Hard Landings

[CAPFlyer]

Tyler, if you have a "hard" landing by our definitions due to weather, then you were being an unsafe pilot, plain and simple. Under no circumstances, except an emergency, is a hard landing acceptable pilotage in any sense. If the weather is so bad that they have no option but to land hard, then a divert to a more suitable airfield was in order or an aborted landing (i.e. missed approach) should have been executed and the approach attempted again. This is because such a landing results in loss of revenue and reputation to the airline because they have to take an aircraft out of service for maintenance inspection and possibly repairs prior to allowing it to fly again. As such, just as with the real world, although a pilot will not normally suffer any disciplinary actions (unless it was gross negligence that resulted in the hard landing), it will still result in such an occurrence being noted in your file and a "ding" made on his records due to loss of prestige within the company for such an action.

[flightsimer]

im talking about the weather that just comes out of nowhere without any warning. all of what i listed can change at a momments notice and when its too late (when your right about to touch done). key example is the fedex flight 80. the md-11 was doing fine until it was about to flare and was hit by a 40kt gust which ultimately casuse it to crash.

or a few years ago when a micro burst came literally out of nowhere with no warning and nearly caused a plane to flip at my local airport when it was landing...

[Brian Peace]

Weve actually has airpolane flip over on taxi numerous times at our local airport here (CYQL) ... quite a windy area in spring, and fall

I agree with a stiffer penalty for really hard landings, but right now the data is questionable it seems.

[CAPFlyer]

im talking about the weather that just comes out of nowhere without any warning. all of what i listed can change at a momments notice and when its too late (when your right about to touch done). key example is the fedex flight 80. the md-11 was doing fine until it was about to flare and was hit by a 40kt gust which ultimately casuse it to crash.

or a few years ago when a micro burst came literally out of nowhere with no warning and nearly caused a plane to flip at my local airport when it was landing...

FedEx 80 was a classic example of a pilot putting a plane into an area where it should have never been. The winds had been reported earlier, and the MD-11 is a notoriously bad aircraft to fly in such conditions. There have in fact been two previous crashes of the MD-11 in similar conditions - China Airlines Flight 642 in 1999 and FedEx Flight 17 in 1997. Both were traced to the crew failing to properly adjust for the gusty conditions, and both times they landed hard because the gust "let up" prior to touchdown. A properly computed and executed approach takes account of these gusts and are designed to minimize the effect of loosing that headwind component in the final moments of approach.

Having flown in gusty conditions in a Cessna on more than a few occasions and being much more susceptible to such actions, I know how hard it is to fly in those conditions, but you adjust and you make yourself even more ready to perform a go-around if even the slightest hint of having a hard landing is detected.

[flightsimer]

im talking about the weather that just comes out of nowhere without any warning. all of what i listed can change at a momments notice and when its too late (when your right about to touch done). key example is the fedex flight 80. the md-11 was doing fine until it was about to flare and was hit by a 40kt gust which ultimately casuse it to crash.

or a few years ago when a micro burst came literally out of nowhere with no warning and nearly caused a plane to flip at my local airport when it was landing...

FedEx 80 was a classic example of a pilot putting a plane into an area where it should have never been. The winds had been reported earlier, and the MD-11 is a notoriously bad aircraft to fly in such conditions. There have in fact been two previous crashes of the MD-11 in similar conditions - China Airlines Flight 642 in 1999 and FedEx Flight 17 in 1997. Both were traced to the crew failing to properly adjust for the gusty conditions, and both times they landed hard because the gust "let up" prior to touchdown. A properly computed and executed approach takes account of these gusts and are designed to minimize the effect of loosing that headwind component in the final moments of approach.

Having flown in gusty conditions in a Cessna on more than a few occasions and being much more susceptible to such actions, I know how hard it is to fly in those conditions, but you adjust and you make yourself even more ready to perform a go-around if even the slightest hint of having a hard landing is detected.

that would be fedex express 14 not 17, but in both cases the faults were of the crew, compounded by the very sensitive and complicated design of the MD-11 and the landing procedures.

the previous fedex crash was actually in good conditions only 5kts (offical NTSB report) but was put down to hard by the crew and was all pilot error.

the china airlines was fine for the most part until 700ft above the ground where things started to fall apart. at 50ft, they lost their headwind and at the same time the autothrottle went to idle causing them to loose 20kts headwind in 2 secs. in 50ft, it went from a just below normal glideslope to touching down unlevel at -1200 ft/m, even if they were to apply full power, they still would have probably crashed the same way because of the spool time of the engines and the fact that they were just barely below MLW.

the MD-11 has a tendency to bounce even in normal conditions so it probably isnt the best example in these three cases.

but still if you want to pentalize the pilot then you need to take into account weather and/or emergencies, because even in conditions within the airplanes limits a "hard landing" could happen and not be the pilots fault. and even if it does happen and you reject the landing, you still are forced to land by the client because as soon as you touch down, if you take back off and circle for another approach, as soon as you land again, you get hit with a taxi speed pentalty.


As to the mention above about the client and its vertical speed readings. i noticed tonight when flying my A330 that i just bought even when greasing the landings i was gettin -150-300 ft/m vertical speeds. i grease alot and get them down very softly normally below -80. now, im thinking that the possible "problem" may be coming from the gear animation in FS. I fly the Posky 777 alot and its main landing gear comes down slowly after touchdown pretty close to like it does in RW with it settling down from the weight of the plane, but tonight i was flying a A330 from another modeler and with his animation, when the first tire touches, the second comes down immediately after. this might possibly be the cause of the problem. i dont know what the client is looking at, but just thought i would through it out there as a possibility.

[hezza]

I have been monitoring my landing rates to try to figure out why the client reports them wrong. Have noted:

1) The client shows an inflated vertical speed on those occasions where the ding-dong comes while the aircraft is still in the air (about 20% of the time)
2) The client shows a zero vertical speed when the ding-dong is on roll-out or taxi (about 30% of flights)
3) The client shows believable vertical speeds when the ding-dong is approximately simultaneous with weight-on-wheels.

It seems that it is not the actual descent rate that is reported incorrectly, it is rather that the client doesn't seem to be able to properly detect a landing.
Other ACARS programs do not have this problem, so presumably this issue is not FS/FSUIPC related, but resides in the client's own code.

/G