Landing the 737-500

1st Official Post

    My take off and cruise flight to destination, no problem. I'm flying ILS with Localizer / Glide Slope, no problem.

    Problem Landing: I understand real life pilots will disconnect the AP around 1000' and land the plane manually.

    This is what I have been trying to do. However, basically at full power take off the throttle is still at full N1. Again this

    is no problem, but I can't get my head around what to do with the full N1 setting when I want to disconnect the

    autopilot. Please advise what to do with the full N1 throttle at 1000' for a manual landing. I disconnect the AP

    and the Auto Throttle at 1000'. This works ok, but here is the problem .....I can't seem to get the right N1

    setting while descending for the flare to keep the nose up to land on the main gears. My plane will float

    almost to the end of the runway. I land at 140 to 145 with full flaps and gear down.

    • Official Post

    The default approach speed is 135 knots with full flaps.


    With thrust at idle the 737 doesn't float all that long so I can presume that your thrust levers are not fully at idle.

    You can land with auto-throttle engaged, too. It will retard the thrust levers to idle automatically once you reach 20 feet above ground.

    If you disengage the auto-throttle before landing you have to manually decrease thrust when you flare. Make sure that you have your physical thrust levers in a mid-range position during approach that way you make sure they actually reach idle in the sim when you move them there. Check your controller calibration if it doesn't look like you can reach the correct idle position in the virtual cockpit.

    Like in the real world it's best to drive the plane into the runway to avoid excessive floating down the runway. Once on the ground the spoilers will come up and dump excess lift so that you stay on the runway even when you still have enough speed to fly.

    Regards,

    Jan

    You probably do all this already but .. don’t arrive slightly high, don’t land with a tail wind component, try calm winds after you have got the hang of things, always arm the spoilers and the autobrakes.

    For more deceleration what about 40 degrees of flap and pull the throttles to idle a bit earlier once below a height of 100 feet.

    There might be some excessive ground effect simulation in the Aerofly 737, remember how it needs a second pull on the stick just after rotation during the take-off. Full flap on landing might make this worse, do you usually try landing with 30 degrees? The real plane has short undercarriage which increases ground effect.

    Edited once, last by Overloaded (June 15, 2021 at 12:21 PM).

    Try flaps 30 and maintain a speed of 140 knots(Max tailwind component is 10 knots)

    Maintain 138-142 knots while you're in the approach phase.

    (You should be stable and complete the landing checklist before reaching 500-1000ft)

    At this time your eyes should be on the touchdown zone/mark.

    Retard both throttles when you're at about 30-50 ft now flare... Keep looking at the end of the runway...

    If something just feels wrong you can always go around and try the approach one more time🤗

    When Body Main gear touches down Speedbrake is deployed automatically... Autobrakes should kick in when your nose gear touches down.. as soon as you're down with 3 gears deploy thrust reversers...Idle or Max...your wish... (depends on several factors)

    (Boeing recommends to perform full stop landing after you deploy reverse thrust)

    Happy Landings!