How To IMPROVE YOUR LANDINGS in MSFS 2020 (Tutorial)

hey there everybody microsoft flight simulator is a fun game with unique landing challenges some of which are pretty difficult now if you're new to the game or aviation in general you might even find yourself struggling at times to fly a smooth approach to landing heck worse you might find yourself in a situation where you're about to fly into the mountainside and wondering why the you can't get any higher if this pertains to you and you found yourself upside down on the side of the mountain then stick around for some tips on flying a better approach and nailing your landings we're going to talk about energy management and approach greetings everyone now i want to preface this by saying welcome to the channel if you're new here this is primarily a channel i use to document my journey through aviation training and sharing weather information with others however i haven't had the chance to fly recently due to preparing for a move and some weather cancellations but i decided i'd make some flight sim videos fight some focus videos instead now i do want to say that i am a real world pilot however this is not to be used as a substitute for real world instruction and should be taken for entertainment purposes only however i do want this to be aimed towards beginners or newcomers to the sim and kind of help folks fly more realistically as well as really nail those landings to do so i'm going to draw from my real world experience and hopefully that will get us to where we want to be in this video we're going to be flying from shreveport regional airport in the cessna 172s steam gauge of the steam gauge version of the 172s that comes with the deluxe bundle wow i can't speak a lot of what we talk about in this video can effectively be universally applied to any other plane but i highly recommend beginning with the 152 or 172s just because of their simplicity all right so we're loaded up here and essentially ready to go what we're really going to focus on here is how to manage our energy by manipulating our power and pitch to maintain the proper air speed and glide profile we want for a stable descent and landing this is going to vary by aircraft but in the 172s we're going to want to descend on the downwind at about 80 knots slowing to 75 knots on our base and 70 knots on final as we do we're going to add flaps to help increase our rate of descent without picking up additional airspeed we'll fly a left-hand traffic pattern around runway 3-2 as shown here and our top altitude after takeoff will be about 1 200 or 1 300 feet now if you spawn on the runway the game will put you in the takeoff configuration with engines and lights on and everything in the 172s it spawns us with 10 degrees of flaps but we're not going to use that because we're going to do a normal takeoff without flaps instead but you're not here to learn how to take off you're here to learn how to manage your descent landing so i'll meet you on the downward leg of the traffic pattern alright so hopefully now you're flying straight level about 1200 1300 feet and you're gonna pull the power back if you need to whatever you need to do to maintain level flight now before we start to descend here you know one thing you want to keep in mind is you're flying vfr so you want to keep looking at the the airport now i'm using track ir which allows me to pan around pretty frequently here makes it very easy and i highly recommend it if you don't have it already but you can custom map some key mines to help you know quickly look to the left or whatever whatever you need to do you want to you know look around we're going to maintain this speed i'm flying about 90 knots we're going to maintain this speed and power setting and maintain level flight until we get a beam the numbers here which we're about to get here so in a moment we're going to pull the power back to 17 1600 1500 rpm if we whatever you need to initiate a descent all right so i'm beaming the numbers here and if you look at the tachometer i'm decreasing the rpm to about 1 500 rpm and as i do the nose is going to lower now we're going to keep looking at that runway we want to you know keep looking at the runway make sure that we're descending as we need to and i'm going to put the first notch of flaps down flaps 10 in the 172s below 110 knots you can put flaps to 10. that's going to help us increase our rate of descent i'm going to increase my power a little bit here just to maintain and notice my airspeed by the way i'm maintaining 80 knots and the way that we do that is to pitch down we pitch the nose down to increase the air speed we pitch the nose up to slow the air speed down so as i turn here i add flaps 20 and i'm going to be maintaining 75 knots now you notice i pitch up to maintain 75 knots i'm looking at the runway making sure that i'm high enough make sure i'm not too low not too high down the nose that's going to increase the airspeed so i'm maintaining 75 knots as it gets closer to 80 knots i pull the nose up to slow down 75 knots so we maintain the air speed here again i demonstrate watch the air speed increase as i push that nose down make sure there's no aircraft's coming from final go to flaps 30 and now we're going to aim for 70 knots now if you find yourself too high you need to pull your rpms back you need to pull that throttle out just a little bit again reference your airspeed indicator right now we're flying about 70 knots even and we want to get on center line here it's all about being stable so we want to be on center line and we want to be descending at a constant sink rate now one of the things you want to do is see what your aiming point is you can zoom in on the