Landing the ERJ145

[brakechute]

I would be interested to hear from any ERJ145 pilot's how they land the aircraft in a crosswind. I have recently flown one and found that the lateral stability is very high and this gave me a problem trying to use the crab technique in a 30kt crosswind as I ran out of aileron authority as the aircraft came through 12 degrees of heading change. Can you tell me what techniques you use, or do you not find it a problem. Thanks for any help, currently on a flying course and have got to come up with some recs for this type of thing. :)

[Celtic Frog]

Been there , done that..got about 1000 hours on it.
My method was something like this...
stable approach with as much crab as required and wings level..that's the easy bit until you get to the flare.
In simulator I'd chop the power at 50 feet, but for real I'd chop it at about 35 feet if conditions were a bit "exciting"....
I don't have much bad to say about the 145 except that these ailerons become very sluggish at the lower speeds, and with a strong xwind component , that downwind wing sometimes drops violently...something you really don't need at less than 35 feet, and full aileron (or thereabouts) may be required to catch it. that's why, if the runway was long enough and/or I had enough headwind , I'd "cheat" a bit and add about 5 knots to my threshold speed, just to give me that extra bit of aileron control in case I needed it, especially if it was turbulent.
Throughout that last few seconds while the speed washes off after you've chopped the power, you sort of have a bit of a "race" on your hands..ie put the wheels on the tarmac while you still have plenty of aileron control..in other words..don't hang about trying to grease it on.
Now...here are two comments which some pilots will disagree with and for good reason.
1) Throughout the entire landing, the elevator will be sensitive , but the ailerons will become increasing sluggish at a rapid rate, so I used to consciously apply large aileron imputs after chopping the power..
Some pilots discourage this because they're afraid of you overcontrolling so close to the ground. Also, if you start doing that, it might be tempting to accidentally over control the elevator as well, and you really don't want to do that !!
2) Some pilots absolutely insist on keeping the wings level to touchdown for obvous reasons. Others like to apply a very slight (Emphasise SLIGHT) into-wind wing down bias, just to help stay on the centreline, and get some grip with the rubber, before the aircraft stops flying.
In other words, fly it on rather than stall it on.
This was my preferred method.

Then of course you have that other problem where the Embraer often doesn't drop it's nose after touchdown, so you have to prepare yourself to move the control column forward, arguably justifying the school of thought that you should "keep flying" this aircraft until after touchdown..in fact down to about 60 knots because that downwind wing still wants to drop after you're on terra firma..you gotta keep plenty..(perhaps full?) into-wind aileron applied for most of the landing roll.
Please don't regard this as advice because it's up to your ops manual & training captains...but what I've described worked well for me.
Happy landings

Just read through what I posted and don't think I emphasised one important point enough...
If you ever do try the SLIGHT wing-down method..please promise me that you will NEVER NEVER NEVER do that at anything higher than the last few feet..like that last couple of seconds before you expect to touch down.
Swept wing + Crosswind + Cross controls is a bad recipe.
Make sure that you're already so close to the ground that if the downwind wing does decide to drop, and you run out of aileron control, you are absolutely certain that it's wheel will touch the ground..and not the wingtip.
And whatever your training captains /ops manual tells you MUST over-ride anything I've said here.

[brakechute]

Thanks for the info, I would certianly agree that the lateral control is limited and the high lateral stability when you induce sideslip as you kick off drift is tricky to accurately control. I'm working on a 30kt crosswind limit, and that was difficult enough. I did think that the aileron controls were pretty effective, I flew the aircraft with the large vortelons, obviously some concern over aileron authority at high angles of attack by Embraer. If I may, I have another 145 question. Did you ever find the it difficult to fly accurate speeds with the autopilot off (+/- 5knots) and was there any difference between approach and cruise configurations. I found accrurate pitch trimming difficult, and got no feedback over a 20kt range from the trim speed as speed reduced or increased. If any other 145 drivers can add anything please feel free.

Thanks

[Celtic Frog]

The only problems I got with sped control was when conditions were gusty, but no worse than any other aircraft I've flown. Set a power setting for desired speed and sort of accept the fact that it will fluctuate. Having said that, as I recall, you shouldn't exceed 140 kts with full flap, but if you're heavy, and landing in gusty conditions, there's very little margin between your Vref minumum and 140 kts.
There were many occasions when my IAS would suddenly increase above 140, but to start reducing power by any significant amout could leave me with far too little should the gust change to suddenly reduce my speed below Vref.
If you reduce power too much to control speed, it seems to take forever to regain it.
When I first started flying it, I made the mistake of trying to judge my power settings by th eamount of handmovement I'd make on th epower levers, but that's no use. You gotta visually check your N1. Offer yourself a minimum setting if you get too fast...probably about 57%, and be patient whilke waiting for the speed to settle. Most days I'd use about 63% and leave it there., give or take about 4% . Ialso felt that the autopilot was generally a great help in light to moderate turbulence, but not so good in really bad gusty conditions..so then I preferred to hand fly it.
In smooth days though, I found speed control +/- 5kts no problem, with or without autopilot.
There's a considerable eye movement required when scanning between your PFD and power (N1) gauges. Couldn't help wishing that here were duplicate N1 indications at the top of the PFD for the gusty days.
Speed control in the cruise..can be difficult to maintain desired cruise speed at power cruise seting if the ISA is warm..say about ISA +10 or so.
As for trimming...the pitch trim isn't very sensitive at the lower speeds...hence lots of trimming forward on Take-off. I would personally have welcomed a slightly faster trim motor.
Have to say that I almost always found it helpful to start trimming back a bit slightly prior to the flare.
("What flare?" do I hear you say?)
Most approaches would see the trim setting at about +4 or +5.
I'd usually add 2 units to that at about the time I was chopping the power...and that would set the aircraft up nicely for touchdown, and in my further defence of that action, I was also trimming the aircraft towards better preparation for a single engine (V2) go-around.
Word of caution: if you do a two engine go around into circuit height, it's extremely easy to bust your altitude.