Hi!

It's quite early on in my flying carer in the PMDG 777 so my landing aren't that good, however I know people can give me some tips to help out!

I land at -180 to -290 FPS. I want to be a -150 every time... Can you guys give me some landing tips, I would really appreciate it!

 

-Many thanks Ollie seaward.

Why 150????

I read somewhere that below -150FPS is good 

Anything below 3ft per sec (180ft per min) on the 300ER can be felt as a “smooth” landing from people inside the airplane. 

 

If the technique is correct, usually you aim to touch down between 1000-2000ft from the runway threshold with a sink rate ~120ft per min. And this will be really smooth. 

 

I personally do not encourage attempting to make super smooth landing on any wide body airplane for the following reasons:

1) it increases the chance of a late touch down which increase the chance of runway excursion. Becuase excess margin between the required landing distance and the runway length available isn’t much. Especially going to JFK runway 22L, quite often our 773ER only has about 1000-1500ft margin left. Considering the airplane travels about 150-200ft per second, if you float about extra 5 seconds that’s it. 

 

2) by holding the nose off and continuing to pitch up like flying a C172 will increase the chance of Tail strike especially on the 300ER. Although the 773ER still has quite a lot of margin on landing before one can scratch the tail, yet it is a good technique to refrain keep raising the nose on landing when flying big jet, whether it is Boeing or Airbus. 

 

The autopilot makes a good landing. The best way to learn is to learn from the autopilot. By performing an autoland and look outside and see how the visual picture changes. 

 

In short, the recommended landing technique for the 773ER (from my company FCTM) is have your aiming point fixed on the 1000ft marker of the runway (usually the 2nd set of marker from the threshold).

 

keep that visual aiming point at a constant position such that if you don’t flare you will crash into it. 

 

Hold it until you hear the 40ft call out. Then gently raise the nose up. You may try to look at the far end of the runway at this point to gauge the sinkrate of the airplane, keep the airplane going down by not over flare too much.

**To myself I simply change my aimming point from the 1000ft marker to the 2000ft marker (the forth set of marker), so that as long as I touch down and still have the 2000ft market in sight, my main gears will touch down approximately 1500ft down the runway, this will also help if you only have 1.5-2.0km visibility and you can’t see the end of the runway, at least you will know where you are on the runway by looking at th markings. 

 

The pitch attitude At the touch if done correctly should be about 2.0-3.0 deg depends on the approach attitude. (Usually the approach pitch attitude + 2 deg) 

Thank you! I just attempted a landing at EGLL and landed at -124! These are great tips! 

To be blunt (as usual with me), landing rate is one of those simmerisms that is just awful, in my opinion.

In a decade (and a third) of flying, not once have I ever paid attention to a landing rate based in ft/min (/sec, /ns, etc.), because the metric is predominantly worthless. Simmers hyperfocus on this mostly because VAs tried to put metrics on flying as some sort of gamey competition. That's all the stat is worth though: gamey, side metrics (cute, interesting, fun for a quick jab at your 'pilot' friends, but that's about it). While I understand that the sim itself doesn't have the same 'feel' as flying a real plane - feeling your lift reserve in the controls, and feeling touchdown itself isn't something that is possible - that doesn't excuse the substitution of staring at the VSI all the way down to the ground. Too many glances down at your VSI while on final can upset an approach and just make it all worse. Fly a stable approach, roll the throttle off using the technique described in the FCTM, touch down positively, and you won't go wrong.

Sure, there are max design tolerances defined by ft/min, but in reality, provided you're not flying like a complete dolt, you won't come close to it. Your concern isn't comfort, or stats, or ranking. Your concern is a safe landing. If you're landing safely, and competently, the others will follow.

Priorities.

10 hours ago, ols500 said:

I read somewhere that below -150FPS is good 

All I will say is that my flying instructor would be horrified at your aim.

i actually got yelled at one time for holding off to get a “greaser”

you really are focusing on the wrong thing. 

Thanks guys, all I want is to do some nice landings ;)

Plus i'm still amazed the PMDG 777 can give me more FPS than a little Aerosoft Airbus lol I'm gonna love fly'in that big bird!!

3 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

To be blunt (as usual with me), landing rate is one of those simmerisms that is just awful, in my opinion.