screen to figure out what your aiming point is the aiming point is going to be whatever is in your field of view that's not moving that's what you're traveling at now if i zoom in here it looks like our aiming points just pretty close to the threshold which is fine in the cessna 172. um it just depends on where you want to touch down really we just want to get used to landing period so this is a good touchdown or this is a good aiming point you see it's just right on that threshold so i'm going to keep my power in and maintain 70 knots now as we get closer to the threshold we're going to go power to idle and we're going to round out and we're going to imagine that we're trying not to land so i'm going to pull the nose up and i'm going to keep pulling the nose up and as our air speed slows the plane is going to want to drop and we're going to counter that by pulling up more more more and there we go so a nice soft landing and maintain center line put our flaps up and then uh we'll go around again put the flaps flaps up and then go full power for the next one okay so if you made it this far you've completed your first touch and go we're approaching the uh point that we're gonna top of our descent really so as we gonna be in the numbers here we're gonna pull our power back i'm showing you my tachometer here i'm selling it down to about 1500 rpm and we're going to let that air speed slow to about 80 knots i'm going to pitch the nose over alright so set that rpm to about 15 1600 and then put the nose down to maintain 80 knots below 80 below 110 knots you can go flaps 10. so you want to pull the power and put those flaps to 10 immediately and then you're just going to maintain 80 knots on your downwind descent at about a thousand feet at this airport you're going to make that left-hand turn and we're going to if you're below 85 knots put flaps to and slow the plane to 75 knots when you extend the flaps to 20 the plane should slow on its own i mean you're increasing the drag so it's naturally going to slow and then we're going to maintain 75 knots with our pitch at the same time you want to adjust your power to increase or decrease your descent rate if you're high you want to pull the power out if you're low you need to increase the power and you gauge that visually you don't even have to look at your altimeter you can look at the runway and discern whether you're high or low i'm looking at the runway here and we look pretty on track here looking at final finals clear gonna go flaps 30 maintain 70 knots and get ready for a left 90 degree left turn for final now you notice i'm pretty low here right and we look at our vertical speed indicator there at the bottom and it's pretty pretty fast descent so i'm going to increase my rpm where it flaps 30 and we're low so we're on the back side of the power curve we're going to need a lot of power to overcome the drag that we have so we're going to increase that power you notice you look at that runway you're very low and you know the trees are probably only 300 500 feet below so increase that power push that nose over it sounds counterintuitive but increase the power and push the nose keep it level because when you increase that power the nose is going to want to lift get that vertical speed close to zero we want to get back on our preferred descent profile obviously we're really low so maintain 70 knots and keep that vertical speed as close to zero fly level look at the horizon fly level keep looking at that runway you know we're still low and we don't wanna i'm gonna pull the power back just a little bit here i don't want to get too high too fast so i'm gonna pull that power back just a little bit again we're referencing our air speed and looking at the runway it's the two primary things we're looking at i'm still low and i'm about 75 70 knots so you want to slow down so i'm going to keep the nose up and there intercept that air speed and glide profile get back on 70 knots lower the nose a little bit to resume our descent pull the power out so that we can descend without gaining air speed and we're back on profile so we're going to pitch the nose down and we're going to keep reducing our power as we approach the threshold here we're going to pull the throttle to idle and we're going to keep maintaining this pitch we don't want to pitch up yet as we get close to the ground we're going to pull the nose back and we're going to try to maintain level flight as we slow down the plane is going to start to sink we counter that with pulling the nose up pull the nose up there you go keep pulling it up and trying not to land and there's the touchdown so again we're trying not to land we're landing by trying not to land all right so now i'm going to put the flaps up go full power and we're going to do another one and this time i'm going to show what it's like if you're too high how to correct and get back on the proper glide path all right this time as we fly downwind here for runway 3-2 i'm going to show you how to recover from being too high on the approach so i'm going to purposefully leave in some extra power i'm going to turn a little earlier and just show what it looks like to be high and how we correct for that so again as we have discussed as we approach the uh top of descent here a beam of the numbers we're going to pull that power back and we're going to immediately go to flaps 10 so i'm pulling the power back to about there's 1700 rpm 1600 1500 rpm and i'm letting the nose come down we're going to fly about 85 to 80 knots really want to be on 80 knots you see i'm already at flaps 10 pitching for 80 knots and i'm going to turn a little early because i want to be close to the runway i want i want to show what