Tweaking the throttle on approach

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 06:15:25 +0100, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Jim writes:

Excellent advice on all points. Only thing I would add is to use these
steps in basic trainer such as C172 until proficient, as in real life
you must crawl before you can walk. Flying a complex aircraft in
simulation is task intensive and frustrating.

Does a Baron 58 count as complex? It seems easy to fly compared to the big
iron.

Any plane with retractable gear and prop control is considered
complex.
I fly mostly the Baron 58 as Dreamfleet's simulation is rigorously accurate,
so it behaves just like the real thing. The C172 seems too easy, so either
this is the world's easiest plane to fly in real life, or the sim is not as
accurate as it could be.

The reason a C172 is used as a trainer in real life is because it is a
very easy and forgiving airplane to fly. It is a good plane for
landings because of the high wing. And because you don't have to worry
with the gear or prop control you can concentrate on the fundamentals
of a stabilized approach and then when mastered move on to more
complex aircraft. Maybe a single engine retractable. I don't remember
if the Baron 58 in a multi or single engine.
In real life, I'd want to fly the same thing I had flown in the sim, if I
could find a place that would give me instruction in a Baron (a new one, not
one of those WWII relics, but without the G1000 junk).

Be careful not to float or balloon
in ground effect. If you do balloon add a bit of power to stabilize
and cut the throttle again and flare to landing. Hope this helps.

I do seem to glide excessively just before touchdown. I have a phobia about
expensive damage to the gear. I've hardly ever crashed in a way that would
injure me in real life, but I've had a fair number of landings in which the
gear was damaged (on one occasion I damaged flaps as well, not sure how).
The gear on the 172 is very resilient. I really think if you use the
172 to master the pitch / power part of the stabilized approach you
will do better in the Baron. I have flown a real 172 and find FS2004's
172 to be very realistic. Hope this helps.
--

Jim in Houston
osPAm
Nurse's creed: Fill what's empty, empty what's full,
and scratch where it itches!! RN does NOT mean Real Nerd!

chris writes:

It has retractable gear and variable pitch props, means it's complex.
Not to mention multi-engine.

The FAA seems to have a low threshold of complexity.

You would be very ill-advised to try and start your flight training in
a twin. There's way too much stuff to cope with when you're trying to learn
how to take off, fly s+l and land..

I've heard of other people doing it, although it seems to be rare. If that's
the aircraft I wanted to fly, wouldn't it be more practical to just start with
it to begin with?

Best to learn on something small, slow, forgiving, and you can move up
later. I found even going from a C152 to an Archer, I got way behind
the aircraft - too much happening too fast, and the Archer doesn't
have two engines, CSU's or retract. And the difference in cruise is
only 35kt or so, but enough to get me seriously behind the aircraft!!

What sorts of things were you losing track of in the Archer?

If you are floating you are going too fast or trying to hold it off
too long. From reading your earlier post, you identified the VSo of
the Baron as 75.

That's the lower limit of the white band, which (IIRC) is the VSo with flaps
extended. I usually stay above Vmc (the first red line) on landing, and I
usually won't rotate until I'm above Vyse (the first blue line) at take-off.
The engine-out scenarios I've practiced are harrowing and I always like to be
going fast enough to deal with those. (I haven't practiced engine failure on
landing yet, however.)

My research came up with 69-72 as stall speeds.
Which makes VSo x1.3 = 89-93kt.

That's very often my speed at touchdown. I never try to stall into touchdown,
despite what I've read here. My theory is that being at stall speed gives you
no options, even if it's the slowest possible touchdown speed. In an
emergency, I want to be able to leave the runway again, but I'm not going
anywhere once I stall.

You probably don't want to be going for a full stall landing in a twin,
so come in at about 90kt, raise the nose a bit to flare and let it settle
onto the runway.

That's what I do, more less. I descend until about ten feet or so then hold
the aircraft level and set throttles to idle (they are slightly above prior to
that). That causes the aircraft to settle downwards and as it does so I
flare. If my approach was stable and if it's not too windy I can barely feel
the wheels touch. If I've been crabbing for a crosswind this is also when I
straighten the aircraft out.

