Quote:
Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith
Hmmm I just skimmed and Im kind of lost. Im going to re read in depth tonight and try to see if I can do your way of ILS landings. Wish me luck  |
Use the vids in posting #41, and the article I linked to last.
A good pilot does not react to but he is ahead of the present events, with his mental focus I mean. Forsee. Prepare in advance. Know what you will need to do in a couple of seconds, minutes. Know what the needles will show soon, do not just sit and watch them moving and then reacting. Prepare the plane in advance for the coming actions that you anticipated. Imagine your descend path. Imagine how your plane'S nose is rotating inside the compass circle. Imagine where the VOR, the NDB, the airfield is. Imagine how the strip is lined up in relation to you.
Always have a moving map inside your head.
There are even rules of thumb by which pilots calculate/estimate how much distance they need to achieve so and so much climb or sink, or to decelerate or accelerate. I most of the time call Control for manual descend ahead of the flightplan's beginning of descend (which Control bases on), in order to avoid to excessive conflicts between what the flightplkan says and the more precise calculation my FMC is giving me. Else it all too often ends up with the plane needing to dive excessively to make it for the gliodeslope in time, and overspeeding the final approach limits.
And make this a rule for a beginning: First decelerate, then sink and keep the speed constant, use spoilers when needed, that is normal. Below 10000, your speed is limited to 250 knots, where airliners use 250 in climbs and 240 in descends. So: first get slower,
then go into the descend. Set flaps according to what the PFD (the left display in the Boeings) is indicating in the speed tab. Flaps 1 you can give quite early, this setting needs the most time of all flap settings anyway to be reached. Have the plane lined up with the runway at minimum 5 miles, better 10, or even more when approach allows. Lower gear only when being lined up witgh the runway and having intercepted glideslope - or being close to intercepting glideslope. Have the spoilers armed so that they engage automatically on touchdown. Have the wheel autobreak armed (RTO during taxiing, as a rule of thumb for your purpose: 1 for long runways and light planes, 2 for heavily loaded planes and shorter runways, add one notch for wet runways, use setting three in extreme conditions, weather very bad or runway extremely short. However, I am not certain that the default Boeings simulate these differences. Reverse thrust after touchdown is used until the plane slowed down to 60-70 knots, then switch reversers off and start manual whell braking.
Descend speeds of more than 3500 feet vertical can lead to you being assigned for some serious cabin cleaning duty.
Try to fly civil, try to descend with 2200-2500 ft/min maximum. I prefer to stay in the one-thousands and hundreds. While the airframe can take much more, passengers will be thankful.
Stay with the preset limits of the autopilot - try to avoid manual turns with more than 30° bank angle. Again, passengers will appreciate that.
Be prepared to go around. - Happened just yesterday to me, at Bari, so - even when you have routine, you can get struck by fate. I touched with the wheels while already being in TOGA and accelerating again. While unintended, it still was a perfect touch-and-go indeed.
I messed up the flare and was too fast, couldn't get the nose down while there still was runway enough. I declared go around while still being in th air of course, hit TO/GA, HDG and SPD, and off I went again. - Lesson of it: when being on final approach, set your speed window on the MCP to the ref speed and your heading window to the course of the runway, so that when you need to go around, you just need to hit the TOGA and HDG button and the plane stays on course but automatically accelerates and climbs. Be ahead of the present moment, be prepared!
