Approach and landing help

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1

I am a beginner on xbox series x flight sim

I can take off ok and climb to altitude ok

Its a case of balancing A and B on the controller which increases or decreases engine with the trim - for which I use the Num pad keys on a keyboard. I monitor how the plane reacts when I adjust engine power with trim - whether the plane wants to go up or down - keeping an eye on the vertical speed indicator. While not being absolutely perfect - with these adjustments - I am fairly OK flying a plane at altitude.

My problem is going from altitude to landing at a destination runway - finding it very difficult.

I have a lot of queries about this

How do I gradually descend from altitude to make an approach and to land safely. At the moment, I just point the plane down to descend down - I find when I do this the speed goes up a lot and the flight is very erratic and difficult to control.

I need to know firstly how many km away from the destination runway do I need to start to descend. Say I am 15 km away from the runway and I start to descend on my approach to the runway - what does my altitude need to be at that point ?

What button presses do I need to use as far as A and B on the controller is concerned and key presses on the Num pad keys on the keyboard in trim adjustment - in order to achieve a gradual smooth descent towards the destination runway.

I am finding this very difficult. When I try and land at a runway - I am either flying too low and end up crashing - or I am too high and end up trying to rapidly lose altitude with the speed going out of control and not being able to land

I just want to be able to descend smoothly and to land safely - but I am not able to achieve this

I know flaps are 30 degrees on landing - when do I adjust the flaps for this as far as landing is concerned to land safely ?

Also once I have landed on the runway - how do I reduce speed and stop - what do I need to press to achieve this on the controller ?

The other secondary issue I have is with runway direction. I know runways have numbers like 90 180 270 etc but don’t exactly know what this means.

I think if runway is labelled 27 it goes east west direction - but not totally sure.

If say I am flying due north, and my destination runway is labelled 27 - does this mean when I approach to land at the runway that I have to fly in a due west direction in order to land ?

Look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts

Many Thanks

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So many questions? Being a beginner you should better have a look at the tons of tutorials in the web and learn from there how to fly and manage the many different airplanes. There are so many thing to learn . This is what I have done when I started 2 years ago.After a few months of learning and practice you’ll feel necessary to do some fine tuning of your skill and ask the pilots here in the forum.There are many very skilled people here and every now and then I raise my new questions too…Be patient,It takes some time but eventually the result will be fine.Good luck

3

Forgive any obviousness to my thoughts.

Regarding the runways numbering, they are numbered to the nearest compass degree minus the ones place. Examples: 1 would be 10°, 30 is 300°, etc.

You want to take off and land into the wind. When choosing a landing strip, tune to ATIS for the local airport if it is an uncontrolled airport (no tower) and listen to the initial report describing the wind. They read off wind direction followed by speed. You can also try a low pass over the airfield to try and spot the windsock. I have very limited success with this method, however — sometimes you can see them, sometimes not.

You haven’t stated the type of aircraft you’re flying. An airliner is a different beast to a small single engine propeller plane.

Start with the latter. In the case of the Cessna 152, you want to close the throttle to slow the engine speed and that will help reduce airspeed. Try doing this before you descend.

Try to find a Pilot’s Operating Handbook (POH) on the Internet for the model of airplane you’re flying in the sim. The POH will give you the speed ratings for the various flaps settings. You can start to apply flaps at intervals to generate drag and slow the plane further. On real “slippery” planes such as the Staggerwing, I sometimes even reduce power and pull back on the stick and climb ever so slightly to help slow the plane to a point where I can lower the flaps and get that drag going. Some of the aircraft also have this information on a printed placard/sticker somewhere in the cockpit — often near the flaps lever.

Also, don’t be afraid to turn on the assistance settings that draws the big landing path in the sky. Leaning to fly those will give you a sense of the proper decent profile (angle) that will help you get a feel for it.

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Training slow flight is good basic training for landing. Try to fly your aircraft little above stall speed without losing altitude. You’ll end up in good deal of nose up attitude and it will be hard to see ahead. Make your turns very gently, less you stall. Control speed with pitch and altitude with throttle (i.e. essentially reversed to normal flight). Don’t try to land or anything, simply learn to control the aircraft in such situation.

27 is from east to west yes.
3 degree glideslope is about 5x your airspeed in knots = feet per minutes of vertical speed (for example 60 knots, 300 feet, also 1nm per minute). Many fields have papi lights on the side towards the end of the runway to gauge the glideslope. Two red and two white is on the glideslope, more red light below it more white light above it.
Set your GPS’s direct to to the airfield, that way you get distance to it.
Set your barometer knob before takeoff so that your altitude is 0 on ground, much easier to gauge your altitude above the field. Also set your heading bug to the runway.

5

Pointing the plane down makes it go faster, as you observed. On final approach, you generally want to keep the nose pointing slightly upwards. If you cannot descend with your nose pointing upwards, you are too fast and / or do not have the flaps extended.

You extend the flaps when you’re decelerating to your approach speed, before entering the final approach, so usually, dunno, 3,000ft above the runway?

6

I am flying the same plane as in the tutorials - Cessna 152.

All I do is go to the world map and set the flight plan - departure airport and arrival destination - for example Heathrow to Bristol. I don’t set anything else, and I dont know how to do it

I then take off from Heathrow and once in the air I follow the circle icon on the horizon which indicates my destination airport - in this case - Bristol.

I can keep a relatively stable flight at altitude

I just need to know how to descend gradually on approach to landing for the Cessna 152 say 10 or 15 km away from Bristol

In other words, say I am at 3000 feet - how do I descend gradually with time to land at Bristol - in terms of button A and B on the x box controller and adjustment of trim on the keyboard ?

