CJ-900 floating tendency
 

Holding short of an adjacent runway the other day, we were positioned to see maybe 15-20 a/c land. Variety of regional and mainline types(a320, 737, EMB190/175, CRJ-900) Of these, all managed to put it down nicely at the 1000 footers, except the -900. Of the 6 CRJ-900s, none put mains down at the 1000 footers, and from our perspective, only 3 made mains on by 1500’. Was this day an anomaly or is the CRJ just tougher to land?

What is your tried and tested landing technique for the -900?

Could it be people not getting the power out soon enough because of the fear of pounding it? I remember that being an airplane you did not want to wipe the power off too soon in.

And what do you fly?

No it lands just fine. Normally you take the power out at the ten foot call.

Getting major A. Net vibes from this thread. Very strong.

Full disclaimer I fly the -200 but am scheduled for differences.

Sooooo...you’re trained in the 200, but haven’t actually flown it yet?

The floating comes more from trying to bring it down without people’s teeth ending up on the floor. As said previously, you’re chopping the power at 10 feet. They’ll tell you in the sim to chop it at 50, but that’s how you slam it down. The only real way to bring it down on the 1000-footers is if you bring it in with three red on the PAPI....which is against everything you’re trained to do in the 121 world....or if you don’t mind a firm landing. But really, all that matters on a long runway is bringing it down in the TDZ.

Space Ranger, not trying to be snarky, but you do know the difference between the 1000" marker and the Touchdown Zone?

701EV

That is not at all the case. You can be on glide path and stick it on the markers. It's very easy to grease it chopping the power at 50 feet if you know what you're doing, contrary to popular opinion.

What’s the secret to it? I start walking the thrust levers to idle at about 30 feet and it makes for a smoother landing, but it still floats on me.

The main thing is most people flare too much. I’ve found that I used to have my seat positioned too low and would flare a good bit. Once I started positioning my seat in the correct spot for landing and not glaring as much it makes for a beautiful landing. I’ll start walking the power back on the 100 foot call, little more on the 50. It’s out by 20 and just a small touch of flare and sometimes even a tad bit of forward pressure on the yoke. I saw so many captains doing that for the longest time and always would grease it and then I started doing it. If you try to pull back too hard right before it touches, the way the main gear is positioned, it’ll also make for a harder landing. The elevator is basically just pushing the wheels down harder at that point.


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Someone better grab a ruler, this is about to become a d*ck measuring contest real quickly.

Pilots tend to carry power and airspeed in an attempt to "grease" the landing. Really you should be crossing the threshold at the bottom of the bucket, VRef, but most pilots cross the threshold at the middle of the bucket to the top of the bucket- VRef +5-10.
While we tend to judge pilots on that smooth touchdown I would much rather see a pilot make a "firm" (not hard), landing but not use up the TDZ versus a greaser that barely makes it into the TDZ. Too often I see pilots get in the habit of trying to make that smooth landing, then also not using much braking or TR's. Great if the conditions are perfect but less than desirable if you run into issues. I've had to use almost all of 4R at DTW when I was the first to land with MU's of 40+. :rolleyes: If I had not used maximum braking and TR's we probably would have gone off the end.

https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/.../AC_91-79A.pdf

Nah, I’m not perfect with the landings, so I consider it an opportunity to hear techniques from other CRJ jocks.

I wonder how many 700 drivers will comment on this, for those that plan on it the 900 lands nothing like the 700. Or if we get the superstar 200 drivers with their trailing link gear.

Me neither, and I’m all about new tips and tricks. I’m just anticipating some Type A personality to show up.

The fun starts when you get to fly all three in a single trip....or even a single day.

Thats not what I said. I am on the 200 but scheduled to transition to the 900 which at 9E is called "differences" because we don't fly all 3 variants like you do. This thread is more of a landing technique as I'm interested to see the different techniques and insight before I get onto the line. I'm sure my OE captain and the guys in simland will have their input but I don't think there is much wrong with throwing it out to the forum. Not trying to start a d*ck measuring contest, but the 200 is significantly easier to land than the 900, so thats why I'm asking.

Just wondering/hypothetical: Since the -900 fuselage is longer than the -700, are the Ref speeds higher (not just due to increased gross weight) but also for tail strike protection? If true, this would suggest more “float” is possible.

My biggest piece of advice is once you get it, don’t make major changes. When I was on IOE I had 4 captains and all 4 had a different way of doing it. The 2nd captain was able to explain it best to where landings were acceptable. By the end of the trip with the 4th guy I was smacking them on again with the way he wanted it done.

I carry the thrust in to about 30, then slowly pull it off to be closed by 10. Judge my roundout and flair by how quick or slowly the 30, 20, 10 calls come. My biggest issue was eyes down the runway. Like it was stated above a firm landing in the 900 is not only anticipated it’s desired. It’s too easy to have that thing drop out from under you if you flair too high and/or pull the power off too soon.