Why do you say a stall landing is inadvisable "in a twin"? Would it be
different for a single-engine plane?

Don't try and hold it off, that's what a Cessna pilot should do, but
probably not a twin pilot.

Here again, why the distinction between single and twin?

Just make sure your mains touch before your nose wheel.

That's usually not a problem, although in landings that have collapsed gear,
sometimes the nose gear goes first. It seems that a hard landing in the Baron
tends to pitch the nose downward so that the nose gear hits even harder than
the main gear, and then it breaks. (Incidentally, MSFS doesn't count that as
a crash, but the aircraft is still unflyable afterwards.)

Mind you, I am not a twin pilot so that could all have been
rubbish.

I don't understand why 1 vs 2 engines is such a big deal.

--
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Ron Natalie writes:

And flaps...it has to have flaps.

Don't small single-engine planes have flaps?

The number of engines doesn't matter. By the way a twin with two
HP wouldn't be HP either.

High-performance, complex ... when did the FAA set these standards? It must
have been when the Wright brothers were around if they are this low. To me,
an F-16 is high performance, not a Baron. And a Space Shuttle is complex (or,
arguably, a large jet airliner).

--
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writes:

I may have misunderstood your earlier post about being misaligned when
crossing the threshold. I originally thought you meant that you were
not positioned over the centerline (bad), but maybe you meant that
your airplane's centerline was not parallel to the runway centerline.

It can be one or both, depending on how uncoordinated I am that day.

I'm rarely on the centerline when I turn at the last minute, but there is
still time to line up, usually. But being absolutely on the centerline and
parallel to it is less common, especially if there is any kind of wind. I
can't feel a crosswind in the sim, of course, but I can "feel" (note quotation
marks) the aircraft drifting to one side or otherwise moving by looking out
the window or watching the instruments (in low visibility). I'm so-so at
correcting for that.

If MSFS is configured with 72 kt gusts at ground level, I just dial them down,
as I could never land with that wind in real life, anyway. (This is a known
problem on VATSIM, which for some reason will more than double the speed of
gusts if the wind is gusting.)

If so, then that is not unusual, or bad, but you MUST align before
touchdown. (Use rudder to straighten out, and opposite aileron to
prevent lateral drift)

That's what I try to do. I try to use both rudder and aileron unless I'm
extremely close to the runway, as I've read that using rudder alone is a Bad
Thing.

Yes, straightening out after a slip seems to be harder in the sim than
in the real plane.

There is probably a smooth way to do it, but I haven't learned it yet. If I'm
a thousand feet off the ground it doesn't matter much, but very close to the
runway it makes me nervous. So I might slip down to the pattern altitude but
not beyond. I've seen people slip practically to touchdown, though.

--
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writes:

When we speak of aligning with the runway, we mean that the _flight
path_ should be straight down the centerline.

This does not necessarily mean (and often doesn't) that the airplane
axis is aligned down its center. Most often you have some kind of
crosswind, and many pilots hold a crab angle (to maintain the flight
path) down almost to the ground, and then "kick it out" (straighten
out) just before touchdown. This is the turning you've seen.

Well, in this case, I'm talking about a pilot coming in to the runway at
almost a 90-degree angle, entering the runway _beyond_ the threshold, and then
turning sharply to align with it. I guess it's an option if the runway is
quite long and the aircraft is small and slow. It's extremely difficult in a
Baron and I would not attempt it in real life. It doesn't help that the times
I've tried it I've been descending as well. I end up overshooting at 140
knots and it's hard to get aligned and down before the runway runs out.

In a Piper Cub, it's easy (although I don't know how well the default Piper
Cub is modeled in MSFS--it seems _too_ easy to fly, so I'm suspicious).

--
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Roger writes:

Learn this first with the 172, then work with the bigger stuff.

