Hello everyone!
Please, is there any rule or technique of approach when landing in VRF in a runway without papi lights at general aviation?
When I see the runway, sometimes I am too high and need to dive, others I am too low and I have to climb, almost wavering.
Is there a right angle of descending? Or it is a pilot choice?
Thanks!
You want to try and have a steady descent rate the whole way down to the runway rather than dive at the end. Iâve made a short video that explains how I do it when there arenât any lights at the airport. I cover a few other related topics in the video as well.
1 Like
More or less the latter. Especially since different RWYs have different lengths and width. It is a matter of practice. Mentally glue that touchdown point on the runway to its location in the front window (my instructor had me make a thumbprint there) and keep it in that position. If your decent rate is approximately your airspeed times 5 or 6, you are flying as close to a standard three degrees as can be achieved under these circumstances.
3 Likes
Thank you both guys!
Install the Working Title G1000 Mod and you get a flight path marker that continuously computes where your nose is actually pointed. That is a real function not on the Asobo version.
The real life G1000 can also provide you with an artificial flight pathway to landing just by specifying the pattern Altitude and the airport destination. The WT mod doesnât do that, but if you can get on final approach, all you have to do is establish a good descent rate, aim the flight path marker on the runway numbers and youâll nail the landing.
1 Like
Check out FS Academy VFR, itâll tell you all that and more. Itâs a bit like Rod Machado.
3 Likes
Well in a Cessna I would aim for best glide speed on final which is about 65 knots. Use pitch to adjust speed speed and power to adjust height. For example assuming you are too fast pull back on the stick. If you are to slow push forward. If you get the correct glide speed for your AC if you are head of the curveâŚ
2 Likes
Hmmmm. âIf your decent rate is approximately your airspeed times 5 or 6, you are flying as close to a standard three degrees as can be achieved under these circumstances.â
Nice rule of thumb.
6 Likes
Did you take the 8-part C152 tutorial available through the main menu? It contains a lot of good information and practice for flying a traffic pattern and how to land.
3 Likes
Hi,
The best way [I have found] to get your none Papi lights approach and landing right is this:
First practice and become proficient at landing your aircraft of choice using a glideslope.
First find a handy [and quiet] airport that provides a glideslope for landing.
Then practice manual landings by following the glideslope, manually, all the way down to the flare and touchdown.
The best way [I have found] to do this is to approach your âpracticeâ airport from far enough away such that as you intercept the glideslope:
a. Your speed is already at the correct approach speed for the aircraft you are flying.
b. Your flaps, lights, cowls etc are all already configured for landing re the aircraft you are flying.
c. You are 1700 ft above the height of the runway [not sea level, the runway you intend to land at].
So then, with all the above set up, as you intercept the glideslope turn off your auto pilot, throttle back [not all the way - in my Mooney I throttle back to about 700 RPM] and push the nose down so that you are now following the glideslope down.
Now you should trim up the aircraft such that it is, more or less, following the glideslope with no input on the controls from you [of course you will still have to correct for the wind].
At this point, if necessary you should make small adjustments to the throttle so that your descent rate stays at exactly 500 ft per minute [remember small throttle changes are the order of the day here, plus the time needed for them to take effect].
The point of all the above is that you will find that a glideslope intersection at 1700 ft above the height of the airfield with a subsequent descent speed of 500 ft per minute will nicely follow the glideslope all the way down to the flare.
So, back to your original question: âthe none Papi approachâ.
well, using your newly honed landing skills just try to treat the approach and landing as using an imaginary glideslope.
Thus, approach at 1700 ft and let your âminds eyeâ guide you as to what the airport should look like at the [now imaginary] glideslope interception point [around 5 miles out ] and then follow that baby down at 500 ft per minute to [with practice] a perfect touchdown.
A few further thoughts:
In real life [and to emulate real life pilotage in a simulator], pilots should NOT approach from too high, too close. It increases risk because everything has to be hurried and it is difficult, if not impossible, to lose enough speed to actually land.
Conversely [and you will see this a lot in MSFS] , pilots should NOT approach from too low, too far out. The risk then is that [aside from the increased risk of collision] an engine failure will almost certainly result in crashing SHORT of the runway.
The result of practice is that the same good techniques should be employed in the same measured manner to build up a consistency that results in every landing being the same as the last one
and the next one!
