Amazing Mig-29 flaps

[Deathcoffin]

I felt so much easier to land the mig "without" flaps on its final approach till touchdown in lockonFC having the plane going at a stable and constant rate of decend but if i engage the flaps the plane would climb without me adjusting the throttle speed and pulling back the stick. Even when im taking off with flaps down and going at full afterburners the mig would climb itself after it reaches its optimum takeoff speed with me actually not pulling back the stick. Is it the nature of the mig to behave like that in real life?:plane

[Kato217]

All airplanes do that - by adding flaps you are changing the wing profile to give you more lift, hence you gain altitude without any inputs from the throttle or stick

Hope that helps

[Deathcoffin]

I know about that but the Mig in lockonFC is much more sensitive to the matter i stated above than any other planes. Might it be due to its thrust to weight ratio?

[Zaggy]

Or just due to the fact that LockOn kinda sucks in many respects...

[Cobra]

could be your not trimmed correctly. you shoud be able to trim out any pitch tendencies.

the other thing that might be causing this is that you are flying too fast with the flaps out. flaps are only meant to be used in a small speed region, going too fast would create the pitch up effect you described.

:smile:

[klhaviation]

I did a little test flight in LOMAC to check this out...

Here's the deal with flaps in real life. Each increment of flap will initially change the plan form of the wing and increase lift by increasing the curviture (camber) of the wing. All planes will initially "baloon" or pop up without retrimming. Initially you want to make a nose down motion, then retrim the aircraft...

Now here comes the trickey part. After that initial lift motion, a steeper sink rate will develope. This is due in part to the parasite drag (form drag) created by the flap, but more so by induced drage (drag created by lift...I will explain this a little more later).

So after nosing down and fighting the balloon, you will have to adjust the powersetting and retrim to compensate for the sink. Don't add too much power however here is why.

Drag increases as speed increses...This is why the Mig 29 has a limiting speed...It also increases as the aircraft slows down and needs to creat a lot of lift by adding flaps and using thrust... Ever notice how you use the same ammount of thrust on approach as you do in cruise...This is because it is acting aginst the same ammount of drag as in certain cruise congis. We call this the power curve.
http://www.auf.asn.au/groundschool/powercurve.gif
So if we get too slow and compensate with power, than we can run out of excess thrust and stall the aircraft.

Now as far as unstable approaches, you simply have to retrim the aircraft to restabalize it ... It may take some practice...Take your Mig to 5000 feet (or meters) and practice flying at approach speed and adjusting flaps. I might also suggest to begin the approach at 30 knots faster than final approach speed, and then drop the flaps..This will bleed off some of the speed and you won't have to go from "final and stable" to having to restabilize. Simply approach at a slowly decreasing airspeed and set flaps THEN speed on close final.

Worked for me...Hope it works for you, Use your thrust to control your descent rate(higher flatter, lower steeper), and pitch to control airspeed (down faster, up slower), Just dont get too slow with a high power setting otherwise you may have to punch out... Good Luck..Keep practicing


And here is a brief, overly simple explaniation on induced drage for those that care (most pilots don't even care LOL) Okey Lift ALWAYS acts at a 90 angle to the cord line (basic line) of the wing (hopefully up (unless its a horizontal stanb)) In high Angle of Attacks the wing creates lift at a slight rearward vector, Some of the component of this vector points back (toward the drag vector) and most is up (still lift) So a little lift can be felt as drag (actually it is drag). This little reward vector of lift is called induced drag. Jets almost always land with a high AOA (angle of attack) well high compaired to cruise flight. So there is a lot of extra drag to overcome...how do we overcome drag...thrust of course, Fortuniately there is a lot of Excess thrust to keep the aircraft flying at this nose up attitude...on my Cessna 421 We have a good but of excess thrust, be we can really find ourselved "behind the power curve" if we get slow with A high AOA. You can really get screwed (and not in a good way)
http://selair.selkirk.bc.ca/aerodynamics1/Drag/Graphics/Induced1.GIF
Moral of the story, Avoid increasing airspeed with thrust alone, use pitch, this will keep your AOA away from critical (stall), and you can compensate for the loss of altitude (lower glide path) with thrust...It takes practice...When you finally get it we call it corriliation in the CFI community.

So get your butts corrilation, and I will get my butt a dictionary so I can learn to spell better.

[SUBS17]

Or just due to the fact that LockOn kinda sucks in many respects...

Yeah unless you have FC and a trakir it would suck:bigsmile: , the 29 in FC is very nice to fly pity it doesn't have AFM can't wait for destroyers 29.

[Deathcoffin]

I did a little test flight in LOMAC to check this out...

Here's the deal with flaps in real life. Each increment of flap will initially change the plan form of the wing and increase lift by increasing the curviture (camber) of the wing. All planes will initially "baloon" or pop up without retrimming. Initially you want to make a nose down motion, then retrim the aircraft...

