Simviation Forums

This isn't exactly about FSX but here goes. Taking off in most planes is easy as well as keeping them in the air. The tricky part is landing them and it appears the first generation jet airliners were especially difficult to master. Not having the benefit of specific type training and not bothering to read things like best landing speed I have found so far that the Dehavilland Comet 4 is a bear. Slow down too much and it stalls out short of the runway. Keep the speed up and the brakes can't stop you before running off the end of the runway. And this was at LAX. I made a long shallow approach lined up 10 miles out and still couldn't touch down early enough to avoid running past the end of the pavement by about 100 ft.

The new jetliners are easy by comparison.

I'm not sure (tubes aren't my thing), but I think the Comet 4 has reverse thrusters.....are you using them?

I pushed the F2 key and the / key just in case it had spoilers.

You could always adjust the brake scaler in the cfg file. Also be sure that the F2 key is activating with autorepeat....press and hold the F2 for a few seconds to get the throttles back to max reverse.

A fiend of mine always told me that anyone could fly a plane. Landing a plane was the hard part most people struggled with...

Yeah, even with the flaps down it stalls around 145 kts and it wanted to float just above the ground once over the runway. I'll have to go to an exterior view to see if it has lift spoilers.

You don't say which Comet you have. Take a look at this checklist. http://www.dmflightsim.co.uk/flying_the_comet_9.htm

It is the comet 4 created by David Maltby. I finally successfully landed it on the long runway at Orlando International. It was formerly a US Air Force SAC base and the runways are very long. I did an external check and the plane does have spoilers. The cockpit is early 1960's with no modern nav aids. As far as I can tell Mr. Maltby disabled the autopilot feature too so if you fly it you must be hands on at all times. Due to this I won't be flying the comet very much

After some thought and reading that pilots handbook I think the landing problem was due to the fact that I took off, went out 50 miles then turned around and tried to land with too much fuel on board making the plane too heavy to land properly. these sims are, it seems, pretty close to the actual flight characteristics.

Modlerbob wrote:After some thought and reading that pilots handbook I think the landing problem was due to the fact that I took off, went out 50 miles then turned around and tried to land with too much fuel on board making the plane too heavy to land properly. these sims are, it seems, pretty close to the actual flight characteristics.

It is a "simulator".....wouldn't be much of a simulation without simulating fuel levels
Landing with 90%+ (asssuming you started at 100%) fuel is a big "no-no"

Always adjust your fuel levels accordingly before take off. Fuel levels are a very important factor when calculating (estimating) take off and landing distances

So, where's the fuel dump button. Just kidding I know how to change the fuel load after a flight has started.

In the FSX world most people ignore things like max takeoff weight and max landing weight. I usually make sure everything is on the up and up on my flights.
I mean lets face it how many people know what the term AI stands for? I am not talking about artificially created aircraft here.
I used to be a load planer for Delta Air Lines at KJAX I had to know all aspects of every aircraft that Delta flew and this includes weight and balance.
Delta uses what is called a tolerance on every aircraft . It is an invisible weight it idiot proofs flights. But is is also a pain in the but because the last flight out of jax back than was a B767-300 and there was at best 3 passengers on board which meant the plane was tail heavy. Even when we removed the tolerance it was still tail heavy we had to scrounge around for any ting we could put on board or the plane would not be able to take off due to a AI of -3 negative numbers are a bad thing.
AI stands for AFT INDEX

If you think the Comet IV is bad, try landing a Vulcan. Kazunori's Vulcan looks good, but he cheats by building in flaps which never were installed on Vulcans. Trying to land such a beast using aerodynamic braking means the pilot is blind to the threshold and sits 30ft above the tail bumper. A brake 'chute is a must on any r/w less than 15,000'. Cold war era r/w's were 11,000' at best.

Now, on the occasions that I fly airliners I always check the weights and depending on the planned length of the flight I reduce the fuel load based on the estimated fuel consumption in the flight planner. Landing is much easier now.