Landing how to ?

[Raploc]

Well after 30 landings and 30 deaths :doh: I'm still not able to land without wrecking the KA-50. Seeing the fact that there are people who can land the KA-50, I'm asking you out there to help me and other people with some tips and tricks.

[slug88]

Post a track of one of your attempts, then we can give you some specific advice :).

[sonic]

Disengage auto hover maybe?

[Airway]

Hello!

What exactly is the problem?

 

I think most crashes on landing occur because the pilots are decending to fast or don't touch the ground with the rear wheels or all three at the same time.

 

Look at the training lessons for landing to see how a rolling landing should be done.

It's easier first than doing a hover landing.

 

And be gentle on the flightstick. Don't do hasty movements what would lead into chasing the controls and loose it in the end.

Edited December 29, 2008 by Airway

[Kupo]

The number one threat when doing a vertical landing is probably entering a vortex ring state. If you descend too fast, you will be unable to get lift by increasing the collective and fall down like a rock.

 

One way to land is to do get down low during the approach, decelerate and enter a auto-hover above the area where you want to land being careful to try to keep your current altitude. Finally slowly descend (1 m/s or less preferably) until you touch ground.

[nemises]

Make sure your wheel brakes are OFF so you can roll a little on landing.

 

Come in and land a little like an airplane, rather than trying to do a stright up / down pinpoint landing...better to have a known velocity vector (forward and down) rather than having to deal with a constantly changing one like when in a hover.

 

Try landing on just the rear wheels, much less likely to tip over left or right.

 

As SOON as you are wheels down, reset trim , or you could tip.

 

hmm..whatelse...be very gentle with the collective, but be aware you'll need to take away more than you expect once you're in the ground effect zone (5 meters?)

[ZaltysZ]

Pay attention to wind; try landing against it, its direction is given by tower.

 

Avoid fast vertical descents (over 3m/s), because greater sink rates may put your aircraft in vortex ring state.

 

Safe vertical descent is slow and boring, instead descend in spirals around your landing location and enter hover only near ground and near landing point.

 

Be prepared for ground effect - lift increases much near the ground (few meters). Smartly counter that with collective. Be warned, ground effect might effect only part of rotor and can create assimetric lift if altitude varies under rotor (for example: on the edge of helipad, near some slope and etc.).

 

You may try to decrease throttle (PgUp/PgDwn) to one position above the idle. This will make Ka-50 to react less and be handled more smoothly. However, better practice to land on AUTO positon.

 

Don't forget to flare (rising nose just a little) before touching ground.

Edited December 29, 2008 by ZaltysZ

[Vortex]

Do not rush the landing approach.

 

Setup an approach at 60 knots 1 mile form the landing site at 600 feet AGL (as you learn the setup picture you can start from much higher or lower heights with the corresponding speeds).

 

Use a point on the windshield to use as your aiming point. Keep your landing spot at this point and keep the speed coming down. At 250 feet AGL you should be at 30-25knots. Any slower and you risk losing tranlational lift early, and any faster you risk having to arrest your speed at the landing site to quickly and using excess power.

 

If the landing spot goes below the spot on the windshield, raise the collective a little, and vise versa if it goes above.

 

To give you an idea of how fast you should be travelling. In real life you want the ground speed below to look like a fast walk, as you get closer this effect slows you down. How this tranlates to you on the PC is purely up to you. Just remember that as you descend you need to keep the speed coming down slowly so that your rate of descent is decreasing.

 

Once the landing site goes under your nose aim 10 meters ahead to help you "reach" your landing spot and not come up short. You can hold in a 10 foot hover over this spot until you feel comfortable to touch down.

 

Important, land into the wind! This desciption is a little misleading, the landing needs have a headwind component (even if it's at a angle), but only to the ground effect hover, after this you can land any direction you feel comfortable. Remembering that if power is critical you may want to point the nose into wind for touch down.