In a decade (and a third) of flying, not once have I ever paid attention to a landing rate based in ft/min (/sec, /ns, etc.), because the metric is predominantly worthless. Simmers hyperfocus on this mostly because VAs tried to put metrics on flying as some sort of gamey competition. That's all the stat is worth though: gamey, side metrics (cute, interesting, fun for a quick jab at your 'pilot' friends, but that's about it). While I understand that the sim itself doesn't have the same 'feel' as flying a real plane - feeling your lift reserve in the controls, and feeling touchdown itself isn't something that is possible - that doesn't excuse the substitution of staring at the VSI all the way down to the ground. Too many glances down at your VSI while on final can upset an approach and just make it all worse. Fly a stable approach, roll the throttle off using the technique described in the FCTM, touch down positively, and you won't go wrong.

Sure, there are max design tolerances defined by ft/min, but in reality, provided you're not flying like a complete dolt, you won't come close to it. Your concern isn't comfort, or stats, or ranking. Your concern is a safe landing. If you're landing safely, and competently, the others will follow.

Priorities.

I agree with everything said here. I'd also add that in real life, landing in a sideslip feels much more uncomfortable than the actual positive touchdown. So, if you're trying to make it more real, pay attention to the sideslip as well. Try to align the plane before touch down and to maintain that attitude after it. I remember a software called "Lord of the Landings" (believe it's still in the library here). It can measure both your ft/min T/D rate, flare distance and sideslip angle during touch down.

Additionally: greasers increase the wear of your tires ^^ the more smoke, the more rubber on the runway..

17 hours ago, ols500 said:

Thank you! I just attempted a landing at EGLL and landed at -124! These are great tips! 

You are welcome 

if you are able to apply the same technique consistently, you should be able to get the same result within a range every single time. It is almost like if you set 85-88% N1 and 2.5 deg pitch up at cruise altitude, the speed will be roughly M0.83. 

 

Just remember there are 3 major elements that controls your landing accuracy.

1 ) your Flare height 

2 ) how fast do you reduce your thrust to idle and / or when (i.e by default A/T begin to reduce the thrust to idle at 20ft RA, you can vary depending on weather condition and the approach geometry)

3) the rate of your pitch up movement during flare. Is it a slow and smooth flare or is it just one prompt flare. (Different people have adopt different style, some may prefer a slow one and begin the flare a bit higher and others may prefer a prompt flare at a lower flare height) 

 

After a while you will know how to make small adjustment during the flare to perfect your landing technique. 

 

Initially for practice, I recommend trying a lighter weight (or give yourself some steady 10kts headwind) to have an approach speed of around 140-145kts. This way it slows things down a lot and you wouldn’t get a “rush towards the ground” feeling at 50ft callout and panic - ( This is a very common problem for new guys who come over from the airbus, because the airbus flies 10-20kts slower on approach.) 

 

The rest is just practice. Have fun. 

 

Yes, as an airbus lover I was expecting a lot of practice in the 777 because how big she is, the height above the cockpit and ground and how far back the wheels are!

58 minutes ago, ols500 said:

Yes, as an airbus lover I was expecting a lot of practice in the 777 because how big she is, the height above the cockpit and ground and how far back the wheels are!

Yes the airbus has a higher pitch attitude on approach ~4deg and touch down at 6deg. 

That’s why it feels weird at first when you can see lots of ground on approach. 

when I first fly the 777 I tend to pitch up a lot for that particular reason. 

 

Have a good weekend

On 12/28/2017 at 1:26 PM, scandinavian13 said:

To be blunt (as usual with me), landing rate is one of those simmerisms that is just awful, in my opinion.

In a decade (and a third) of flying, not once have I ever paid attention to a landing rate based in ft/min (/sec, /ns, etc.), because the metric is predominantly worthless. Simmers hyperfocus on this mostly because VAs tried to put metrics on flying as some sort of gamey competition. That's all the stat is worth though: gamey, side metrics (cute, interesting, fun for a quick jab at your 'pilot' friends, but that's about it). While I understand that the sim itself doesn't have the same 'feel' as flying a real plane - feeling your lift reserve in the controls, and feeling touchdown itself isn't something that is possible - that doesn't excuse the substitution of staring at the VSI all the way down to the ground. Too many glances down at your VSI while on final can upset an approach and just make it all worse. Fly a stable approach, roll the throttle off using the technique described in the FCTM, touch down positively, and you won't go wrong.

Sure, there are max design tolerances defined by ft/min, but in reality, provided you're not flying like a complete dolt, you won't come close to it. Your concern isn't comfort, or stats, or ranking. Your concern is a safe landing. If you're landing safely, and competently, the others will follow.

Priorities.

Looks like I am about two weeks too late, which is just fine. Thanks for telling it for me Kyle.

FWIW the design limits are more in the range of ILS approach with no flare at all, so don't fret about that either.