A380 front wheel touch down too soon

[PaullyGu]

Every time I fly A380 (new model), I find out that when I do landing manually, the front wheel just touch down too soon (instantly after backwheel touchdown). Just wonder anyone ever noticed this. How to avoid it. I have seen the video of real world A380 landings, the front wheel drops in a much slower rate.

[PaintDiamond]

I’d try landing at a slightly higher speed, and hold your back pressure from your flare, because I don’t have that issue after some practice!
Safe flying!

[Levi.TT]

low landing speed

not enough pitch before landing

overweight

not enough back pressure upon touchdown

[Justin_Betances]

How much trim do you use bigger plane requires more Trim also you need to hold the nose and gently lower the nose also try configuring for landing earlier than normal bigger energy requires more time to go away for landing

[Mort]

When flaring, remember that in cockpit mode, you’re a couple stories above the landing gear. You need to pay attention to your instruments to know when to flare. Once you’re practiced, you’ll be able to visually be able to judge when to start flaring. If you flare to late, the nose gear will come down sooner then intended.

[PaullyGu]

In my case, probably low landing speed and not enough back pressure upon touch down.

[PaullyGu]

I normally use 40% trim. How about you?

[PaullyGu]

Will practice. My last landing, the airplane load is around 30%. My approach speed is around 138. Is it too low?

[adit]

This is the answer to a similar question from a prior A380 topic:

@adit

@Black_Bird

I can’t hold the nose gear up when the rear gear touches the runway. The nose wheel immediately went down. I approach at 142-138 kts and I do set my trim to 45-55%.

While the trim assists with controlling the pitch, when you run out of sufficient forward speed, the nose will drop on it’s own, and trim doesn’t prevent that. And a harder landing will intensify that effect. Make sure you lower the nose when you still have sufficient forward speed, to prevent it from dropping on it’s own. Depending on weight and airport altitude, keeping the nose wheel up might be a case of slightly more speed at touch down. (it’s all about sufficient aerodynamic pressure, which only comes from sufficient forward speed, to maintain pitch control authority)

@adit

Your remaining forward speed is what limits your ability to keep your nose up and have enough control authority left over to lower your nose gently: it determines whether holding your stick back will still provide control over pitching all the way down to nosewheel contact. If not, the nose just drops on its own.

edit:

@Black_Bird

turn the stick slightly back

Yeah, there’s a subtle point here: you might be pulling back as the nose comes down, reflecting you using up just that last bit of remaining control authority as your speed drops off (there’s a bit of getting the timing right).

Apologies if repeating too much of what others have said here.

[nabilk11_777flyer]

I can give you the flaps and speed requirements if you want

[PaullyGu]

Will appreciate the help

[Black_Bird]

Feel free to share here!

[nabilk11_777flyer]

Thanks man

[nabilk11_777flyer]

So here you have the requirements, so you need to follow the step here.

I don’t know how much speed with full flaps you used to land too soon but it must be 180 kts, I suggest that the trim must be set to 30%, I recommend to Use appr, first you go to RWY at the desired selected airport then select the Runway to NAV1 which you will be able to use it it activate APPR, recommend to use it at 3000ft to activate it, Then Until you have the correct Speed for it it will activate, LOC will turn when nav1 connects to the LOC And then starts the auto land, then you will not experience this issue again.

[Mort]

I would say between 140-150 knots is ideal.

[Black_Bird]

I land with full flaps at around 145kts. At 10 ft call out, I set the throttle to idle. I pull gently the yoke backwards. But this often leads the plane to float. Trim set between 30-40 depending on weight… it’s so annoying. Especially when I don’t have the issue with other planes. 😐

[adit]

I was just testing the A380 both at MLW and also nearly empty weight.

I also tested separately with autobrakes off and on.

I left trim at zero for all tests.

My question: could I still hold the nose wheel off the ground (even if finding the right amount of back pressure is a bit of a challenge), if my IAS was well below normal approach speed?

Yes, I could. I was still able to keep the nose held off the ground while passing through about 110kts IAS (whether you can go lower I leave as a challenge).

So, I would recommend for whoever has trouble with the nose wheel touching too soon, to practice many touchdowns on solo.

Try to land with as little vertical speed as possible, and then just obsessively practice getting the back pressure feel for holding the nose up followed by lowering it gently.

When first starting such repetitive practice, don’t worry about aiming for the touchdown zone. That is an extra distraction for the purpose of getting the vs low and the necessary nose back pressure after touchdown.

Hitting the touchdown zone can be practice step 2.

[pilotcharles737]

How to avoid the nose gear plop. Simple after touchdown don’t immediately activate reverse thrust until you let the nose touch the ground. When you are getting ready to flare don’t have the thrust at idle either. This will cause the plane to initiate the auto-breaks causing the plane to nose plop. Lowest speed to land with is 150kts. When you land pull back and slowly lower the throttle between when you hear the GPW callout “100” to when you flare and then slowly let off the pitch. Once the nose touches then you start the reverse thrust process. Try this with other planes as well until you can profect it. You should start to notice a huge difference. I hope this helps.

[adit]

@pilotcharles737

don’t immediately activate reverse

I neglected to mention I didn’t attempt to reverse with the nose up

@pilotcharles737

don’t have the thrust at idle either

I had it at idle the entire time and could still hold the nose up, separately both with brakes engaged and not engaged (though I thought there was a difference in “torque down” between brakes on and off)

@pilotcharles737

Lowest speed to land with is 150kts

I agree with not letting the speed get too low, but as I indicated in the prior comment, it was useful to test for oneself, that you can actually go a lot lower in speed than 150kts and still have enough pitch authority to hold the nose up.

edit: what I didn’t test is exactly how much a particular vertical speed at touchdown works against you in keeping the nose from dropping as the IAS gets lower and lower.

When I touched down with speed dropping towards 110kts, still being able to hold the nose up after touch down, I was very carefully to make contact with almost no vertical speed.

[pilotcharles737]

@pilotcharles737

Try this with other planes

I forgot to mention do not try this with the ERJ-175 and 777-300ER. These 2 plane surprisingly are the only ones that don’t nose plop during touchdown.