A few question about landing jets

My first question is is this speed unique to just the DC-10 or would you descend a Boeing 737 at the same rate (assuming it was the same distance out)?

THAT depends on a lot of different factors. You would descent at a rate that would put you on the runway. Speed, wind, and weight all play a important role in deciding what the descent rate is.

is the crusing altitude of the DC-10 12,000ft or had the decent already begun before the demo took over?

Oh God no! If you cruise at 12,000 feet, you'd burn SO much fuel for the trip it wouldn't even be funny. Cruise alt in the DC-10 is between 30-35,000 feet I would assume.

begin decending the 737 from 30,000ft when 40 miles from the runway, but use a much sharper rate of decent?

No. You start the descent to approach about 100 miles out. Well, I fly IFR, and that's generally when they will try and set up the descent and such. At 40 miles, you'd have to dive at like 2800 FPM.

what bank angle should I use to turn a big plane like a DC-10 or 737?

You would use your best judgement. Don't worry too much about it, you can go over quite a bit before it gets hard to walk.

Also, at what distance from the runway (or what altitude if you like) is it best to lower the landing gear?

This depends too. I usually do it once I turn and intercept the ILS flags.

Not to be rude, but you sound VERY new at flying these jets. I would take it slow, but DON'T try and fly the learjet as a trainer craft. The flight characteristics of that thing would give Jesus himself a hard time.

Quote:
what bank angle should I use to turn a big plane like a DC-10 or 737?

You would use your best judgement. Don't worry too much about it, you can go over quite a bit before it gets hard to walk.

I agree with FEM's answer. But I'd like to add something to this question.
It is recommendable that you don't exceed 30° of bank angle in the jets. You can turn at a 30° of bank angle, but try not to exceed that.

Ahh, 30 degrees. I wasn't too sure exactly. Thankee 😂

No problem 😉

As a Commercial Pilot I can tell you that the "general" answer for "airliners" is Yes! All aircraft have an approach category based mostly on weight and approach speed (example: A C-182RG would approach at 90 knots coming down a 3 degree glide slope at about a 600 fpm descent. Airliners would use 140 kts to 165 kts depending on category.

And how would you find out the recommended decent rate of a particular jet?

So, in general, you'd begin decent 100 miles out, decending approx 600-1000ft per min depending on the aircraft is that more or less correct? And FEM, regarding the landing gear question, what do you mean by ILS flags? And finally, how does altitude affect the rate of fuel consumption?

Thanks a lot for all the helps so far (I know I'm not "qualified" to fly jets yet but I just thought knowing these things would give me a head start). 🙂

Up. Would anyone mind answering these last few above ^^^ ? Thank you kindly 😀

Well, I'll do my best -

True, you would generally begin your descent about 100 miles out. A good way to calculate when exactly you should begin descent, is by the following calculation. Take the first two numbers from your altitude, (eg. if your at 35000 ft, take the 35), then multiply that number by three. That would give you a good distance away to start your descent. The rate of descent depends on your weight, speed, and current altitude. Stars and Sids are often used to calculate a 'step' descent into the airport area, so that you don't have to make one dive all the way down to your localizer altitude. Localizer altitude is when your at a sufficient altitude, where you'd be able to intercept the localizer; in other words, it's where your able to have an active ILS guidance system. Incase you didn't know, the ILS guidance system gives you horizontal and vertical indications of how far off you are from the runway. You'd have to tune the ILS frequency, but be aware, not all runways have ILS. Finally, to answer your last question, At lower altitudes, more fuel is burnt off because of the density of the air. Thats why aircraft will almost never cruise below 30,000 - A friend of mine once went up in a 737-700 up at FL410, which is the highest altitude I've heard of for a commerical jet. I hope I've answered most if not all of your questions. Don't worry about not being qualified to fly jets. It's your sim. Your only qualified when your satisfied. 😉

Thanks, that's cleared up a lot 🙂

While on the subject of ILS, I did the "Learn to Fly" section on it but part of the concept is still unclear to me. Using Just Flight Traffic 2005, I fly my Cessna 172 IFR and ATC says something like "Shannon tower, cleared to land, fly current heading, ILS approach runway 37", I keep going on my assigned heading and keep a watchful eye on my ILS indicator (which is the same as my VOR 1 indicator, right?) but nothing ever seems to happen. My ILS doesn't seem to move and I never hear from ATC again. I've sped up the simulation just to see if anything happens, and basically I just fly around the world and never hear anything again. Can you explain how I'm supposed to proceed in such an ILS approach? Am I supposed to try to visually find the runway and line up so I intercept the runway? I once flew in fog and hadn't the slightest idea of where the runway was so surely that can't be what's expected.

Oh and one final thing, you mentioned that not all airports have ILS. Do all major airports have ILS, and is it just small airfields that don't?

Thank you once again for all your help! 😉

Oh and I am at the altitude that ATC assigns me.

JTH wrote:

Thanks, that's cleared up a lot 🙂

While on the subject of ILS, I did the "Learn to Fly" section on it but part of the concept is still unclear to me. Using Just Flight Traffic 2005, I fly my Cessna 172 IFR and ATC says something like "Shannon tower, cleared to land, fly current heading, ILS approach runway 37", I keep going on my assigned heading and keep a watchful eye on my ILS indicator (which is the same as my VOR 1 indicator, right?) but nothing ever seems to happen. My ILS doesn't seem to move and I never hear from ATC again. I've sped up the simulation just to see if anything happens, and basically I just fly around the world and never hear anything again. Can you explain how I'm supposed to proceed in such an ILS approach? Am I supposed to try to visually find the runway and line up so I intercept the runway? I once flew in fog and hadn't the slightest idea of where the runway was so surely that can't be what's expected.

