How do you slow down for landing

[johan.pienaar]

Hi, I have now tried a couple of different techniques to land but I can not slow down enough to avoid an extended balloon when I flare for the landing.

On final approach with full flaps and gear extended and the engines at idle on the glideslope I can not get below around 105 kts. Not sure what the landing speed should be but this seems to high and I always land way to long. How can I slow down further for a nice landing?

[Victory103]

Props at 1700 rpm? What is your GW? The 105kt Vref works for 14k aircraft.

[johan.pienaar]

Props are full forward (1700) throttles at idle with a very light plane (2 pilots, no luggage and less then 30% fuel in the main tanks only, will have to check the actual weight)

I would expect al least some power to be required with full flaps and gear down.

[KenG]

Are your condition levers in LOW IDLE?

[metzgergva]

Hello Ken, does your question imply that you land the KA350i with the CL in low idle position? Never heard that before.

[wells]

The latest beta doesn't seem to show this tendency. Hang in there

[j.waeber]

Hello Ken, does your question imply that you land the KA350i with the CL in low idle position? Never heard that before.

You only land with HIGH IDLE, if you perform a full reverse thrust landing. The reason for this is, that if you go into power idle, your engine doesn't slow down to 62% N1 (Dont remember the values right now). Your engines will stop at 68% N1. As soon as you go into reverse your engine doesn't have to spool up that much till it reaches the maximum thrust for reverse. For a normal landing you lift the power levers into the beta range after touchdown. Since the beta range doesn't require any change in N1, you wan't to have your condition levers in LOW IDLE.

[KenG]

Only in the case of a MAXIMUM REVERSE THRUST LANDING do you land the 350 in High Idle. Most normal landings the Condition Levers remain in LOW IDLE where they were set after engine start and reset after the runup.

The older 200s and 90s use to run around in high idle all of the time to keep the right engine above its minimum N1 for the air conditioning compressor. These airplanes had engines that low idle was around 52-54% where the AC needs 63-64% N1 to stay off the cutoff switch. With the 350 that is not a problem so other than loading up the generator during engine start (the generators have a cooling fan on the back that draws air through the NACA duct on the ground), High Idle is rarely used.

Since propeller drag is a known issue in P3D (and MSFS before it) I highly recommend using Low Idle for all landings in P3D. In the real airplane as the power levers are reduced toward ~10-15% the propellers come to rest on the low pitch stops (flatten out.) When this happens they start producing more drag than thrust and the airplane in flight will noticeably slow down quickly. This aerodynamic effect was missed when ACES first introduced the Cessna Caravan and King Air into MSFS and has persisted ever since. This issue can also cause the FS airplane not wanting to slow down when descending from altitude. The real airplane also exhibits some of the go down or slow down but not both performance it is not as bad as P3D exhibits.

[metzgergva]

Thank you for the clarifications on the difference of older and the latest King Air aircraft. Now my knowledge is back in line with what you described.
I agree with the difficulties to produce drag when pulling back the PL to idle. The turboprop engine model has its deficiencies. I remember how much I was pushed agains the safety harness on my first landing on a PC-7. But with the right efficiency profile for the prop, you can come near to that de-acceleration effect.

[Lat3gr]

Only in the case of a MAXIMUM REVERSE THRUST LANDING do you land the 350 in High Idle. Most normal landings the Condition Levers remain in LOW IDLE where they were set after engine start and reset after the runup.

The older 200s and 90s use to run around in high idle all of the time to keep the right engine above its minimum N1 for the air conditioning compressor. These airplanes had engines that low idle was around 52-54% where the AC needs 63-64% N1 to stay off the cutoff switch. With the 350 that is not a problem so other than loading up the generator during engine start (the generators have a cooling fan on the back that draws air through the NACA duct on the ground), High Idle is rarely used.

Since propeller drag is a known issue in P3D (and MSFS before it) I highly recommend using Low Idle for all landings in P3D. In the real airplane as the power levers are reduced toward ~10-15% the propellers come to rest on the low pitch stops (flatten out.) When this happens they start producing more drag than thrust and the airplane in flight will noticeably slow down quickly. This aerodynamic effect was missed when ACES first introduced the Cessna Caravan and King Air into MSFS and has persisted ever since. This issue can also cause the FS airplane not wanting to slow down when descending from altitude. The real airplane also exhibits some of the go down or slow down but not both performance it is not as bad as P3D exhibits.

Ken, are you aware of plans to fix the drag profile when trying to slow down(descent/approach phase)? At the moment the aircraft refuses to slow down, even flying S+L, you need to get the power back extremely far to get below flap and gear speeds.

[Taguilo]

Hi,

Engine power calcs and other FDE variables have been improved for the SP.
Aircraft will slow down as expected.

Thanks!

Tomas

[johan.pienaar]

Will try the low idle setting. I moved to high idle before takeoff and just left it at high idle all the time till after I landed, the same as the porter.

Waiting for the service patch.