Idle Landing Speed

It will depend upon your weight when you are landing, but aim for around 140 KIAS. I have never managed to land a 747 lower than 155 KIAS; whether that is a fault in the model or my flying, but I have followed the glideslope with full flaps and just stall if my speed drops below 155 KIAS. If your aircraft is heavier aim for around 155 KIAS. I've looked for a Vref calculator for a long time, but have only found one for the 733 😞

Good luck 😉

Thanks! Jon for replyin, I tried your decending formula as well that was perfect , that really helped me in getting right rate of decent for landing. However I was looking for correct speed since the Fspassengers program report says that I landed Hard (I don't understand why it says so) but my speed was 165 or so, that's why I wanted to the know the exact speed of landing. Do give me some more formula or tell me how can I avoid this report? 😉 coz they are always accurate and to the point.

Regards,

Bhupesh

I wish I could give you a formula for Vref speeds, because I have been looking for myself, but I can't seem to find any. I would suggest that you go to Aircraft at the top menu and go to Visual Flight Path. This will show you the correct glideslope that you should be following, which means that you should be able to come in at a reasonable speed and angle. Next, make sure you flare to around 5-6 degrees just before you touch down, with the power at idle. I have found that sometimes, I cannot land the 747 slower than 170 KIAS, which is too fast, but it simply stalls if I land any slower, so try it at a higher speed. I have followed checklist after checklist with the Visual Flight Path and have never managed to get the speed down past 150 KIAS, even with 10% fuel. I suggest you try in a smaller jet, say the 737, and see if you have the same problem. But definitely try the Visual Flight Path as they should be useful 😉

Let us know how you get on, and good luck 😉

Thanks! Jon, i will try but not with visual path since that bugs me off. Anyways I will try checklist and other techniques (may be guessing,lol) and will let u know.

God Bless!

Is it bad to land at 200-205kts? I land really softley and have alot of room left over on the runway.

I can't think of landing a boeing at 200 Kts , fspassengers will kill me ,lol. Anyways which aircraft did you landed at 200 kts.

Bhupesh wrote:

I can't think of landing a boeing at 200 Kts , fspassengers will kill me ,lol. Anyways which aircraft did you landed at 200 kts.

747 with FSPassengers running.

After I read the above posts;I constructed this table of speeds from Microsoft Flight Simulator data.

Boeing 747-400 Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004
Vref Landing Speeds

Weight-Lbs./speed (KIAS) Flaps 30

880,000 /181
837,000 /176
794,000 /171
751,000 /165
708,000 /160
665,000 /155
622,000 /150
579,000 /145
536,000 /139
493,000 /134
450,000 /129

Weights are in pounds and speed is in knots indicated airspeed (KIAS)
Flaps 30 for all weights. I hope that it helps. 🙂

Thanks! CRJ I think this would give me some relief.

I generally touchdown about 160-170. The trick is flaring at the right time, not to early and not to late.

Just a quick question, after takeoff, at what altitude in a 747 do you have to be before your allowed to turn to follow your flight path.

Not below 400 ft. above the ground (AGL) for turns after take off. This is a requirement for obstacle avoidance during Instrument conditions (IMC). Some locations have departure procedures (DP) that require you to climb to a higher altitude because of terrain or congested airspace. In good weather, you can turn whenever you want but I would still not turn below 400 ft. AGL. It's not specific to the 747, it's for all aircraft. 🙂

Guest1 wrote:

I generally touchdown about 160-170. The trick is flaring at the right time, not to early and not to late.

Just a quick question, after takeoff, at what altitude in a 747 do you have to be before your allowed to turn to follow your flight path.

If your in a 747, your likely to be flying with a flight plan filed, so in your flight plan, you will be told when to turn etc 😉

Bhupesh wrote:

However I was looking for correct speed since the Fspassengers program report says that I landed Hard (I don't understand why it says so) but my speed was 165 or so

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that if Fspassengers is giving you grief about hard landings I think it's referring to your vertical speed at the moment of touchdown. As Guest1 mentioned, it's all about flaring.

Flare at the right moment and aim to touch down with a decent rate of somewhere inbetween -150 and -250 fpm, and fspassengers should tell you your landing was nice (if you did everything else right as well ). I would personally stay +/- 15 kias above stall speed to avoid a stall while flaring (stating the obvious here), but try for yourself and see what works for you 🙂

Good luck and happy landings!

Hi Ard:

Sorry! for replying late, you're right I believe the FPM decent is a problem. But most of the times I use APP button to land in that case I hardly have any control on Altitude. Suggest me in this what shall I do to avoid this hard landing always.

Thanks once again.

The autoland feature in many freeware aircraft is nothing more than poor, due to the fact that not a lot of time is spent on the system so it lacks detail. The only way to avoid this in freeware aircraft is to not use autoland 😞

😉

Well, I have no experience myself with the APP function; I've only tried it once or twice a long time ago, but I would assume that, once you're settled on the glideslope, I'd say about a 200 / 300 feet above the runway, disengage the autopilot altogether, the plane should continue it's descend as the Autopilot configured it. Let the plane descend until you're +/- 150 feet above the runway, then add a few % of thrust and then slowly pitch up once you're right above the runway.

When adding thrust, a natural response from the aircraft would be that it speeds up and also wants to pitch up, thus decreasing your descend rate. Downside is that you will touchdown later, so be careful to not run out of asphalt, or in worse case, floating over the runway altogether!
I am also not used to flying the 747, I've only made estimates as to the altitudes. Perhaps an experienced 747 pilot will give better numbers, but I think you'll get the hang of it when you just try it out a few times.

Good luck! 👍

Thanks! ARD thats gr8 help, will try and will keep everyone updated.

the default aircraft do not have autoland on them so if you leave the A/P on you will be hitting the ground hard. The reason is that without autoland on them the aircraft will hit the ground at the same rate as the descent, with no attempt to flare.
If your not confident about hand-flying the approach then leave the A/P on for most of the approach but then switch it off when you are just about to cross the threshold and then flare manually.