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Old 27th Apr 2006, 22:17
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Max Angle
 
Join Date: May 2001
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Landings are all manually flown but the autoland has been tested on a few missions I believe. Normal glideslope is about 20-22 degrees depending on weight and is maintained until around 1500ft agl when a flare to 3 degree "inner" glideslope is made to bleed off speed and arrest the huge rate of descent. 20 degrees equates to 7 miles out at 12,000ft so it's pretty steep, overhead the airfield at 40,000ft to touchdown is about 4 minutes.
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