Landing advice...

So.

Im having lots of trouble landing. Im coming in fairly fast and flat, I make contact withe ground and seem to bounce up, and on the second bounce the gear collapses and i belly skid the rest of the way. On the external view the gear is just mashed into the plane. Im not having any issues landing other DCS planes like the f5 or harrier. Any pro tips?

The MiG-21 is a little tricky to land. Coming in fairly fast isn't a bad thing for a start. As you probably noticed it just falls out of the sky if you get too slow. Still, I found it sensitive to being too fast as well.

The one thing you can do to get better odds is to reduce your weight on approach. The MiG-21 isn't quite designed to land with full tanks, given how it has a fairly short range as it is. If you do return with a lot of fuel remaining just do a few circles around the base with full burners.

The MiG-21 is a little tricky to land. Coming in fairly fast isn't a bad thing for a start. As you probably noticed it just falls out of the sky if you get too slow. Still, I found it sensitive to being too fast as well.

The one thing you can do to get better odds is to reduce your weight on approach. The MiG-21 isn't quite designed to land with full tanks, given how it has a fairly short range as it is. If you do return with a lot of fuel remaining just do a few circles around the base with full burners.

Im just doing the pracice landings, pretty sure its not overly heavy. Im wondering if im not doing something right with the gear since it seems to fold up.

Im having lots of trouble landing. Im coming in fairly fast and flat, I make contact withe ground and seem to bounce up

Not coming in flat enough I'm afraid if you're bouncing (too high sink rate).

For some practice runs, simply try flying the Mig into position about 1-2 foot off the runway and holding it there.

Once you're a bit more practiced at that, just get into that position and reduce (not chop) the throttle and it'll land fine.

You're coming in too fast, cap'n! Though you should keep around 350 km/h on the way down, after you pass the inner marker you should start reducing, aiming to cross the threshold somewhere between 280-330 km/h depending on the weight.

Also, one of the things that feels unnatural in the MiG-21 compared to other planes is that you fly with the power on all the way down to the runway, only cutting throttle when the main wheels settle on the ground.

Last but not least, when landing the MiG-21 you don't really flare or any such thing. Fly the little arrow down to the runway as if it was meant to keep flying, with a very slight, almost invisible nose up touch after the threshold to curtail the sink rate. You 'fly' it onto the ground, rather than land it.

This video shows a pretty fantastic approach, do like this guy and you'll be just fine:

Just purchased this module. The challenge of landing is superb. I wish I had brought this earlier I am loving it.

So.

 

Im having lots of trouble landing. Im coming in fairly fast and flat, I make contact withe ground and seem to bounce up, and on the second bounce the gear collapses and i belly skid the rest of the way. On the external view the gear is just mashed into the plane. Im not having any issues landing other DCS planes like the f5 or harrier. Any pro tips?

Don't feel bad, this is everyone's first landing attempt.

So there are a couple things you should know about:

1) The flaps are blown flaps. This means that it uses air from the compressor to blow over the flaps to increase lift. Because of this, cutting power at any point before touchdown is strictly prohibited.

2) If you look down at your throttle, you'll notice that the quadrant is labeled. In particular, you have the 'landing' part of your throttle labeled. This is, ideally, the lowest your throttle should ever go on a landing. If you place your throttle a little above here at an approach speed of 400 KPH at roughly 500 meters, then you will sink while your nose remains roughly level with the horizon.

3) Beginner trick: put your pipper past the end of the runway and try to keep it there. This keeps your plane roughly straight while also pitching the nose up slowly as you approach the touchdown marker on the runway. If you do this, your nose will be at the perfect height as you get around 350-360 KPH for a flare.

4) Use the flap stages. Flap stage 1 is for your approach and flap stage 2 should be used just as you're close to the last part of the landing, maybe just over the touchdown markers. Use stage 2 too soon, and you'll have problems 'settling' the aircraft. Use it too late and you'll have too much momentum and bounce.

5) Last, but not least PRACTICE YOUR LANDING FLARE! What I was doing wrong when I first stared flying this plane was listening to people who told me that I didn't need to flare; BUT YOU DO!

The Mig-21 requires a very gentle, very precise landing flare of which you need to practice over and over. It has to be extremely subtle and gentle at the same time, which requires a very slow and deliberate movement.

