Simviation Forums

how fast do planes hit the runway when landing?????(in vertical speed)?
I normally land 50fpm to a max of 300fpm and i am sure that they are soft.

how fast do they do it in real life???

BYE

Not sure about heavies, but in RL flying light singles, I'm usually looking for about 500fpm on final, then as little sink as possible during the flare. Can't say how much fpm it takes to bounce, 'cuz I've never made a hard landing  ;) .... Seriously, offhand I'd say  100fpm at touchdown would be about the limit for small planes. Of course that also depends on how far you sink at that rate...

Don't know about heavies but the idea on aircraft I've flown is not to hit the ground at all but touch down as lightly as possible. When it's done properly you don't feel the bump. A great feeling when it comes off. I'm sure it's the same for any aircraft.

PS. I don't how that relates to fpm as I've never looked at my instrument panel while landing.

The safest way is to hit the ground with some force at least - if there's any standing water on the runway the you'll break though the layer and contact the runway - if not you may end up aquaplaning and being in very little control...

The safest way is to hit the ground with some force at least - if there's any standing water on the runway the you'll break though the layer and contact the runway - if not you may end up aquaplaning and being in very little control...

Ah OK. I don't think you can aquaplane on grass.

Shows how out of date I am. Also how good the shock absorbers must be nowadays.

last thing you want to do on wet grass is land hard. Would make a carrier landing look long:)

Ah OK. I don't think you can aquaplane on grass.

You just slide naturally...

...and you're quite right, I was talking about those silly concrete runways someone invented. Personally a proper aerodrome should have runways, but a nice big omni-directional grass field.

Not at 300 kts, that much I'm sure of.

Well the thought is, you should stall onto the runway. Obviously this doesn't work for all airplanes.
Small planes, just get really low, let the speed slide off, it should settle pretty nicely into the runway.
With larger planes, suddenly it might be that you need to make it off on a certain taxiway, stop near your gate, or stop before the end of the runway, and a "firm" landing might become necessary. Normally though, at large airports (for example, when I take a 767 into DFW), it is standard to just glide along, the mains just a few feet off the runway, until the speed is so low the tail will drag if we don't touch down soon, then lightly allow the plane to sink down. Done correctly, no violent bump, and if you have a long enough runway, reverse not needed. Not hard to use more runway floating along killing speed than actually stopping on the tarmac if you have the space. Traffic can create problems though.

Imagine landing this baby.



OR this one.

If those are flare angles... then wow!

Do you flare in concordes?? i've heard that you are meant to keep about 300fpm till you hit the runway as to keep the angle down.

[quote]Do you flare in concordes?? i've heard that you are meant to keep about 300fpm till you hit the runway as to keep the angle down.

Landing either of those big d-wings must be a real nail-biter, esp. since the engines are underslung at the trailing edge of the wing... a very expensive boo-boo just waiting to happen!

Concordes engines came within inches of the ground on landing and takeoff however those who are observant will notice the small wheel on the tail, that was used incase someone thought they were in a fighter aircraft and pulled up a little to hard, thus saving the engines. The higher angle also worked as a speed brake when landing.