it looks like to be hide on approach okay so we're rolling out on center line extended we're going to obviously we're high and fast my flaps are 20 so i'm high and i'm fast we need to slow and we need to descend so the first thing i'm going to do is go to flaps 30 and i'm going to pull my power back pitch the nose up until i reach 70 knots and then i'm going to there pitch up now i'm going to descend at 70 knots and i'm going to pull the power out pretty much to idle to increase my descent rate again we're not nose diving look at my airspeed here it's let me zoom in on the airspeed here we're not nose diving right we're flying at a stable descent rate with a stable air speed here you see me there about 70 knots i'm not pushing the nose down 30 degrees below the horizon i'm just pulling the energy out of the aircraft by reducing the power to idle now i'm going to increase the power just a little bit and then i'm going to pull the power back to idle as we pass the threshold get into ground effect transition to level watch the end of the runway as the energy comes out of the aircraft it's going to want to sink so we counter by pulling back on the stick keep pulling back keep pulling back and touchdown d de-rotate the aircraft slowly and maintain center line we're going to go back up one more time uh do another approach i want to really show what that sight picture looks like get the flaps up and then do your better job than i did maintaining center line and get back in here all right so just to cap it off we're going to do another standard approach just show what we're kind of going for for a stable approach again a stabilized descent is a constant air speed constant constant air speed and constant descent rate sink rate is a stable descent of course on center line so i'm getting adjusted here for center line i've got flaps completely up right now so we're flying about 90 knots first thing we're going to do is to begin the descent is pull the rpm back and then as soon as you do that as long as your air speed is below 110 knots you can go to flaps 10. that's going to help us slow the plane down further we're going to aim for about 80 knots we're going to aim for that airspeed by controlling the nose of the aircraft we're going to pitch to maintain 80 knots and we're going to go flaps 20 because we're below 85 knots now i know already just from experience my aiming point is short of where the runway is it's short of the threshold so i'm slowing down here to get below 80 knots get back to 75 and we're gonna go flaps 30 we want to slow further to 70 knots pull that power out a little bit now like i said our aiming point seems to be right there and we want it to be on the threshold or the numbers uh depends on where you're trying to touch down so in order to adjust that aiming point we have to introduce energy we have to increase the power and now our aiming points about the numbers we're going to pull that power out very slowly now we're going to idle as we pass the threshold and get ready for transition we transition into ground effect looking at the end of the runway we're going to maintain level flight and as we get slower we're going to have to increase the angle of attack even more so we're pitching up keep pitching up keep pitching up don't let the wheels touch and there's touchdown maintain center line rudder is very sensitive in this game i'm not a big fan of it but i'm gonna maintain center line and get on the brakes and we're going to take the next left so we're slowing down quite aggressively really and now we get off on the left so there you have it if you're new to the genre if you're not familiar with flying landing can be very challenging i remember when i first started i was bouncing all over the place crashing it is something that takes time to get you really just have to practice um again we don't nose dive i think that's the biggest mistake you can make is being too low or being too high and trying to nose dive to get back onto the runway it's just never gonna work so to cap it off to control our altitude we use the throttle which i'm showing you here we increase the throttle to slow our descent we decrease the throttle to increase our descent and then to control our air speed we're going to pitch which we use the yoke which is this right here you pull back on the stick which i mean hopefully if you follow this video there's your elevator by the way uh if you made it this far hopefully you've successfully landed a time or two but if you haven't yet you want to get those concepts down power for altitude pitch for that air speed so a great landing starts with a stabilized approach if you nail that approach if you nail those air speeds uh you're gonna nail that landing and then just one more thing is that if you're flying a different aircraft in the 172 it wouldn't hurt to look up the landing speeds for the aircraft you're flying obviously if you're flying an airbus you're not going to target 70 knots you're going to be targeting something closer to 145 knots lastly if you enjoyed this video hit that like and subscribe button i'm going to have some more flight simulator stuff coming here and there leave a comment below if you're interested in other topics what other things you'd like to have some help with or you know some other aspects of flight simulation i'd love to do more tutorials otherwise if you like aviation this is a great channel to follow document my journey through aviation training that's it for today and thank you for watching enjoy flying

Channel: AtmosFlight

Views: 37,696

Keywords: Microsoft Flight Simulator, MSFS, FS2020, Landings

Id: _cbi0H3Mflw

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 23 2020