Boundary conditions for practicing landings

[Helios]

I have been practicing landings the last couple days and was wondering what are some operational boundary conditions for landing the A-10C? Kind of when should you (not) try to land, and when is it ok to whine about rough landing conditions without becoming the laughing stock of your fellow pilots.

 

A few random things I've been trying out:

 

• Trying VFR landing with 17 m/s (so about 32 kts) ~85deg crosswind - with a full loadout. Because according to the Operator's Checklist I found somewhere on the forum, 35 kts is the operational limit for "clean a/c normal operation" at 90 deg. I am not sure what "clean" means but I am starting to suspect it may mean "no munitions"? Should perhaps have thought about that sooner ... Anyways, can land with 20kts crosswind and full loadout every time no problem, but 32 kts ends up with an abort or popping a tyre or two if I risk a landing.
  
• IFR/IFS landing with rain and fog, 1 km thick and 110m visibility. Could track the glideslope reasonably well, but when I went past the runway threshold - lol, couldn't see a thing - after a few seconds of flying completely blind I thought I could vagely see some stripes next to me and tried to put down just for fun - landed just on the side of the runway which for some reason went completely fine. But I suspect these conditions are "banned" for landing if any other non-lethal options exist - seems you have to commit to making a landing before you even know for sure whether you are above the runway. I can't even imagine adding cross-wind to something like this ...
  
• Tried to simulate what an IFR/IFS landing would be like without the HUD to assist (e.g. assuming the HUD was knocked out by enemy fire), keeping heads-down and trying to use the other instruments to track the glideslope. Feeling really lost without the HUD flight point markers, steerpoint caret, and 0/5 deg lines to help, and the ADI seems just too crude to try to precisely track a 3 deg glideslope.
  

So I thought it might be an interesting question to ask - what are some reasonable boundary conditions for practicing real-life landings?

 

/ Helios

[Frederf]

Crosswind I don't know. Low level turbulence is bugged ATM so it's going to be harder than it's supposed to be.

 

VMC is 3SM visibility, 500' below 1000' above 2000' lateral clearance from clouds. Cat I ILS minimums are 200' height can see to land, visibility 800m or 550m RVR.

 

Approaches you can do heads down but landings are heads up. VASI/PAPI are invaluable visual aids for seeing position vertically. If the threshold is neither rising nor falling out the window you're flying toward it. Three degrees is pretty easy to eyeball with experience.

 

Try setting the HUD to backup and the pipper down to -170 mils for a -3 deg reference and do some laps around the pattern.

[Helios]

Thank you Frederf (again) :thumbup:

 

/ Helios

[Sinky]

If I remember correctly, in civil aviation anyways, if you have no visual on the runway as you pass over the inner marker, you get the hell out of there. It might have been your set minimums and not the inner marker, I can't remember. It's been years since I flew civil flight sim's.

[effte]

For a precision approach (i e approach with vertical guidance) you have a decision height, at which you either have the runway or go missed. That point should coincide with the middle marker. For a CAT I ILS the DH is usually around 200 feet above the threshold.

 

Very few runways have inner markers these days.

[Sinky]

For a precision approach (i e approach with vertical guidance) you have a decision height, at which you either have the runway or go missed. That point should coincide with the middle marker. For a CAT I ILS the DH is usually around 200 feet above the threshold.

 

Very few runways have inner markers these days.

 

Yeah like I said it's been many years, melting brain and so on. Am I right in saying they usually include the DH on approach plates?