LANDING AIRPLANES IN SIMULATORS AND PERIPHERAL VISION

Hal Stoen, © 1999

12/28/99

I've read several posts on the flight simulator lists about the difficulty in achieving decent landings in flight simulators, and thought that I would pass along some observations in general.

It seems that no matter what the pilot encounters during the departure, enroute or approach phases of a flight, the landing becomes the final judgment criteria for the entire trip. You can go out and do battle with ice, thunderstorms, equipment failures, near-minimums approaches and guide your passengers through them all without their spilling a drop of their drinks, or being jostled in their chairs.

Ah, but the landing. Bust that one, and it is the sole thing that most will remember about the entire flight. And, in all fairness, most pilots, knowing all of this, set themselves up for the same scenario.

A little background information first.

During my eighteen years as a corporate pilot I only flew one type of aircraft- the Cessna 421B. In that time period, the company used two different models: a 1972 421B, the one that I destroyed in a corn field, and a 1974 421B, the one I "finished my career" with, N1557G.

While the same model series, there were some differences between the two. The 1974 model had a higher pressurization differential- 5.3 PSI, and it also had a longer interior cabin. Cessna moved the aft pressure bulkhead back about 2 feet allowing for a larger bar area, and the addition of an eighth chair.

They also made some changes up front, in the office, and here is where the landing "cue" information comes into play.

The 1972 model had a higher brow over the top of the instrument panel that went straight across and then made a near 90 degree turn to vertical at each end. As an aside, the flight instruments on the pilot and co-pilot sides were mounted on sheet metal (actually aluminum) at a three degree tilt toward the pilots, the theory being that it would help eliminate parallax errors, while the center of the panel, the "radio stack area" was vertical.

For 1974 Cessna made the entire panel vertical. In addition, they rearranged some of the top-mounted instruments so that the top of the panel, the "brow", was lower and sloped more gently into the sidewalls on both ends. There were numerous other engineering changes between the two models.

When I first started operating the new aircraft I noticed that I was able to consistently achieve better landings. Now I knew that I hadn't gotten any better, so it had to be something with the aircraft. And then it finally dawned on this dumb Norwegian- peripheral vision. Unbeknownst to me, while landing I was looking down the runway but picking up my vertical distance clues through my side vision. The window area that had been blocked before by the higher brow was now exposed by the new, lower, design. Up until that time, I had no idea as to how important that information was to me when it came to the landing phase of the operation.

The next time I went to Flight Safety for my annual check I noticed the same thing in their full-motion simulators. Even though they had the newer cockpit in the simulators, there was not a CRT display for this area. There was a side window display, but it did not extend that far down. And sure enough, landings in the simulator were not the same as in the actual aircraft. I discussed this with other crews doing training at the same time, and they all came to the same conclusion.

So there you have it. The next time you don't "grease it on", blame it on your lack of "peripheral vision", certainly not on your lack of skills as an aircraft commander.

This tutorial is available on a CD

This tutorial, along with additional content, is available on a CD. Click here for more information.

Hal Stoen

© 1999

12/28/99

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