Oh and one final thing, you mentioned that not all airports have ILS. Do all major airports have ILS, and is it just small airfields that don't?

Thank you once again for all your help! 😉

A couple of thing you need to keep in mind. NAV1 needs to be tunned to the frequency for the runway and the GPS/NAV switch needs to be in the NAV position.

By the way there is a sticky at the top of this forum the does a pretty good job of covering approches. 😀

Hmm...Can you please clarify exactly everything you did. First off, before I continue, let me let you know that there isn't, and never will be a runway 37, as you said in your example. 😀 . Now, had you been here a while ago, you'd have seen FEM's famous IFR guidance post. It contained pretty much everything you needed to know, but I can't find it as of now, so I'll do my best to help you out.

Now, lets say your flying IFR, and as ATC vectors you to the approach, they let you know you will be landing ILS on runway 24R. You know open the map, click on the airport your going to, scroll down to the bottom where they give you all sorts of runway inforation. Locate 24R, and memorize the ILS frequency, and the runway heading. Now close the map, and open the Radio panel. In the standby section of NAV1, (The right side) enter the ILS frequency you just memorized. Now click on the little knob that changes that frequency from being Standby, to being Active. In the VOR1 indicator, there should be a little dial you turn, causing the little heading tick marks to turn. Turn it so that the arrow is pointing towards your final runway heading.

So now, you have the ILS tuned. Make sure that you have selected Nav, and not GPS. This would be in the top right of the cessna's panel. As you approacht the runway, ATC will put you about 20-30 degrees off course of your final heading, but they'll make sure your heading towards the flight path. They then leave it up to you to turn for finals, and land based on judgement using the ILS indicators. This will all show up on your VOR1 indicator. When your about 15 miles in, you should see the ILS flags/feathers, (the lines that move and indicate how close to being on course you actually are.) As of now, I'm going to assume that you'll be turning onto finals from the left side of the runway. This means that the ILS flag that moves left/right, should be sitting at the far right now. As you get closer to being centered with the runway, the ILS feather will move towards the center. It's up to you turn in sync with it in order to be at the proper heading, and centered, when it comes time to land. The ILS feather that moves up/down should be up when your in approach, as it moves downwards, it means you are getting closer to being at an adequate altitude, based on your distance. It's up to you to try and keep these feathers centered at all times. I understand the description may be a bit shaky, but thats because I'm not FEM when it comes to writing up directions 😂 .

I hope this shed some light regarding ILS landings. Trust me, they are very easy, and although it may sound comlicated, it's actually very simple. Feel free to ask for clarification; we'd be glad to help you out 😉

fem,

you made a comment about the learjet being really hard to fly, which it is, it took me hours of flying to master that thing and i still have my off days, but why is it so tricky to fly??????????

Micah 😉

[quote="Fire_Emblem_Master"]

Not to be rude, but you sound VERY new at flying these jets. I would take it slow, but DON'T try and fly the learjet as a trainer craft. The flight characteristics of that thing would give Jesus himself a hard time.

Word, I hate the learjet.

Micah wrote:

fem,

you made a comment about the learjet being really hard to fly, which it is, it took me hours of flying to master that thing and i still have my off days, but why is it so tricky to fly??????????

Micah 😉

Micah, provided I don't steal FEM's oppurtunity here, I think I can give you a quick overview of why the Learjet is so hard to fly. The main reason is it's "jerkiness". It tends to want to go up at all times, especially upon departure. What is required is a very powerful grip on the control yoke/joystick, but at the same time, all of your corrections must be ever so gentle. I'm sorry I can't find a link at this moment, which will give you all the details, however, I think the reason it was designed to be so responsive, is because it needs to be in and out of airports in no time, in order to reduce congestion. They can't have it be as stable as commercial airliners, or else all the rich people would be holding up traffic 😂

Actually I have a hard time landing the stupid thing, the flight controls are ALLRIGHT at best. It has this lovely tendency to drop like a stone on finals and the flare, which is why I avoid it like the plague.

By the way...

ILS

THIS IS FOR IFR FLIGHT!

1. When ATC says something liek "WifeBeater 767, you are 32 Miles away. Turn right heading 105, descend and mantain 2,500 feet, cleared ILS runway 36R Approach". You have to click on your MAP icon in your cockipt. Then, move your mouse over the destination airport. Mind you, the airport MUST have the ILS feathers (thes are the green things that point to the runway). Double click on the airport. A list will show up. Scroll down the list untill you see a chart that shows Runway numbers. FInd 36R, or whatever your runway is. You look to the right and see a radio frequency. We'll use 100.100 because its easy to remember. Don't forget the frequency.

2. Open up your Radio Stack, and enter in 100.100 in the NAV1 Radio, usually the righmost radio number is the one that can be messed with. After you enter it 100.100, using the mouse wheel or clickin it. Press the button that looks like thsi somewhat, its in the middle of the 2 radio displays <-----> That changes the NAV1 Radio frequency from whatever it was, to what it is now (100.100)

3.Turn on the NAV1 Radio by clicking the switch at the bottom of the radio stack, unless its already on, like with the LearJet.

4. If you have Autopilot, and you are using GPS to follow waypoints, switch the NAV/GPS button back to NAV!!!! YOU CANT FORGET TO DO THAT!!! YOU'LL BURN AND DIE IF YOU DONT!!

5. Follow ATC directions to approach. Now, when you approach the Runway, you will see the pink arrows near your attitude indicator move...usually Heading first, then Altitude. Simply fly in the directon and atitude of the pink arrows intull they center themselves, that means you're on the glideslope!

6. If you wanna use the autopilot to fly the approach, simply follow steps 1-4, then click the APPR button on the autopilot panel.