7

Here’s a suggestion.

At cruise, while maintaining level flight, press A+B together to close the throttle fully and watch watch happens. Use the thumbstick and/or trim to keep the aircraft level and watch what starts to happen to your airspeed.

For trim, generally speaking I don’t tend to make mass amounts of trim adjustments during descent. Depending on the scenario, I’ll trim for a 1000’/min descent or a 500’/min descent just so I don’t have to keep the yoke pushed forward. The only other real trim adjustments I make are when I start deploying the flaps as they will alter the aircraft’s attitude and, so, I re-trim accordingly.

Try over exaggerating your times for slowing and descending. From what you described in your OP, it sounds like you’re having to rush your descent and that’d just going to generate airspeed, which isn’t what you want. Start ridiculously early — as a learning process — if you end up at 1000’ AGL, and have to fly 20 NM at that altitude, so be it. You’re trying to learn here. Give yourself time and distance to do so.

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Ok - thanks - I have never tried pressing A and B together at level flight before starting to descend - hope this helps

After this I think it means that I don’t need to worry about A and B when descending - only adjustments to trim when descending - is that correct ?

To get descent of 1000 or 500 per minute - as I am using keyboard to adjust trim - I only need to press the keys on the Num pad to get this rate of descent I think

If this is correct - it will make things a lot easier for me as I only need to concentrate on adjusting trim when descending and not pressing A or B during descent

9

Hang on, let’s get the A & B deal cleared up.

A is increasing throttle and B is decreasing throttle (assuming you’re using the default Xbox control scheme).

There is a short cut to fully cut throttle by pressing both together.

You’re going to have to continue to manage your throttle during descent as you would do throughout your flight. Generally, you’re going to need to keep the throttle set to a place that helps maintain the speed you’re trying to achieve.

Understand that an aircraft has a Best Angle of Climb Airspeed (Vx) and a Best Rate of Climb Airspeed (Vy) and the principals of how/why those work also have a similar function when descending, however they aren’t as critical since climbing is significantly more important, say, when trying to clear an obstacle. You’re going to not only want to control your rate of descent (500’/min.,1000’/min., etc.) but your forward airspeed, too. That will have an effect on how many nautical miles you’re going to be covering as you make your descent. The slower your airspeed, the less distance you’re going to close on your target, and vice versa. Obviously, if you’re wanting to deploy your flaps, then your airspeed is also going to be key to know when it is safe to do so.

I’m just trying to get you to learn about slowing the aircraft and how it responds when you cut power. Knowing how an aircraft behaves in various conditions will give you the knowledge required for understanding how to control it within those conditions.

By cutting the throttle and maintaining level flight, you’re going to learn how quickly that aircraft will slow as it is no longer generating any useful thrust to propel it forward.

10

No, you will still need to use the throttle. You can cut throttle in cruise to slow down more rapidly (if that oxymoron makes sense lol) and the nose will drop — and you can use trim to maintain the altitude or your descent rate (you won’t be able to maintain altitude with no throttle though, it will just slow to the point of stalling unless you introduce some throttle again to balance the speed you want).

The things are very much interlinked. Every change of speed you’re making will affect the trim required and every adjustment in trim will affect the pitch (nose angle) which in turn affects the speed. So you do and willl need to work the controls together.

Best and simplest way to think about it is in “stages”.

From Cruise to Touchdown can be broken down into some basic steps that are generally the same for most, if not all, aircraft.

  1. Slow down and start descending.
  2. Get the speed down to where you can deploy first stage of flaps, which helps to slow down further.
  3. Reach your target approach speed.
  4. Deploy next stage of flaps then add power to keep that speed and trim for level flight.
  5. Line up to the runway and maybe add final stage of flaps (depending on the aircraft) and trim again to maintain glide slope to runway.
  6. Now with smaller movements in all controls, manage this speed and trim so that you’re at landing speed when you reach the runway. Gradually slowing down or keeping the speed (i.e not speeding up).
  7. When you’re down, cut the power fully (A+B) and focus on keeping it straight. In tail-draggers it’s best to raise the flaps fully again so that you can pull back a bit on the stick to get the rear wheel down (for steering authority) without the plane wanting to take off again.

NOTES:

  • Trim is just so that you can keep the joystick nearer the centre to maintain your path, thus making small adjustments with the joystick more accurate.

  • Often you need to add more power at each flaps increase otherwise the extra drag will slow you down too much and you will stall.

  • Flaps purpose is to lower the stall speed by giving you more lift. Means you can approach the runway at a slower speed without being as near to dangerous stall situation.

  • You’ll get used to how long it takes for different planes to react to the speed changes in those stages. For little GA planes you don’t need much space to go from one state to the other but some aircraft are a lot more “slippery” and obviously in jets everything happens over much longer distances and at higher speeds.

  • You’ll also get your eye in on the glide slope and get a feel for what the runway should look like as you approach — if you’re too high or too low etc. This is the same for all planes so it’s just a matter of practice.

This is over simplified, but hope it can help you get the basic steps in order.

11

As before during approach you control altitude with throttle, airspeed with pitch. So you use A and B to control altitude, and (presumably, I haven’t checked Xbox controller bindings) control airspeed with the left ministick up/down movement.

The reason why you do it in this order is obvious if you are flying close to stall speed and start pulling back on the yoke (or adjusting trim upwards, though you shouldn’t use trim as active flight control) in attempt to gain altitude: your aircraft will stall and if low to ground will probably crash.

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Thanks for all your thoughts about landing - I will try to do my best - hopefully I will finally be able to get there

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