Landing flare

One more question.. it's about landing... (then i'll shut up.. maybe:D)

 

This plane is probably the most conventional GA-like airplane i have in DCS (and believe me, it's one of the reasons i love it), so i seem to land it like one.

 

The manual states 180kmh (little less than 100 knot) touchdown speed. I noticed that i am constantly landing quite a bit slower actually, because i am trying to land as slow as practically sensible, like i would your ordinary Cessna or Piper.

 

So i think i should land faster, coming in faster and not over flare the plane. (manual says something about parachuting but that is a new term for me in landings). If so, what is the reason? i noticed already that the plane seems to come little unstable at flare nearing stall speeds. Is this one reason? Tailstrike? Too high nose gear drop?

 

I have owned various DCS modules since 2012 but the Albatros is the first one i truly take seriously - like the GA planes i have in FSX, so i might been a tad autistic ;)

The risk of tail strike could be a reason not to flare the aircraft close to a stall, as you do a Cessna. This would also require you to cross the threshold at a lower speed, closer to stall, which is quite dangerous in any jet and especially this one with its long spool up time.

 

Now that I read your comment again I realise you've got most of it covered! Follow the manual and you'll be doing it right :) This airplane already has some sweet short(er) field performance compared to other jets, no need to stall it and risk getting behind the power curve .3 miles before touchdown.

 

Just my thoughts, and I love this module.

Hey thanks for your answer.

 

Yeah been doing touch and goes (properly for the first time ever in DCS with this module!) with little higher speeds and now i get the hang of it i think. I took some video too to analyze the touchdown attitude etc from outside, thought i share it:

 

(the audio is compressed a lot for some reason and the camera got crazy in the first touchdown sry)

 

Don't mind the pattern, and i've fast forwarded them

 

I had a quite light plane hence the speeds are tad slower (the IAS on the info bar is CAS in my mind and a tad different from plane ASI).

 

What'd ya think? I think the first one was the best, then i tend to flare too high... too bad the camera went crazy on the first one.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Alfredson007

... manual says something about parachuting but that is a new term for me in landings

I believe it's a translation error and Aero Vodochody use "parachuting" to describe "floating" in ground effect.

 

What'd ya think? I think the first one was the best, then i tend to flare too high... too bad the camera went crazy on the first one.

They all looked like great landings and IAS looked spot on when compared to the US L-39ZA POH numbers/pilot annotations, except for last (and lightest) which looked like it might have been 5 knot less than I might have expected from the POH. A 5% error is pretty good considering the difficulty DCS has with modelling ground effect and more than satisfactory. IMHO it would be swamped by other factors in RL (wind, weight/CoG changes, runway condition, etc.)

Edited August 31, 2017 by Ramsay

considering the difficulty DCS has with modelling ground effect

 

Sorry for going a bit OT maybe, but what's that difficulty you're talking about? At least the ground effect is there and noticeable, and feels pretty realistic too IMO.

Sorry for going a bit OT maybe, but what's that difficulty you're talking about? At least the ground effect is there and noticeable, and feels pretty realistic too IMO.

Ground effect is an "edge case" phenomenon, so very hard to model exactly (you only have to look at the F-5E bug where "ground effect" increased lift when passing under bridges, to see the sort of "tricks" needed to make it work realistically.

 

IIRC part the DCS ground effect physics model needs a surface wind to be present, there some other bits and bobs of real world physics missing (I forget the exact details). IMHO it's mostly minor stuff that only becomes significant when trying to get that last 10-5% of flight model accuracy by which time you're probably having to make compromises to keep other parts of the flight regime accurate.

 

The L-39 flight model is fantastic, it flies to RL speeds/documentation and where I've had minor difficulty with Aero Vodochody's figures, I've been able to apply real life pilot notes to corrected the problems in DCS (some of their approach speeds are minimums and the target speed should be 10-20 knot higher).

 

TL; DR: When I say "DCS has (difficulty) modelling ground effect", I don't mean DCS is bad - just that "modelling ground effect is difficult".

OK, good to know, especially Yo-Yo's saying of the precision of the thing ;) Anyway, FWIW & as I said, it does feel believable at any rate.

 

S!