I don't know if I can trust the sim's default version of the 172. The add-ons
I use have a reputation for extreme accuracy, so I can be reasonably confident
that they do just what the real aircraft does, but I don't know about the 172.
If I can find a reputable add-on C172, maybe I'll get that sometime. That's
the main reason I don't fly the 172 much.

I do have an A36 Bonanza, also by Dreamfleet, but the EHSI isn't Reality XP
(Reality XP is known for its 100% accurate instruments), and the EHSI on the
Baron is. I guess the EHSI wouldn't matter so much for pattern work, though.

Also I figure it's better to get good in a small number of aircraft than
mediocre in a large number, since in real life I probably wouldn't be flying
20 different aircraft, but just two or three at most.

--
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Roger wrote:
On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:26:52 -0500, Ron Natalie
wrote:


chris wrote:


It has retractable gear and variable pitch props, means it's complex.

And flaps...it has to have flaps.



Not to mention multi-engine.

The number of engines doesn't matter. By the way a twin with two
HP wouldn't be HP either.

or 200 for that matter. Isn't is still "greater than 200"?


Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

That is high performance - not complex.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Ron Natalie writes:


And flaps...it has to have flaps.


Don't small single-engine planes have flaps?


The number of engines doesn't matter. By the way a twin with two
HP wouldn't be HP either.


High-performance, complex ... when did the FAA set these standards? It must
have been when the Wright brothers were around if they are this low. To me,
an F-16 is high performance, not a Baron. And a Space Shuttle is complex (or,
arguably, a large jet airliner).


That's because you have no idea what happens in the real world.
Compared with ms flight sim on a computer an ultralight is high
performance and complex...

The kindly and greatly respected Uncle Al over on the sci.physics
newsgroup offered an observation as to the intrinsic worth of a
poster's contributions that I've taken the liberty paraphrase here,
regarding MX's observations re complex aircraft. Not only does he know
more than we do, he also knows more than the FAA!


Mx is an epiphany of chronic abusive trolling ignorant persona.

Mx is a snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick up Mx,
drive its beak into Mx's Lilliputian brain, and upon finding it rancid
set Mx loose to flutter briefly before spattering the ocean rocks
with the frothy pale pink shame of its
Ignoble blood. May Mx choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of his
own trite, foolish beliefs.


I cannot believe how incredibly ignorant Mx is. I mean rock-hard
ignorant. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury ignorant. Surface of
Venus under 80 atmospheres of red hot carbon dioxide and sulfuric
acid vapor dehydrated for 300 million years rock-hard ignorant.
Ignorant so ignorant that it goes way beyond the ignorant we know into
a whole different sensorium of ignorant. Mx is
trans-ignorant ignorant. Meta-ignorant. Ignorant so collapsed upon
itself that it is within its own Schwarzschild radius. Black hole
ignorant. Ignorant gotten so dense and massive that no intellect can
escape.

Singularity ignorant.

Mx emits more aviation ignorant/second than our entire galaxy
otherwise
emits ignorant/year. Quasar ignorant. Nothing else in the universe
can
be this ignorant. Mx is an oozingly putrescent primordial fragment
from the original Big Bang of Ignorant, a pure essence of ignorant so
uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics
that define maximally extrapolated hypergeometric n-dimensional
backgroundless ignorant as we can imagine it. Mx is Planck ignorant,
a quantum foam of ignorant, a vacuum
decay of ignorant, a grand unified theory of ignorant.


Mx is the epiphany of ignorant.



On Mar 7, 12:05 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
Ron Natalie writes:
And flaps...it has to have flaps.

Don't small single-engine planes have flaps?

The number of engines doesn't matter. By the way a twin with two
HP wouldn't be HP either.

High-performance, complex ... when did the FAA set these standards? It must
have been when the Wright brothers were around if they are this low. To me,
an F-16 is high performance, not a Baron. And a Space Shuttle is complex (or,
arguably, a large jet airliner).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

In article ,
Mxsmanic wrote:

chris writes:

It has retractable gear and variable pitch props, means it's complex.
Not to mention multi-engine.

The FAA seems to have a low threshold of complexity.

Just consider it a term of art.