How do you land?

[Topper187]

OK when i was doing my ppl, i learnt that when you were on the FAP you controlled your rate of decent with the power setting and your speed with the attitude. How does this change when your start flying the big jets. It seems to me that most pilots leave the autothrottles in even when manually guiding the place down the final path..

Regards Topper

[fly4fud]

Without going into lenghty explanations, suffice to say that on a typical ILS approach, you adjust the speed with the throttles, and stay on the glide path with pitch inputs. According speed, you will then have a certain ROD as you are on a constant angle (or should be...) during the approach. As for the autothrottle, it all depends on the aircraft flown, the company's SOPs and personal preference. If weather permits, I like to switch all off, the goal being not to use the airbrake until on short final, and using as little as possible throttle movement until retarding them in the flare.

Don't know if that sounded like an explanation, but at least I tried :)

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... cut my wings and I'll die ...

[expedite_climb]

...... bang.

No seriously. The difference is inertia for a start. Adding power in a big jet will eventually effect rate of descent, but it will effect speed first. This is also because there is no slipstream from a prop.

On autothrottles, if you leave it in it makes power adjustments for you, trying to maintain speed. However, large jets have an immense pitch couple with power changes, so it is best to take the A/T out so you can maually change thrust, and anticipate the pitch !

The rest is just the same as in your Cessna, at the flare point move your aiming point to the end of the runway. It works just the same.

[This message has been edited by expedite_climb (edited 10 March 2001).]