 

People make the mistake of thinking a normal landing is a "quick stop" followed by a touchdown, because that's what you see on tv and it looks cool. Quickstops are fun, especially "flare and turn's" but they are not how you approach a landing.

[Fishu]

Toggle on all the AP modes except altitude hold and then toggle on the FD. Trim your chopper to keep pitch and bank level with the (artificial! you don't want to level with the top of a mountain in front of you) horizont. Keep some forward motion and gently descend towards the landing platform, but be cautious of the vortex ring state.

 

There's no hurry, just keep it steady and going forward while eliminating any side slip. Try to keep control inputs to minimum especially closer to the ground and platform so you don't enter into pilot induced oscillation. Remember to keep it trimmed so you don't have to fight the controls, especially try to avoid fightning banking inputs which could lead to side slip - pitch is easier to keep in check.

 

Try to keep in forward motion until you flare for landing, adjust the speed so that you have time to adjust your position sideways. It's much easier if you don't have to adjust by reversing. Look out from the left side window for the platform when you get to it and make small corrections by side slip - remember to not enter into pilot induced oscillation. If you get too much side slip, correct it gently and when you're steady again then re-adjust your position over the platform. When entering above the platform you should be leveled just above it so that you don't have to mind the vertical position when adjusting your position for landing (though, keep enough altitude to safely pass over any vehicles near by).

 

Just before touching down you should slow down to a halt, although very little forward or backward movement doesn't matter, but any side slip will be a bit nasty. Don't idle the throttle at once, but put it down by gently decreasing throttle until you touch the ground and then slowly decrease throttle to idle. Remember to use your brakes so you don't roll over the platform. Trimming the stick slightly backwards once throttle is at idle will reduce the forward motion (assuming that before touchdown you had trimmed the chopper to nearly hover).

 

When approaching your altitude curve should resemble a downwards curve that at first goes down rapidly and then levels off for a bit at the end before touching down.

[Geier]

As for me landing is quite simple.

Helo landing.

Firstly you should find the place where to land. Fly at slow speed there, pull up and wait untill your speed become 0 +/- 3kmph. Than press RAlt+T to trimm helo in hanging position. After this down gears and press PgDown to decrease speed. Press D and see how your helo is landing. Of course you must lower the left stick at the same time. When the helo is grounded you should decrease speed by pushing PgDown several times. Well done:thumbup:

[d0ppler]

As for me landing is quite simple.

Helo landing.

Firstly you should find the place where to land. Fly at slow speed there, pull up and wait untill your speed become 0 +/- 3kmph. Than press RAlt+T to trimm helo in hanging position. After this down gears and press PgDown to decrease speed. Press D and see how your helo is landing. Of course you must lower the left stick at the same time. When the helo is grounded you should decrease speed by pushing PgDown several times. Well done:thumbup:

 

Don't think its common practice to reduce engine power BEFORE you hit the ground. It sounds very dangerous to me at least.

[AlphaOneSix]

A good rule of thumb to avoid Vortex ring is 30/300, if you are flying at less than 30 knots of airspeed your rate of descent should be less than 300 fpm, so if your rate of descent is more than 300 fpm then your airspeed should be more than 30 knots. There is some waggle room of course, but like I said as a rule of thumb it will keep you out of trouble.

 

Good advice! For those not using imperial units, the (close enough) metric equivalent is 2 meters per second descent on the VSI, and about 50km per hour forward airspeed.

[Boberro]

Well I am always landing like plane cos I can't another too good.

[Stalker_it]

See Vertical Velocity Indicator (VVI). (1m/s).

 

Look at the training lessons for landing and near ground Esc and take control

[d0ppler]

Good advice! For those not using imperial units, the (close enough) metric equivalent is 2 meters per second descent on the VSI, and about 50km per hour forward airspeed.

 

good rule indeed. I just wan't to point out that we're now talking about true airspeed and not ground speed.

[Geier]

Don't think its common practice to reduce engine power BEFORE you hit the ground. It sounds very dangerous to me at least.