Landing it straight and level is correct up until the last part where you touch down which NEEDS a very fine-tuned flare to keep the aircraft from bouncing.

Your goal should be to completely cancel out vertical momentum one or two meters off of the runway and allow the aircraft to settle on the merit of it losing speed and not because of any input on your own. Once the aircraft settles, keep the nose off the runway for as long as you can! If your nose bounces or comes down violently, then you fell too fast and your flare wasn't like it should be.

Does that sound hard? It should. It takes practice, and I highly recommend making a custom mission where you're just a few hundred meters off of the runway and practicing your landing approach over and over again. It doesn't have the same 'feel' as other aircraft, and you have to unlearn a bunch of bad habits that more forgiving aircraft probably taught you.

Finally, if you notice that you're running out of runway trying to do all of this at once: Don't panic! Remember, you have airbrakes and a drogue chute. You slow down very quickly when the chute deployed. Bouncing and having to settle again takes way more time than having to settle halfway down the runway.

Best of luck.

Thanks all for the advice. Definitely getting better, I can usually land it now without screwing up I think I was chopping throttle and thats what did the bounce as someone suggested, I'm flying it in at about 80-90% power now ~400kph maybe a bit less. Much more stable landing. The second big thing that helped was immediately hitting the drouge chute upon touchdown, settles it down really fast. Im currently at like 4-5 good landings for every bad one.

And yes, very different from other aircraft, hell the harrier is very easy to land compared to this.

Stable approach makes a good landing. Normal figures are

N1 85-90%

V/S 5-4m/s

AS 360-320 km/h

FPA 2°40'-2°30'

UUA-1 11-13

As the runway nears the values should be those on the right side.

Transition to touchdown starts at 20m height. By 10m height the power is reduced to 80%. UUA-1 does not exceed 15 during the transition. Sink rate is reduced to 0.5m/s until touchdown at 280-240 km/h and 16-20 by UUA-1. Back stick is used to arrest the nose preventing the nose tire from touching. As the nose begins to rise again the throttle is set to idle to prevent flying off the runway. The nose is set down by 240-210 km/h.

You'll know you're landing with lots of smoothness and control if you can put the main tires on the runway and lower the nose several seconds later at a time of your choosing. It is not critical to hold the nose after touchdown but it is a demonstration of control and good parameters if the pilot is able to do it. Attempts to fly such as to put only the main gear on the runway, roll ~1km, and then takeoff again without lowering the nose is a good demonstration of pilot ability.

Approach should be made relatively shallow 2°40'-2°30' aimed to impact at or even before the beginning of the runway. Touchdown occurs ~500m forward of the approach aimpoint because of the transition. At 300km/h a 2.66° approach is 3.9m/s vertical speed. Note that DA-200 instrument may not read exactly zero from your point of view when level so adjust by the knob. However the sink rate after the transition is judged by looking out the window.

@Frederf

Concise and very informative

@Auditor

Practical advice, reassuring, great tips!

Thank you both!

What I would like to know is a solution for bursting tyres (especially at high speeds). I haven‘t flown the MiG-21 for some weeks, but the problem is still the same. Does anybody else has the same problems during T/O or landing or are we talking about a gameplay bug?

Touch and Go is always an exciting procedure with this tyres...

... yeah... what it is... they are using budget tyres on these planes these days... actually I think some might even be remoulds!

:smilewink:

Jokin' mate..

You risk popping the tyres if you drop onto the runway too hard when landing and if your speed is too high prior to becoming airborne during take off

Check your pneumo brakes pressure on final, be sure you are not braking. Actually no problem with overspeed and overweight. Just wait for 1-2 sec on 1m altitude before touchdown.

Stable approach makes a good landing. Normal figures are

N1 85-90%

V/S 5-4m/s

AS 360-320 km/h

FPA 2°40'-2°30'

UUA-1 11-13

As the runway nears the values should be those on the right side.

 

Transition to touchdown starts at 20m height. By 10m height the power is reduced to 80%. UUA-1 does not exceed 15 during the transition. Sink rate is reduced to 0.5m/s until touchdown at 280-240 km/h and 16-20 by UUA-1. Back stick is used to arrest the nose preventing the nose tire from touching. As the nose begins to rise again the throttle is set to idle to prevent flying off the runway. The nose is set down by 240-210 km/h.

