Quote:
Originally Posted by Geno_Mariner
I'm getting the hang of IL-2, minus the landing  |
Don't you worry young lady. As a matter of fact this forum is not only graced with the presence of the greatest artist ever but also with the most awesome flight instructor ever (Both would be me of course, and don't listen to what Raptor says, he doesn't understand anything about art.
).
The best thing for a rookie is to establish a certain landing pattern. This will guarantee that you will find yourself always in the same position when you are on final approach. In real life it looks about like this:
Once you get a bit better with landings you can forget about that pattern and go in directly for the landing (none of us is using a pattern). But for now it's pretty useful.
For your final approach:
You can come in with a bit of overspeed (not more than 230 km/h though...for now
) when you are directly over the runway. They are fairly long so you have time to slow down enough for a nice landing. Try to fly horizontally over the runway at about 0.5 to 1m altitude (takes some practice) at very low or zero throttle. Once the plane wants to settle down (the slower you fly the less lift your wings produce) you pull the nose slightly up (increasing the angle of attack which increases the lift, but also the drag). However it's important that you only raise your nose so far that you don't start climbing again. If you start climbing beyond 3m or so it's best to throttle up a little or to give full throttle and go around. If you don't do this you will find yourself at 3m altitude with quickly decreasing speed and that will make you slam down a second or two later.
So make sure you don't climb and the plane will set itself nicely down on all three wheels.
Or if you don't want to do that yet you can also settle for a two wheels landing (which is easier). Just fly horizontally in ca. 1m over the runway at around 180-200km/h. Reduce the throttle and keep the nose horizontally. With decreasing speed your plane will start to drop and set down on its main wheels.
Hope that helps a little.