Having a real tough time getting this thing on the ground. I’m flying a stabilized approach, on speed and GS. I’ll disconnect AP around 400’. I don’t make any major control inputs but shortly thereafter I start to hear “Sink Rate”. To address this I’ll add power but either it won’t come on fast enough and I slam into the runway or I’ll then float halfway down the runway. Sometimes I’m at 120 with throttles at idle (with Vref at 135) and the thing is still floating 20’ over the concrete.
What am I doing wrong? I can land the CJ4 perfectly, all day long but the CRJ is a challenge!
Yeah the CRJ is a bit special when it comes to landing. First of all, ignore the sink rate callout. Personally I don’t feel that it’s accurate. If you’re at Vapp and on the glideslope, you’re doing it right.
Secondly, be aware that - true to life or not, I don’t know - the CRJ is very sensitive to control inputs during landing, both control surfaces and throttle. So you really need to concentrate. What I generally do is cut throttle at 50’ AGL then I watch the runway edges with my peripheral vision like a hawk. As soon as I see those edges “accelerate” out of my sight I flare - gently.
Like yourself, I can land pretty much anything with ease, so the CRJ was a shock to my system. It’s the only aircraft thus far that has had me really work on my landings.
I found the flare to be a challenge as well with the tendency to float half way down the runway. I stopped flaring all together, cut throttle at the 50 call-out then at 20 just barely lift the nose. This combined with the ground effect is enough to arrest my decent.
Yes this has been my experience too. The window between flaring too much (float) vs too little (hard landing) is insanely narrow. The only way to master this is with a lot of practise.
Tried that and at 20, in idle, I lifted the nose and floated down half the runway. I’m wondering if I need to go with a lower approach speed than what the FMS calculates?
Everything without automatic throttle control is impossible to land hm? Either stalling or overshooting the runway - this is exactly my experience too.
Sorry but without an expensive throttle quadrant with a lot of notches plugged in the USB port of the PC and this way getting a “feeling” for the aircraft how much throttle it needs for a nice descent without stalling it will stay almost impossible to land.
The same goes for the PMDG Cloudmaster, good autopilot but no autothrust - phew getting too slow and stalling or overshooting the runway is unavoidable. The Cloudmaster has the positive aspect that the sinkrate can be controlled with one throttle setting: cruise flight throttle plus flaps down, but you can´t just let the engines on cruise flight power and extend the flaps for descent in the CRJ.)
The actual thrust levers on the CF-34B engines are very sensitive, that behavior is modelled very accurately. A key difference between the wing of the CRJ and the Citation CJ4 is that it has a significant sweep. So as you flare, the wingtips rotate closer to the ground. This dramatically increases ground effect and thus floating. The way I teach Challenger (from which the CRJ is derived) pilots is to slightly increase pitch attitude…maybe by one degree, no more…then as the airplane begins to float in ground effect, push the yoke forward and gently (but definitely) force the airplane on the ground. Continue to ease forward yoke to de-rotate the nose and continue forward pressure after nose gear touchdown. Some landings will be rough until you get the hang of it and develop the feel of the airplane.
Interesting. I keep trying to gently flare but when I do, I gain altitude and am back at 30-40’ over the runway. How close do you stay on V-approach? Exactly on it or a few knots over as a safety factor? In reading the Aerosoft tutorial flight instructions, it seems to caution you about a technique like this due to the possibility of landing on your nose gear. It’s obvious I need to keep practicing… The other part is that the sim doesn’t seem to provide different sound effects for how hard you hit the runway (unless you end up shearing your main landing gear off) so it’s tough to even know when I did a perfect landing or a horrible one.
At final approach, you need 135-140knots, with full flaps, your power should be 60/65%, below of that power you will lose speed and your pitch will be high to mantain your glide slope.
Remember to use reverse thrust to slow down your speed after touchdown.
Basically, you do NOT need to flare the CRJ! Since the turbines are in the back, cutting power produces a nose up movement, and that’s all you need for landing. I cut power at 100 - 50 ft and pull the yoke just the tiniest little bit when I get to 10 ft. Like that she settles super gently on the runway, with VS almost zero, and well within the runway landing markings.
Do use the final app. speed the FMC computes. Without wind you can even go some knts below, with crosswind add 5 knts.
