Landing The Plane
It may seem strange, but if you want to be a good pilot, and a good fighter pilot, you have to learn to land the plane.
If
you were at a real flight school, you would be taught that the ideal is
to time everything so that the plane stops flying at the same time the
wheels touch the runway. At the Kentwood Station school of
flight, I am going to give you a simpler goal. Your goal is to
cross the end of the runway, close to the ground, wheels down,
throttle off, and your speed between 100 and 150 mph. Then you
fly the airplane just above the ground. As the plane slows down,
it will settle onto the runway. This is just a general goal, and
the exact procedure will be different for each plane. If you can
find landing instructions for your particular airplane, that will help.
Here are some general rules:
Lower
your landing gear at about 150. Some planes can lower gear as high as
175, but stick to 150 unless you know for sure. If you hear a
groaning sound when you lower the gear, you are going too fast.
As
the speed drops below 150, press the Q button twice to lower your
flaps two notches. This will provide some extra lift and make the
plane more stable at low speed. In some airplanes, you use full
flaps to land. Experiment with this to see what works best for your
plane. When you lower the flaps, be careful that the nose doesn't
bounce up.
You want to fly the plane just above the runway for
as long as you can. As the speed bleeds off, the plane will
settle onto the ground. The plane may bounce a little, especially
if it is a light fighter.
Here are a few videos as examples:
Spitfire Landing
Spitfire Takeoff and Landing
This video shows you what real Navy flight training looked like in a training plane
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