And with such a baseline you can then make meaningful personal assessments such as:
âThat was a great landingâ or âa good landing given the conditionsâ or perhaps ânot so good must do betterâ.
I hope that at least some of the above is of help.
5 Likes
Check to see if your airport has a stated/published circuit. Join it and follow the flight path/height. They are all a bit different but of course will all allow you to land.
Get the Pilot Operating Handbook for your plane and find itâs recommended approach speed. Map this to the above. Use throttle and flaps stage 2/3 where available to adjust your approach.
1 Like
So if my approach speed is 70 knots my descent should be about 350 ft/m?
1 Like
Example,If we are talking General Aviation type of plane like the C172 and youâre purely flying VFR (not a visual approach at the end of your IFR flight), then you would simply descend down to the pattern altitude which is typically 1000ft AGL and then you would enter the traffic pattern and land. You have the runway in sight all the time and you donât need any lights to judge whether youâre too high or low simply because youâve trained for this.
So in the Sim do the same. Stay in the pattern and practice touch and gos. Downwind still 1000 AGL, then turn base, descend, slow down, put flaps, turn final, slow down to your final approach speed, full flaps.
Youâre aim point is in front of your desired touch down point, so often times it is in front of the runway. It has to stay steady in front of you. You simply try to keep it in one spot and keep the speed stable at the same time.
Once you get close to the runway you pull the throttle, transition to a glide, let the speed burn off and let the plane land. You will start to learn to see what the right picture of the runway is and judge whether youâre too low or too high.
These are the fundamentals of flight training. Practice until youâre comfortable with this.
3 Likes
What I did with MSFS was going back to basics ( after spending decades with all kind of PC sims) I started with the 152, just doing traffic patterns, over and over. Every time I paid attention to how my pattern looked like, how my approach was, how smoothly I managed to land. Then I went for longer flights, tried stalls, simulated engine failures, cross country flights with a paper VFR map and clock. After 20 hours, I switched to the the steam 172, and started doing cross country flights with VOR-to-VOR, GPS, started doing short IFR flights.
I also watched a lot of flight school videos on YouTube and used my very limited real life experience with gliders. All of these together helped me a lot to be a decent sim GA pilot in MSFS.
I just started to look into the G1000 version with the WT mod, it will be interesting to learn that as well.
4 Likes
Well you are looking at a 3 degree glidepath, achieving this without any lights, FPAs, DME etc. requires practise and experience, it also depends on the length and width of the runway, a narrow runway could give the illusion of being high and you might subsequently fly the approach at a lower angle and vice versa for a wider runway.
It is more difficult when flying a straight-in approach as during a VFR circuit you have certain âkey-positionsâ which help you determine the correct flight path. For example, you start at 1000 ft AAL, correct downwind distance is determined by the wing-striping (should overlay the runway) or the little step on the Cessna, turn to base should be when the threshold is 45 degrees behind the wing or alternatively you could do what we use for IFR circling approaches, and time when abeam the threshold for altitude above field / 100 x 3, for example, 1000 ft AAL is 30 seconds. You should be familiar with the correct powersetting and rate of descent to end up on a 3 degree glidepath on final. Youâll need to take the wind into account in everything of course.
Then on final, either when flying a circuit or a straight-in approach, it comes down to experience to fly an exact 3 degree approach, too steep and you might pick-up speed which needs to be bleed off before touchdown, extending the landing distance, too shallow and youâll might not have sufficient obstacle clearance. Anyway, its important to know the key-positions on final:
- Correct speed, the correct threshold speed should be 1.3 x the aircraft stallspeed, you might fly the approach 5 kts faster if you like but scrub of the 5 kts extra speed before reaching the threshold.
- 3 degree glidepath, comes down to experience if flown without any guidance (PAPI, ILS, DME vs altitude, FPV), take into account the runway length / width combination as it might cause the illusion of being high or low on approach.
- Aim for the aiming point markers (the two white blocks abeam where the PAPI would be located), when flown correctly this will result in crossing the threshold at 50 ft.
- Start the flare over the aiming point markers, bleed off excess speed, bring the aircraft in the correct landing attitude, reduce vertical rate and land. All of this is taken into account in the POH landing distance, 3 degree glidepath, 50 ft threshold crossing height, start of flare over the markers, touchdown and brake.
