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Thread: Landing a 747
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Old 20th Mar 2002, 21:45
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18-Wheeler
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Gold Coast
Age: 58
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You land them just like a 'little' plane, ie, you look out the window at the far end of the runway and at the right height above the ground pitch up to the right flare attitude.. .It's a touch more complex than that though, especially when you first start flying them!. .There's a couple of techniques that you can use, and the Qantas one is to set the radar altimiter to 50ft, and when it goes 'DING' then you count "one bananas, two bananas", then flare - No kidding, that's what they taught me. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> . .The other way is to simply flare at 30ft, and let the plane settle by itself onto the runway, and this is close to what the autopilot does when it lands the plane.. .After a while though, you don't need the radar altimeter or the Flight Engineer calling the heights for you, you can just pick the right height by eyesight. Takes a while though, as the plane is so large.. .I also flare the beast at different heights and slightly different rates with different weights. The lighter you are, say, a featherweight 190 tonnes, you can get down to a little less than 20ft no probs and hardly pitch up at all to make a good landing. Up around 280 tonnes, you have to leave the power on as you pitch the nose up at about 30ft, then pull the power back as the plane settles.. .Other people have different techniques to mine that no doubt also work well.
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