Now here comes the trickey part. After that initial lift motion, a steeper sink rate will develope. This is due in part to the parasite drag (form drag) created by the flap, but more so by induced drage (drag created by lift...I will explain this a little more later).

So after nosing down and fighting the balloon, you will have to adjust the powersetting and retrim to compensate for the sink. Don't add too much power however here is why.

Drag increases as speed increses...This is why the Mig 29 has a limiting speed...It also increases as the aircraft slows down and needs to creat a lot of lift by adding flaps and using thrust... Ever notice how you use the same ammount of thrust on approach as you do in cruise...This is because it is acting aginst the same ammount of drag as in certain cruise congis. We call this the power curve.
http://www.auf.asn.au/groundschool/powercurve.gif
So if we get too slow and compensate with power, than we can run out of excess thrust and stall the aircraft.

Now as far as unstable approaches, you simply have to retrim the aircraft to restabalize it ... It may take some practice...Take your Mig to 5000 feet (or meters) and practice flying at approach speed and adjusting flaps. I might also suggest to begin the approach at 30 knots faster than final approach speed, and then drop the flaps..This will bleed off some of the speed and you won't have to go from "final and stable" to having to restabilize. Simply approach at a slowly decreasing airspeed and set flaps THEN speed on close final.

Worked for me...Hope it works for you, Use your thrust to control your descent rate(higher flatter, lower steeper), and pitch to control airspeed (down faster, up slower), Just dont get too slow with a high power setting otherwise you may have to punch out... Good Luck..Keep practicing


And here is a brief, overly simple explaniation on induced drage for those that care (most pilots don't even care LOL) Okey Lift ALWAYS acts at a 90 angle to the cord line (basic line) of the wing (hopefully up (unless its a horizontal stanb)) In high Angle of Attacks the wing creates lift at a slight rearward vector, Some of the component of this vector points back (toward the drag vector) and most is up (still lift) So a little lift can be felt as drag (actually it is drag). This little reward vector of lift is called induced drag. Jets almost always land with a high AOA (angle of attack) well high compaired to cruise flight. So there is a lot of extra drag to overcome...how do we overcome drag...thrust of course, Fortuniately there is a lot of Excess thrust to keep the aircraft flying at this nose up attitude...on my Cessna 421 We have a good but of excess thrust, be we can really find ourselved "behind the power curve" if we get slow with A high AOA. You can really get screwed (and not in a good way)
http://selair.selkirk.bc.ca/aerodynamics1/Drag/Graphics/Induced1.GIF
Moral of the story, Avoid increasing airspeed with thrust alone, use pitch, this will keep your AOA away from critical (stall), and you can compensate for the loss of altitude (lower glide path) with thrust...It takes practice...When you finally get it we call it corriliation in the CFI community.

So get your butts corrilation, and I will get my butt a dictionary so I can learn to spell better.

Great write up:thumb:
But for some reasons the so-called lift doesnt really relate to what i have experienced with the mig. When the flaps are down during a constant rate of decend to touchdown, the flaps would act as a pitch up for the aircraft, making it speed upwards without any drag as if the flaps act as a stick pull back which most of the time made my plane shoot pass the initial touchdown zone on the runway. It would not be the case if i did not lower the flaps. I also checked the trim of my aircraft and could see that its close to zero error. As for the rest of the planes in lockonFC, landing was relatively okie with flaps lowered making the nose of the aircraft at about 50-10 degrees upwards and constant rate of decend by adjusting the throttle rpm from time to time till touch down but as for the mig? I had to pitch my nose down instead to compensate for the powerful lift:rofl

[klhaviation]

I would guess it is one of two things...

The Mig 29 has an unusual aerodynamic charactaristic which causes it to floatexcessively with flaps down, or LOMAC does not model the 29 too well...I would venure to guess it is the second, but I am no expert on the Mig29 or the flight models of LOMAC...I did test fly the Mig with the patch to 1.12, and I did experience a float, drag and the sink did kick in after a while ( It took about three miles to stabilize with the slower speed...I was monkeying with the throttle too much), it seemed to behave okey for me aftr a while, but it is REALLY REALLY REALLY twitchy with trim at slow speed, so it takes a while to work it out.

One last tip...Make a longer approach, don't wait till the last second or few hundred feet for the landing flaps. Set up and stabilize a bit further out. Like I said it is twitchy and it took me about three miles to get it stabilized, It doues float up for a while, but that may because of too high a thrust settting or speed when they are lowered. Good Luck...It might just be the sim too... Eagle Dynamics is a great studio but they did rush out the sim, and the Mig 29 and Su33 never got as much attention as the SU-27 and Su25. I think the patch to V1.12 improves some of this (too bad is costs money...but it may be worth it if you don't have it)

I havent played LOMAC is a while....kinda fun.....But back to Viper.

