[wiki:contest] Landing and Crash-Landing Tutorial for Planes

[WeisserRitter 9]

Hello everyone,

 

this tutorial will be a contest entry concerning the do´s and dont´s concerning (crash-) landing a plane - as I think that the current wiki does not cover this topic yet.

 

It is planned to cover the following topics:

 

- landing tactics in general

- crash landing a damaged plane the best way, to hopefully avoid the total loss of the plane

- landing characteristics of the differtent types of plane (fighter, bomber, different types of fuselage an damage models)

- intentional crash-landing of planes (f. e. on a carrier, or very short runway)

- best behaviour while sitting in a (crash-) landed plane

- how to destroy (crash-) landed enemy planes most skillfully *g*

 

I hope this will be of interest for the wiki community. :-)

 

EDIT SECTION - The Tutorial

 

When playing Warthunder you don´t really need to land your plane in the beginning - in Aracde battles your plane will reload in midair, and when critically damaged it is often easier and better to respawn with another available plane instead of flying back to your airfield, repair and then fly back into the fray ... as often battle might be over before you have accomplished this detour. But once you have run out of planes to respawn with, or if you want to keep the best plane of your current deck alive for more action, you will want to land your plane. And if you circle your airfield a bit, you might witness that a lot of players crash or destroy their planes on landing - this tutorial wants you to learn how to land your plane safely.

 

 

Landing a plane - the basics:

 

Landing your plane safely is mainly depending on three things: the damage level of your plane, the type of gear your plane is equipped with, and at which stage of the battle your are currently. Under normal circumstances (light or no damage) you will mostly want to land your plane to reload, repair or to swich ammunition. To do this, you will normally fly towards one of your airfields, reduce your airspeed and then prepare for landing by lowering your gear and, in the final stage, the landing flaps - if available. Every plane has individual characteristics concerning the minimum airspeed you need to stay in the air, but on the other hand has a maximum airspeed at which you can safely lower your gear and your flaps without risk of tearing them off. In addition your gear won´t sustain too high speeds on the runway - it will tear away if you´re rolling across the strip too fast. So your speed will be the most critical thing while beginning your landing - many pilots fail in their attempt because they approach the airfield at a much too high speed, and then either rip of the landing gear or overshoot the runway just to crash the plane in the surrounding area, beyond any help from the airfield. And even if they realize that they are too fast to land, and then enter a 180°-turn to prepare for a second approach of the airfield, they tend to forget that flying steep curves costs height and airspeed, and crash in the surroundings as well. Especially bombers are prone to this kind of crash, as the long wings might in addition touch the ground or some obstacle while turning at a very low altitude.

 

So let´s look at an example approach for a typical tier I plane - it will have no retractable landing gear, no flaps and cant go very fast, anyway. If it´s a biplane it will have a very high lift, so you can go really slow before landing ... and your main goal will be to keep your nose up when landing, to prevent your propeller blades from mowing the lawn. And, as your landing speed can be very low you will quickly some to a stop on the airfield even without making use of the (tricky) brakes. To begin the landing process, reduce your altitude and try to be at about 300m above the ground when 2 km away. Your throttle should now be at about 50%, slowly reducing speed more until you have reached the planes minimum airspeed + about 30%, to have a bit of a reserve for spontaneus maneuvring, as for example to avoid allied planes that are just taking off, or landing as well from running into you. Look at the ingame map to check the alignment ot the airfield, and align your approach to the airfield. When the airfield finally is in sight, reduce your altitude to about 100m, and take a last look at your surroundings, checking for enemy fighters or bombers who might want to take advantage of your landing process.

 

When you have reached the airfield, fly as close as you dare at your aircraft minimum speed and slowly reduce altitude until you are nearly touching the ground. But just before you do, reduce throttle to 0% and then pull up your nose just a little bit, to be slightly above the horizon. If you did this perfectly, you will accomplish the famous three-point landing, when you main gear and the spoon / rear wheel will touch the ground syncronously. In all other cases you will either land on your main gear (good), or on your spoon / rear gear, risking damage to your tail section if you pulled your nose up to high. And if you fly this manouvre at to high airspeed, your plane will pull up a bit, then stall, flip over and finally crash into the runway head-first = not a good idea! As I assume you will have landed on your main gear, you can now sit back and wait for your plane to come to a stop, at least if the runway ist still long enough. It it is not, either because the airfield is VERY short, or because you took too long for touchdown, you will want to use your brakes to slow down more quickly. But using the brakes is always a risky thing on landings, as some planes tend to flip on their nose if the plane is still going to fast. Best just brake a bit, release brake, brake a bit, release brake, until you plane has safely settled down (= your spoon / rear gear is touching the ground).

