Tips for a better approach?
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Hello, that depends on the type of aircraft you are going to land, try to have a good flight plan with a standard arrival, take care of the speed, configure the plane well, make very gentle corrections, but it does depend on the type of aircraft.
How are your landings currently? The first step is to make sure you have the correct trim, speed and flaps and don’t forget landing gear. Personally I use appr to guide the aircraft into the approach cone and then hand fly the landing. If you are struggling with hand landings feel free to use appr the entire way. If you have any specific questions about approaches or landings feel free to reach out. Congratulations on joining the community, we are happy to have you here. As mentioned feel free to reach out to one of the community frequenters and we are are happy to assist.
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Yes that helps a lot. Just make sure your intercept angle is 45 degrees or less when activating APPR. I used to do that but now I hand fly the whole way because APPR seems to want to give my pax neck issues and hand flying is more fun.
Mmm I wouldn’t recommend that. OP has to get used to landing at some point and APPR isn’t meant to be used as auto land. It doesn’t even flare. I would disconnect it around 1000 ft AFL and make sure you are trimmed out before disconnecting. That way you have time to get used to the handling of the aircraft a bit before touchdown and the plane won’t go off the glideslope when taking control.
Anyways, so what specifically are you struggling with? Energy management, overcorrection, overshooting intercepts? Or is it the actual flare and touchdown? We can help you better with more information.
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Lowering my speed is probably the best thing for me to do in my opinion. If I’m not instructed otherwise, I like to make sure I’m going slow enough with enough space between myself and the airport to make sure I can have time to check over everything, make any changes to my autopilot (if needed), and coordinate with ATC.
If you’re not in expert yet, make sure you know how to have a STAR filed in your flight plan, because a lot of controllers in expert will make you file one.
SIDs and STARs - Features - Infinite Flight Community
My main problems are being off center and i usually start my descent either too early or too late, ive tried using TOD but it never really works… i also end up hovering
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The landing itself isnt the best, im usually offline and i flare to much and hover. I use a joystick.
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So for the descent, first clear all the altitudes from the star. You wanna set a waypoint just before the approach cone to the airport elevation + 2500. If there are no waypoints within 5 or so nm of the approach come start, pick the closest one. Take an estimate of its distance from the approach cone and divide that number 3.18. Multiply 1000 and add the airport elevation. 3.18 the magic descent number for most planes. It’s the ratio of nautical miles to thousands of feet for a 3 degree descent. For some planes, 3.5 or 4 will work better for that ratio. Anyways, set that waypoints altitude to the number you just calculated. Then, subtract that waypoints altitude from 10,500 and divide by 3.18. Multiply by 1000 and add around 5 nm for slowing down. Some planes will require 10 and others will only need 1. That’s the distance between initiating the speed reduction to 250 kts and that other waypoint you calculated. Find the waypoint in your fpl closest to that distance back from the other waypoint. If it’s not within a mile or two of that distance, add the difference in distance divided by 3.18 multiplied by 1000 to that 10,500 ft. Set the waypoint’s altitude to that number. Then, find that waypoint’s distance from the airport and add 3.18 times 1/1000 of the difference between your cruise altitude and the altitude you just calculated. This is the distance to the airport of your TOD. A couple miles before this point, press VNAV and let it take you all the way down until a couple miles before your about 10,500 ft waypoint. Then, turn off VNAV and let just VS take you to that altitude. Once you level off, turn off the auto throttle and decelerate to 250 kts. You may require spoilers if in an A350 or something super slippery. Approaching 250 kts, hit VNAV again. Make sure your VS target is showing 0 before doing this or your plane nose dives a bit. Then let VNAV take you down to a couple miles before that around airport elevation + 2500 waypoint and turn it off again. Depending on that waypoint’s distance from the cone and your aircraft, you may need to start slowing down again before this. If that waypoint’s altitude isn’t the airport elevation + 2500, set the altitude window to that and use the descent arc and VS mode to reach that altitude just before the cone. Once level, you can hit APPR and begin your approach.
This probably sounds overwhelming, but once you do it a few times it takes 5 minutes to do it during cruise. The nice thing about it is you can adapt it to pretty much anything once you know how to calculate the nautical miles per 1000 ft for your plane. You can add additional level segments, try to meet STAR crossing restrictions you see on STAR plates, etc. But for now this descent profile is more than sufficient.
If for some reason you can’t do all these calculations, you can use energy gates like these— for example: Be at 250 kts at 10,000 ft AFL 40 nm from touchdown. Be at 5,000 ft 20 miles from touchdown. Be level at 2,500 ft 10 nm from touchdown. Have at least X flaps out when on the glideslope, etc. See what works for your plane. During initial descent, 3.5 times your altitude over 1000 is a good distance.
Sorry for making you read my research paper lol.
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How high are you initiating the flare? In most planes? Here’s what I usually do:
Let the plane slow a bit passing the threshold at 50 ft by taking off a bit of throttle and pitching up just slightly to maintain the descent angle. Passing 40 ft, do nothing. Don’t even think about flaring yet. From this point on it does help to focus your eyes a little further down the runway though. Passing 30 ft, pitch up a degree or two and bring the throttle back to idle. Passing 10, you should really be flaring. In some planes. At around 5 ft, you may need to ease off on the back pressure slightly in some planes to prevent balooning, especially if you flared aggressively.
A lot of this is aircraft specific and is much smoother in reality. This is a rough guide and you almost never land exactly like this. You have to gain experience so you can use intuition to made these split second subconscious decisions about how much you need to pitch up and where your throttle should be.
One thing though, you may simply be landing too fast. Try landing in a 737 at 50% weight at 140 kts during approach, 135 over the threshold.
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