I meant not to reduce at all, but make it a bit lower by pressing PgDown one or two times. It's needed to decrease the engine load.

[Raploc]

Thanks for all the advice, at the moment the score is 33 landings to 32 deaths. I made a single mission with 20C temp and starting at almost sea level with no wind. As suggested I'm trying to be as smooth with the stick and rudder as possible but somehow I'm still ending up slipping sideways. Vertical speed isn't a problem, I'm managing about 0.5 to 1 meter/s down with a forward speed of about 30kph. I'll keep you posted.

[AlphaOneSix]

I meant not to reduce at all, but make it a bit lower by pressing PgDown one or two times. It's needed to decrease the engine load.

 

Hitting PgDown does reduce the throttle. Don't do it until you're already on the ground. That's what the collective is for.

[Geier]

Hitting PgDown does reduce the throttle. Don't do it until you're already on the ground. That's what the collective is for.

Little reducing the rpm is very useful to avoid over load of engine during landing. That's it

[AlphaOneSix]

Little reducing the rpm is very useful to avoid over load of engine during landing. That's it

 

 

No no, it's very BAD. You don't want to lower your RPM. Lowering the throttle DOES NOT reduce the load on the engines. You should NEVER lower the throttles below AUTO while the aircraft is in the air (exceptions perhaps are for training certain emergency procedures). You CERTAINLY should never reduce your throttles during landing. If you want to lose altitude, reduce your collective. That's it.

[Geier]

No no, it's very BAD. You don't want to lower your RPM. Lowering the throttle DOES NOT reduce the load on the engines. You should NEVER lower the throttles below AUTO while the aircraft is in the air (exceptions perhaps are for training certain emergency procedures). You CERTAINLY should never reduce your throttles during landing. If you want to lose altitude, reduce your collective. That's it.

Please read correctly. Where have I posted that you should use throttle insted of collective in case of landing? I've written - make your rpm a bit lower, and than go down by using left stick. A bit lower means not zero point but nominal - low rpm;)

[d0ppler]

Please read correctly. Where have I posted that you should use throttle insted of collective in case of landing? I've written - make your rpm a bit lower, and than go down by using left stick. A bit lower means not zero point but nominal - low rpm;)

 

Well, Pressing PageDown reduces throttle, which you should NOT do before you are safe on the ground.

 

Here you said it :

As for me landing is quite simple.

Helo landing.

Firstly you should find the place where to land. Fly at slow speed there, pull up and wait untill your speed become 0 +/- 3kmph. Than press RAlt+T to trimm helo in hanging position. After this down gears and press PgDown to decrease speed. Press D a.....

[Geier]

Yes I wrote this, but I mentioned the collective too

 

Of course you must lower the left stick at the same time.

Please, told me, why do you think that using the throttle is prohbited?

Read the manual, esp pages about Basic Flight.

It's very useful, try to decrease rpm with flares in addition, against IR missiles. It'll save you in almost 90% of such cases.

[Frederf]

Throttle below the Auto setting is prohibited in flight. The low and high idle settings are strictly for start up and shut down phases of flight. When not in a flight position of the throttle, the helicopter is not flight worthy.

 

I guess I would compare it to parking a car and turning the ignition off before you got into the parking space.

 

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As far as landing goes, a lot of the given advice is good. My personal modus operandi is to start at say, 300m and 150 kmph, whatever you were flying during the traveling phase heading back to base. If you're trying to land on a helipad you want to be at 0m and going 0 kmph, yes? If you start at 300m / 150kmph you just want to gradually reduce both at the same time. Half way to the landing point you might be at 150m / 75kmph, then half way again 75m / 36kmph... all the way down to 0m / 0kmph.

[haigotron]

I find that landing on a helipad is alot harder then the runway, because, quite frankly I can't see vertically down, do I have to come in at an angle and gently "slope" down sideways onto the helipad?

 

I guess I can always open the door and look down?