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De-rotation on landing - techniques?


tjf4375

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Hi everyone,

First of all I'm completely open to the fact this may be down to my poor flying technique, or my controller setup, rather than a fault with the bus! However, I have noticed that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to lower the nose gently down onto the runway on landing with the AS A320 series. Most of the time I can get a smooth touchdown on the main gear, but when I try to lower the nose gently, it hovers in a pitch up attitude for a short time and then slams down into the runway. It feels almost as if there is a null zone where the controller has no input between those two positions. I've tried adjusting the sensitivity of my joystick, as well as the null zones, and just can't seem to get it to respond to stick inputs during that last few degrees of de-rotation. This is very frustrating because it makes my landings look very robotic and harsh! I don't have this issue with any other add-on aircraft I use, so I'm curious as to what the cause is. I'd be really grateful for any feedback or opinions on this, and especially if other people have experienced the same issue.

 

Many thanks,

tjf

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3 minutes ago, tjf4375 said:

Hi everyone,

First of all I'm completely open to the fact this may be down to my poor flying technique, or my controller setup, rather than a fault with the bus! However, I have noticed that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to lower the nose gently down onto the runway on landing with the AS A320 series. Most of the time I can get a smooth touchdown on the main gear, but when I try to lower the nose gently, it hovers in a pitch up attitude for a short time and then slams down into the runway. It feels almost as if there is a null zone where the controller has no input between those two positions. I've tried adjusting the sensitivity of my joystick, as well as the null zones, and just can't seem to get it to respond to stick inputs during that last few degrees of de-rotation. This is very frustrating because it makes my landings look very robotic and harsh! I don't have this issue with any other add-on aircraft I use, so I'm curious as to what the cause is. I'd be really grateful for any feedback or opinions on this, and especially if other people have experienced the same issue.

 

Many thanks,

tjf

 

Hello TJF!

 

What you are experiencing can sometimes be attributed to a higher than normal landing speed, and when the main gear hits the deck a lot more drag occurs which lowers the aircraft speed more rapidly as well has having the spoilers deploy when the main gear touches down, and that quick speed reduction (and therefore lack of lift across the airfoil) can cause the nose to come down at an accelerated rate.  This (as you already know) can also be affected by controller calibration, or a combination of the two.

 

For landing speed, did you use VRef + wind additive?

 

I believe our tutorial flight covers this as well, but we're always happy to help here in the forums.

 

 

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Thanks Dave, that's very helpful. In this case I was landing with little or no wind, 135kts with full flaps and about 2-3 tons of fuel, so quite light. It's possible I was coming in slightly overspeed. The pitch attitude was no more than 0.25 nose up on approach. It's tricky to gauge because I set up the approach for filming, so it wasn't part of a full flight (that might be part of the problem). I will have a look at the tutorial flight as well though. Are there any recommended controller/joystick settings for the 64bit bus, or are these included in the tutorial? I've been using the AS bus since the 'pre-extended' days in FSX, and never really had this problem, but P3Dv4 is a slightly different animal so I appreciate it takes a bit of finetuning! :)

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21 minutes ago, tjf4375 said:

Thanks Dave, that's very helpful. In this case I was landing with little or no wind, 135kts with full flaps and about 2-3 tons of fuel, so quite light. It's possible I was coming in slightly overspeed. The pitch attitude was no more than 0.25 nose up on approach. It's tricky to gauge because I set up the approach for filming, so it wasn't part of a full flight (that might be part of the problem). I will have a look at the tutorial flight as well though. Are there any recommended controller/joystick settings for the 64bit bus, or are these included in the tutorial? I've been using the AS bus since the 'pre-extended' days in FSX, and never really had this problem, but P3Dv4 is a slightly different animal so I appreciate it takes a bit of finetuning! :)

 

You are most welcome my friend!  I'd love to see your video when it's done, if you'll PM a link to me I'd really appreciate it!

 

I just did a landing at Boston-Logan, had 6KG fuel, 120 PAX and 2.0 Cargo and my landing speed was 134 knots.  FMGS calculated a VAPP said 127 and VLS was 122, but I received a "Speed" alert even with a little additive speed to compensate for only 5 knots of headwind so I'm going to ask the devs to look at the calculation.  Still, this wouldn't have affected what you experienced, and given the numbers you provided I think you were a little fast at touchdown.

 

I'm currently evaluating the Honeycomb Yoke, and it's the very best Yoke I've ever used. The Yoke is available in our store for pre-order for those who live in Europe, and worth every single quid!  In fact, it's a BUY NOW as far as I'm concerned!  I think you'll be AMAZED!  The link to the purchase page:  https://www.aerosoft.com/en/hardware/flight-simulation/yokes/2567/honeycomb-alpha-flight-controls?number=AS14514

 

 

Best wishes!

 

 

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Cheers Dave, I will definitely PM you a link to the video as soon as it's online! Thanks for the interest as well, I really appreciate it :) I think you may be right about the approach speed, I will experiment a bit with lower speeds and see if I can get a better result on touchdown. And I will certainly give the honeycomb yoke some serious consideration, although it feels strange using a yoke when flying airbus aircraft! :D I've been using the Saitek X52 joystick for many years and have just upgraded to the pro version, which seems to work well. I'm sure there's a way to get everything working as it should so I'll keep adjusting things and see what happens. Thanks again for your help and advice, it's much appreciated!

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