 

In Arcade you can lower your gear at almost every airspeed, as long as you have activated the flight instructor.

 

If your plane is already damaged a lot, and especially when your gear has taken damage (f. e. one leg has been torn away, or your gear cannot be lowered anymore), then you should read the section about crash landing a plane.

 

Most low-tier planes feature the classical landing gear:

Edited April 20, 2015 by WeisserRitter

[buddah_stick 5]

Could you please also discuss methods of avoiding damage from 4000 pound bombs, while static on runways, because I have had problems in this area. Thank you.

[buddah_stick 5]

I've tried wiggling my mouse but that doesn't seem to work.

Edited April 17, 2015 by urbanski

[Rangertre 5]

This would probably be very interesting to the Wiki community. Unfortunately, this event is about creating an article concerning a specific vehicle, with the emphasis on showing new players the ropes.

 

Maybe you could, in an article about a plane of your choice, explain how to land and crash-land in that plane?

Good idea though, perhaps you could create a new page in the official Wiki about this topic and submit it there.

[WeisserRitter 9]

Hello Urbanski,

 

well, sitting static on the runway (while repairing / reloading) ist always a problem, especially when the runway ist getting bombed so seriously. My advice would be to avoid sitting in the open, if possible ... sometimes it helps not just to stop the plane in plain sight in the middle of the runway after landing, but to leave the egine powered up a bit longer, as to taxi to the side of the airflield, preferably between buidings or trees. It makes seeing and hitting you much harder, especially for fighters. High-level bombing will also mainly target the center of the airfield ... staying off-center can be a solution. You cannot prevent damage from a close by bomb - you can only try to prevent to be where the bombs mostly are placed. ;-)

 

Hello Rangertre,

 

thx for the advice on the contest - but I think any article will be welcomed to the contest, as stated in the rules. :-) (edited)

 

With regards, TheWhiteKnight

Edited April 20, 2015 by WeisserRitter

[battalionier 98]

Unfortunately this Contest is for vehicle pages not strategy pages, please see contest rules.

Your efforts are appreciated and if we ever run a contest for these type of articles i suggest to resubmit.

[WeisserRitter 9]

Hmm, OK - I was just about to finish my contest entry, but then I will do that later, when I have more time for it.

In fact I really have not found the proper rules for this contest as yet ... and I think it would really have helped

to pin them in this part of the wiwki-forum, pinned to stay on top, as I seem not the only one here to have

misunderstood the topic / rules. :(

[Saldytuwas 17]

Here are the rules if youre still interested in seeing them http://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/232511-competition-wt-wiki-combat-training/

[battalionier 98]

Hmm, OK - I was just about to finish my contest entry, but then I will do that later, when I have more time for it.

In fact I really have not found the proper rules for this contest as yet ... and I think it would really have helped

to pin them in this part of the wiwki-forum, pinned to stay on top, as I seem not the only one here to have

misunderstood the topic / rules. :(

 

Sorry to hear. I hope you finish your article.

If this competition goes well, I will try to push for more competitions such as for tutorial articles. Unfortunately i do not have any real power when it comes to such things and can only make suggest to the powers that be.

 

As rules state all past work is acceptable in the competition so you could use this work in future competitions if they happen.

[Remiak 108]

Sorry to hear. I hope you finish your article.

If this competition goes well, I will try to push for more competitions such as for tutorial articles. Unfortunately i do not have any real power when it comes to such things and can only make suggest to the powers that be.

 

As rules state all past work is acceptable in the competition so you could use this work in future competitions if they happen.

This would be great, i fly like a potato in RB, and SB in planes intimidate me too much to even try, some good guides would be greatly appreciated.

 

I could contribute myself, while i'm not a good pilot i am a very good tanker, and i often see people that have no clue what so ever of what to do or how to aim properly in ground forces RB or SB, heck, most don't even know how to use their sights for proper ranging (if done correctly you can land a shot on an enemy tank all the way to 2800m on the first try).

 

If there was a chance to win something out of spending 6 to 20 hours on an article i would totally do it, the Tiger II article i wrote for the wiki contest has so far taken me far more than that.