Once you get the hang of this plane, you’ll love it!
I have around 175 flights with this bird and am now able to hand fly landings, even into unlisted airports (i.e. runway shorter than the min. 4.500 ft required for them to be in the CRJ data base).
Don´t forget to switch off the thrust reversers in the final approach because you can activate that accidentally when reducing thrust too much.
Wow that plane flies amazing as soon as the HUD is out and I can have the airspeed flight path always in my view! No problems at all without automatic thrust control when always being able to see how fast it flies thanks to the HUD.
I wish the Cloudmaster would have such a HUD…
For most novices, speed control is by far the most complex. And that starts way out from the airport, you want a nice controlled reduction in speed. Get that right and the CRJ is not hard to land.
a few things, I don’t have the CRJ but these things are generally valid:
on short final no instrument is important anymore except the speed. Hold Vref+wind correction, if you lose it go around. +10kts is acceptable but going slower is not advicable.
don’t chase your vertical speed, anything up to approx -400fpm is fine as long as you don’t bounce. You don’t flare airplanes this heavy like a Cessna 172, don’t hold it off the runway, literally fly it into the ground. At a Vref of ~130kts you’ll be descending at around 500 fpm and all you do is to break this descend at around 10-20 feet of height. I assume you get a 20 feet callout so at that point or very shortly after you lift your nose by a max of 2-3 degrees (judged by your eyes on the horizon) to reduce your rate of descend and you start (!) to close your throttles so you are at idle when you touch down. This way you should touch down at approximately -150 fpm which is a perfect landing rate. If you try to minimize your rate of descend all you will do is float forever and in longer aircraft eventually strike your tail. Vref is NOT close to stall speed, an airliner will aerodynamically still fly when you touch down. That’s why there are automatically deployed spoilers on top of the wings that will (as the name says) spoil your lift. DO NOT chase your VS, really. There are plenty VAs and programs that rate you on this value, scrap them. It’s bad and wrong technique and nothing but dangerous. Total nonsense.
I had other things in mind… I forgot them… If I remember them I’ll add them.
Oh yes…
Jet airliners are most of the time designed so that at normal landing flaps (usually one notch less then max flaps) you will require about 55% N1 to maintain Vref. 60-65% N1 for full flaps.
Cool of you to come here and ask. I had the exact same problem with the CRJ at first and found myself surprised after 21 years of sim experience, now struggling so much with this plane. Surely the bird must be bugged right? Nahhhh was all pilot error. Haha.
What I needed to learn was of course the manual throttle - but combined with the auto stabilizer trim. Observe this little indicator on your Stats-screen during approach and landing. You see, when you provide the aircraft with too little thrust, the auto-trim kicks in to point the nose up and that takes quite a lot of time to travel. When you then add gas because you’re finally about to stall, it takes a lot of time to travel back again. Especially when you don’t notice what its doing like I had a first so I was just struggling randomly and fighting elements of the plane I didn’t notice.
How I learned it with my Honeycomb throttle eventually is that it’s best to give it a few pounds of thrust always, even during decelerating. During final approach, every time you extend the flaps and eventually the gear, you add quite a punch to the engines as you’re creating drag they need to compensate for. Eyes on the stabilizer for checks if you’re still in (green) range. When in full configuration just before landing on the CRJ 700, my throttle on the honeycomb is in this position to keep (close) to the landing speed. For the 900 and 1000 it’s even further forward. The engines really need to work hard by then.
Also, make sure you select these speeds on the autopilot as I’m pretty sure (but not 100%) that they are linked to the auto stabilizer trim. At least I notice how I stayed out of trouble since I actually started to dial it in but it might just be coincidental with my own learning curve that came from nothing but practice.
I watched some pilots over at Youtube and noticed how they to keep lowering it. Going 220 when in range, 170 during approach and then about 145 during landing. Might give it a shot too, worked for me. Good luck and have fun trying it all out!
If you take it seriously, do what I adviced. If you give a peep, do what you want, it’s that simple If you want to chase your VS then go ahead, but don’t be surprised if you’ll balloon, float and run out of runway. Take advice if you wanna do it right, do what you want if it’s a game for you.
No problems at all without automatic thrust control when always being able to see how fast it flies thanks to the HUD.
