated when the program detects contact with the ground.It displays the following information:Angle of Attack:Pitch:Role:Yaw:Heading:Track:Side Load (H-T): (this is heading minus track)Vertical Speed:Ground Speed:I have to write a quick bit of doco for it before uploading but I have a flying lesson first :-)Steven.

[Guest NoobPilot]

Just checking, is there any common way to measure side load? Newtons, maybe? Also, this will show the stats for the moment of contact and not continue displaying the data as the aircraft is on roll out, right?

[Guest thx1137]

I imagine there would be various ways it could be expressed but I am only interested in being able to tell there is a side load rather than calculating whether the load is sufficient to bend landing gear so in that case FPM is ok for me because the closer to zero the better :-)Yes, moment of contact is logged but real time is also displayed. I had though of maybe graphing it but I don't want to spend much more time on it as it does what I want it to do. I will include the source code so someone can tweak it if they like. It is a very simple app.Steven.

[Guest NoobPilot]

Sounds excellent, I should have said that earlier. Thanks for taking the initiative to do it. I guess your point on side load is right. It might get a bit complicated... i.e. calculating the newtons would involve not only the aircraft speed, but the runway material, how much friction the tire has, the vertical speed of the plane, etc.

[BoeingGuy 0]

Tim, Jordan, and Steven,Some very informative posts, thank you! Steven, can't wait for that gauge!Cheers,

[Guest thx1137]

I have uploaded it to AVSIM but I don't know when it will show up. It is call FS Landing Info.It is a stand-alone program rather than a gauge but it includes a new option to display the landing analysis in the FSX window at the top of the screen. That is useful for us full-screen users so we don't have to jump out of FSX. :-)It also includes the source code if anyone wants to extend it...Steven.