Just my .02, and again everyone has found their own knack for landing it.

it generally has higher ref speeds that the 700. closer to 200 ref speeds. but im not sure it has to do with tailstrike protection. we are usually landing it in the low 70k range at psa and i see refs in the mid 130s most times.

now if you are super light in the 900, it will float like crazy if you dont get the power out earlier than you might normally.

Exactly. Same here. I have good ones and bad ones like we all do. I just like reading tips and techniques. I just added how I do it and what helped me. When I started adjusting the seat height to where you can see the one “ball” and not two on the center post of the windshield it helped so much.


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A firm landing hurts only your ego and won’t last past the first round of beers at the overnight. Going off a runway because you landed with excess energy will be remembered at least as long as you have to fill out job applications.

Never had a problem with that but I guess it's what you're used to.


200: I could always nail it and grease it. Grease was due to trailing links. Precision was due to what some people considered a late and aggressive flare, but the 200 was small enough that you could land it by referencing where your butt is without worrying about tail strikes, more like you're wearing the plane. I was taught short-field landings by a CA I flew with as a newb, and it stuck (KPHL 26).



700: Power out at 20' call, gentle flare. This one is the roughest of the lot for me.


900: Power out at 10' (depending on sink rate). Gentle flare, and a VERY slight release of back-pressure as the mains touch down. Mains are behind the CG just a bit, so lowering the nose a little actually reduces the VS of the mains.

This echoes my experience almost exactly.

Just a smidge of power at 100'(and don't flare at this point, seems like people get antsy in the pantsy and want to start pulling back, if anything I might even push it forward just a tiny tiny bit) at 50' pull power at a rate conducive with conditions (I've found in windy gusty turbulent to reduce power slower and less flare, it will be firm instead of a greaser) and simultaneously very lightly smoothly ease back on the yoke by the time you hear 10 no more flaring and possibly even a small quiff hair of a push.

If you do it like they teach in the sim you'll float it to the end of touch down zone every time. how they do it in the sim works in the sim.

The secret to a good landing is to not give a $hit. Over think it and it comes out wrong every time.

There's some truth here.

Winner! Just put it somewhere in the zone. I've always been sonewhere in the 1500-2500 foot range in the three 121 machines I've flown.

quoted for truthiness

Hey I’ll cheers to this! Just like golf...


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I don't know what sim instructors told you to chop the power at 50 ft on the 900, but the instructors always told us NOT to do that. Keep a little power in to the 10 ft call, then slowly (not slamming) bring the TLs to the stops. The problem with the 900 is the extra length and weight added aft of the wing. When power is pulled out, it sorta squats instead of settling.

Well, you’re not the first on this forum to suggest I’m a liar, but that’s what we were taught in the sim. It wasn’t until IOE that I was told that it’s a simism and that’s why it’s done that way in the sim but don’t do that in the real one.

Dip a wing to make it smooth

I got so screwed up through training. IPTs teach us one way, then the Sim instructors told us forget all of that this is how it’s done. Then on IOE forget all of that it’s a sim-ism. If I had a dollar for everything I was told to forget, I could retire! (Not really tho, student loan debt ;) )

During my last PT a few months back the sim instructor was mentioning something about the touchdown zone definition has changed or something similar. It was 2 in the morning after the session so I was zoned out but after reading this it just came to mind. I'll have to google it after this but I vaguely remember him saying its not the first third of the runway. Why am I doing this on my days off?

Truth .

Not sure I get this. Usually when you don’t care that’s when it all goes wrong. The secret to good landings is having the plane properly trimmed or even with a bit of nose up trim so that actually you’re pushing down on touchdown. If you’re doing that you’ll grease it everytime.

He's essentially saying (I think) to just fly the dang thing. Not giving a crap =/= not doing your job in this case.

If you are sweating bullets all the way down final worried about greasing it the potential for a clunker goes up exponentially.

Yes, just like skiing moguls. You just have to roll with it and go with the flow to a degree and not tense up. You want to wear the airplane, not let it fly you.

Assuming stable approach and some sort of flare before impact... :rolleyes:

I gave up trying to land the funky Q400 consistently smooth about 6 months after IOE. The more I stressed about making a good landing the worse I would do, and that was taking the fun out of the job. I would say 1 in 4 landings are smooth, the rest are clunkers and sometimes a whole trip of clunkers is all I get. Maybe I’m just a $*it pilot tho :)

I know nothing about the CRJ900 but I would think it has to be a different sight picture and technique than the 200. Floating the plane out of the TDZ is one thing but if you missed the 1000’ footers you still have 1500-2000 more feet to go on most runways before you are now out of the TDZ. Just out of curiosity how long was the runway that you noticed these “floating” arrivals? Unless I have a RW less than 7000 I don’t specifically aim to land exactly on the 1000 footers, just somewhere in that general area or until the CA starts squirming then I’ll settle the power back smash her in and call it a day :P