Hey IFC!
You all good?
Often when I fly, it is a smooth and cool flight and all, but when we come to landing, sometimes it is quite smooth, sometimes not, but the real problem is that I never land on the centerline, even if I have a stable approach. Do you have any tips or tricks to land in the center of the runway? I didn’t put this in the support category because I know the problem is skill related.
Let a festival of advices start!
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Practice, Practice, Practice. Use the flight path vector to keep it in the centre line even with strong gusty winds. Depending on winds direction, use the rudder in the last 10 before touchdown at the wind direction.
You will get the feel of it if you practice on a casual or solo. It varies from aircraft to aircraft.
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If the winds aren’t too strong you could tune navigation source to your ILS frequency (often nav 1) and use the LNAV mode in the autopilot panel. This mimics using localizer mode in real life (to a certain extent) and will maintain the centerline for you
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When I first started flying in IF I had the exact same issue. You just need to practice a bunch of times in solo mode. Make sure there’s no winds and keep practicing in the same aircraft and it will eventually come to you.
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Sometimes, in real life, pilots will land slightly off center purposefully, to avoid the thumping sounds created by the nose wheel over the centerline lights.
It’s OK if it’s not perfect, just maybe stay within 5-10 feet on either side
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What?
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Landing is already a pretty loud affair with spoilers and reversers, not sure how you would hear the nose gear going over the centerline lights. If it was really a problem airports would just be designed with the centerline lights set lower in the pavement.
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Once your FPV is pointing down the runway, make sure your left/right centerline adjustments are with aileron only. Use rudder only to kick out any heading drift, and final heading misalignments just before touchdown.
In other words, in practicing, be clear about:
ailerons - to adjust lateral drift
rudder - to adjust heading drift
But then you couldn’t justify being off centerline.
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the centerline are kinda in the ground and you cant feel it when going over at least never felt it in my small cessna
I read it in this book a few years ago. I may have read something wrong, or am misinterpreting it, but I’ll try and find the page about it.
But that’s besides the point- if you don’t land perfectly dead center on the runway, it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t happen every time in real life either.
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Now that I think about it, that doesn’t make sense. I’ll look through the book and see if I can find the passage in the morning.
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It is a process man, I only just started getting the hang of it. As your hours go up and up… seriously it all gets blended in. Everyone is right, focus on your FPV pointing down the runway, Small adjustments or else you’ll end up overcorrecting. It is just like studying for a test you need to practice, not everyone can get it perfect first try.
Could this be true?:
airport markings - Why are taxiway and runway centerline lights off center? - Aviation Stack Exchange
“Why are taxiway and runway centerline lights off center?
The centerline lights for runways and taxiways are to the side of the centerline itself by a few inches.”
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Embrace where your nose is pointing and just focus on keeping the centerline underneath ya
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Maybe, but considering a nose gear setup is probably at least a couple feet wide I don’t see how this would help.
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All of these center lights appear offset, especially the 2nd image. So, like you said, looks like center is best. but you can’t see the centerline so well at night? Eyeballs go to the centerline when illuminated by landing lights?
If it’s night time. Follow the lights. We’re talking about like a foot or two off centerline
That does seem the most straightforward, but then why place the lights off the centerline mark? I’m scratching my head a bit with that one. Maybe a centerline repainting issue? (trying to filter comments read elsewhere)