 

You'll know you're landing with lots of smoothness and control if you can put the main tires on the runway and lower the nose several seconds later at a time of your choosing. It is not critical to hold the nose after touchdown but it is a demonstration of control and good parameters if the pilot is able to do it. Attempts to fly such as to put only the main gear on the runway, roll ~1km, and then takeoff again without lowering the nose is a good demonstration of pilot ability.

 

Approach should be made relatively shallow 2°40'-2°30' aimed to impact at or even before the beginning of the runway. Touchdown occurs ~500m forward of the approach aimpoint because of the transition. At 300km/h a 2.66° approach is 3.9m/s vertical speed. Note that DA-200 instrument may not read exactly zero from your point of view when level so adjust by the knob. However the sink rate after the transition is judged by looking out the window.

This is indeed the correct technique and a very good post :thumbup:, according to our former pilots it is important to level out 1 meter above the runway and let the aircraft to settle, most people fail here and land the aircraft without flaring - this would be considered as a bad landing what I've talked to some former pilots I am in contact with. The correct flare, touchdown is very nicely shown in the following video:

Final approach and initial roll is seen where bottom of nose tire is coincident with axis of main wheels. Only at ~10m is small arrestment of sink but nose tire bottom does not go higher than top of main tire.

Later landing is slightly slower with nose wheel axis at top of main tire. No difficulty was had keeping nose wheel at same height (slightly more than 1 diameter) above runway in touchdown attitude after although this is LanceR.

This is a testable attitude in DCS.

EDIT: Yeah, looks right if you go fast enough 330km/h or so. I still don't like how much nose down pitch happens on main wheel touchdown. Clearly that's now how the real airplane behaves but DCS ground is notoriously sticky probably for sim reasons.

I had no idea I was being filmed when I landed those planes!

:pilotfly: .... in my dreams

Hey, GREAT video... loved watching those beautiful MIG's landing

Probably the greatest help of all is having less weight by the time you land. Don't even think about touching down unless you have less than 1000 L. You have a lot lesser chance to smash your gears apart on landing otherwise.

Final approach and initial roll is seen where bottom of nose tire is coincident with axis of main wheels. Only at ~10m is small arrestment of sink but nose tire bottom does not go higher than top of main tire.

 

Later landing is slightly slower with nose wheel axis at top of main tire. No difficulty was had keeping nose wheel at same height (slightly more than 1 diameter) above runway in touchdown attitude after although this is LanceR.

 

This is a testable attitude in DCS.

 

EDIT: Yeah, looks right if you go fast enough 330km/h or so. I still don't like how much nose down pitch happens on main wheel touchdown. Clearly that's now how the real airplane behaves but DCS ground is notoriously sticky probably for sim reasons.

I've tried to replicate the touchdown like in the videos and it is possible by following the RL procedure. Level out one meter above runway, let the speed drop to 260/280 km/h and just as the wheels touch the runway, pull back the stick to prevent nose falling down and at the same time cut the throttle to arrest the nose. The key is the low weight and low speed at touchdown with correct leveling out just above the runway. I would post a track, but unfortunately my tracks do not play well at all with Mig-21.

I recorded a video, although no sound and no external views, because of the track playback. I could continue the roll on the main wheels and take off again.

I actually found the Mig-21 pretty nice to land. Get speed to 400 by around 5-10km out. Gear down, full flaps and trim for hands off and about 5-10m/s decent rate.

Keep the touch down goal marker on the runway near but not on the bottom of the HUD. Gently flare at 10-20 meters. Only reducing throttle a little bit. Then once rear wheels touch you can throttle down.

I don't know if the plane is meant to be aerobraked but it aerobrakes nicely too :)

For practice at first, you don't need to touchdown. Practice getting the plane configured (gear out, full flaps) for the 350 kph and 5-10m/s decent, with hands off trim and end of runway near bottom of HUD glass. Then wave off, increase to military thrust, raise gear, flaps off, and go fly around to practice that again. Once comfortable with getting configured for landing, then try some touch and goes.

I myself just bought the module. I'm loving the hands on feel of the aircraft. It is a nice challenge. Personally I still need to learn to navigate and then use weapons myself. But still a really nice module if you want a more hands on experience.