- Note: touchdown occurs AFTER the aiming point markers, not ON the markers as in the Mickey Mouse landing challenges. If you want to touchdown ON the markers you need to start flare before, therefore crossing the threshold at a lower height, eating up margin for undershoots. Its not normally done that way in real life.
- Its important to understand the purpose of the flare, which are: reduce energy, correct landing attitude, reduce vertical rate. Some people will tell you to âstallâ the aircraft onto the runway, people often mistake the stall warning activation as being a stall, stall warning is still far from the actual stall, nor is there any point in doing so as it only extends the landing distance. So, above the runway, power to idle, reduce vertical rate, keep the aircraft off the runway until the correct landing attitude has been reached (landing on the main gear first), then touchdown and start braking.
It seems to me your problem is not only flying a 3 degree glide path but also a stable glidepath. Coming in slightly shallow or steep is usually not a problem but at least the glide path should be stable. You can do this by focussing on the aiming point markers, doing this you will quickly see if you are overshooting (distance between the nose of the aircraft and the markers becoming smaller) or undershooting (the distance between the nose of the aircraft and the markers becoming larger). Try to fly a couple of approaches completely focussing on the markers and nothing else.
In real life the âscanâ on final approach consists of looking at the runway, and the speed indicator, runway-speed-runway-speed, all the way to start of flare. When starting the flare shift your focus to the end of the runway which makes it much easier to determine the aircraft height above the runway.
To give you some perspective, depending on the airline pilots may not even be allowed to make visual approaches without any vertical guidance, especially at night. So even with a lot of experience it might still be tricky.
Hope it helps,
Former CFI
7 Likes
Yes and thatâs the exact reason why people canât even fly a standard circuit anymore. Last year we had more than 50 applicants for our Skyvans and only 3 (!!!) where able to fly the Cessna properly during a check flight. Terrible. And if you ask them basic questions they look at you like a squirrel. No idea where some of them got their CPL from.
2 Likes
That is the downside of automation. Its even adopted in the definition of airmanship nowadays âbeing aware of the pitfalls of overdependance on automationâ. A former colleague of me had an assessment some time ago and asked me to explain how to fly a conventional SID 
. He was only flying RNAV-SIDs in his current job, so no clue anymore how to set-up for a conventional SID and use VORs, ADF, DME etc. 
.
2 Likes
Thank you very much dor your information!
1 Like
I donât think the Garmin is the reason why folks canât fly a standard circuit.
The PFS they came from has a lot to do with that. Secondly, if they have a Commercial rating, whoever signed off on that, including the relevant government agency depending upon country of origin, has a share in that blame.
The artificial pathway was designed to provide virtual VNAV down to threshold. Thatâs certainly a great aid to aviators, especially if theyâre approaching a field theyâve never been to before. I see it more as like a car GPS providing guidance to drivers when theyâve never been to this street destination.
Iâm not arguing someone shouldnât know how to fly a circuit entry to a field. But letâs not discount that some of the technology thatâs evolved just in the last five years has really improved Aviation safety like Garmin SafeReurn â˘. Look at this list going back a decade ago from AOPA talking about exactly all these G1000 features. Yes, use them as an aid, not a crutch. But you canât blame these features for lack of qualified flyers. Thatâs still 100 percent a human failing.
2 Likes
Rule of thumb for GA aircraftâŚ
1- Approach airfield above 1500ft or 2000ft agl or relative airfield altitude
2- Fly over the airfield and determine best landing runway depending on wind direction or obstacles.
3- Turn to âdownwindâ or 180 Deg reverse to landing runway direction. Establish 1000ft above airfield altitude.
4- When on 45 DG passed the threshold of the runway (look over your shoulder) turn into âbase legâ witch will be 90 DG left or right depending of you circuit entry.
5- Reduce speed, apply first stage of flaps an descent to 500ft above airfield altitude.
6- Turn to runway heading. Apply full flaps, target landing speed and descents using thrust.
7- After passing runway threshold and if bellow 10ft reduce full power, gently picht up (flare) and wait for main wheels touch down.
8- If landed assored pull flaps up continue to pich up and apply brakes bellow 30 to 20 knts
9-If too hight, too fast on the threshold or if runway left is to short âgo aroundâ. Apply full thrust, right foot to counter act propeller torque, maintain center line and takeoff at appropriate speed (Vr).
10- Remove flaps in stages above 500ft and turn 90 DG right or left depending of circuit to âcrosswind legâ
4 Likes