[Shepski]

Great write up:thumb:
making it speed upwards without any drag as if the flaps act as a stick pull back which most of the time made my plane shoot pass the initial touchdown zone on the runway.

Excellent write up indeed...

What is your approach and over the threshold speed in the Mig-29?

Zaggy... nice comment from an XSI manager... :nono:

[klhaviation]

Vref (approach) 280km/h (Flaps Down)
Slow Decelleration to Touchdown 235 km/h

Thus saith the LOMAC manual on landing (both paragraphs of it)
Seems to work pretty well, althoug hthat Mig-29 is shakier than a preacher in a whore house at 235 km/h.

[Shepski]

LOL! Approach, inside 4 miles should be about 280 in landing configuration and slowing to a Vref(over the threshold) of 260 work well for average weights... 235 at touchdown is too slow unless you are very light.

My question was actually for Deathcoffin because it sounds like he's too fast from what he's been saying... especially if he's eating up too much runway prior to touchdown.

[Deathcoffin]

LOL! Approach, inside 4 miles should be about 280 in landing configuration and slowing to a Vref(over the threshold) of 260 work well for average weights... 235 at touchdown is too slow unless you are very light.

My question was actually for Deathcoffin because it sounds like he's too fast from what he's been saying... especially if he's eating up too much runway prior to touchdown.

Its roughly around the range of klhaviation just a little slightly higher say 10-20 more? and i might have had my flaps lowered rather too late that causes my mig to roar pass the initial touchdown zone. Im just not too used to landing a craft with a high thrust to weight ratio like the Mig-29?(correct me if im wrong) and the F-16 in sims. Slight changes of throttle rpm could cause a dramatic change in speed for these two aircraft for example. Something i gotta work on i guess.:smile:

Another thing i found out though, whenever i engage the gears, flaps would be lowered automatically in all flyable aircrafts in FC except the mig. Maybe the mig doesnt need flaps for landing hahaah and pretty much explains everything. But it could also be that the mig wasnt designed to engage flaps automatically by the system when gears are engaged.

[Shepski]

Another thing i found out though, whenever i engage the gears, flaps would be lowered automatically in all flyable aircrafts in FC except the mig.

Actually, only the Su-27 and Su-33 have auto flap/slat extension when the gear is lowered in the sim.

Normal approach profile, in cloud and visual, is to extend flaps first followed by the gear. The Flanker seems to have a safety feature that if the pilot forgot the flaps then they would come out automatically when the gear is dropped.

Ideally... in the sim, for most realistic results, you should be extending the flaps at about 10 miles back and then gear no less then 4 miles back for a good stabilized approach. Adding flaps on short final will cause a balloon effect.

I have about 2000 hours in the Pilatus PC-12 single engine turbo-prop and if I had an engine failure after take-off at a point I could do a 180 and make it to the runway, I could hold off on the flaps if gliding to the runway was going to be close and on short final I would lower the flaps to get a balloon effect to help give me that little extra lift to make it to the runway if needed. We practiced this a lot in the simulator.

I used to fly a Learjet 35A and landing flaps had to be down by 4 miles from the runway. Now I fly a 737 and nothing has changed... fully configured by 4 miles in a stabilzed approach.

[Cobra]

I used to fly a Learjet 35A and landing flaps had to be down by 4 miles from the runway. Now I fly a 737 and nothing has changed... fully configured by 4 miles in a stabilzed approach.

Congrats on the upgrade Shepski. Who are you flying for now?

Just a question on the Su's ... do they have slats or leading edge flaps? Been a while since i've played.

:smile:

[klhaviation]

Full span leading edge slats and trailing edge flaperons.
(as per LOMAC manual)

[Shepski]

Congrats on the upgrade Shepski. Who are you flying for now?

Just a question on the Su's ... do they have slats or leading edge flaps? Been a while since i've played.


Thanks Cobra!

Canadian North Airlines flying a 737-200 combi with gravel kit... we take it into a few 5000 foot gravel runways in the arctic... lots of fun! :)

Just looked in the book and they are called leading edge flaps.

This the former 169th Cobra?

[Cobra]

Thanks Cobra!

Canadian North Airlines flying a 737-200 combi with gravel kit... we take it into a few 5000 foot gravel runways in the arctic... lots of fun! :)

Just looked in the book and they are called leading edge flaps.

This the former 169th Cobra?

Thats me! Kinda worked out well because it would have been a bit of a conflict of interest if i was still in the 169th. :wink2:

Man that sounds like awesome fun and if you have any photos of the gravel kit i would love to see them as i have never heard of it before now. Our flying down here is pretty lame compared to that stuff. Although we still manage to have some fun flying into smaller stips in some reasonably remote areas.

Thanks for clearing that up ... they always looked like leading edge flaps in game but i wasnt sure what they really were.

:smile:

[Shepski]

Excellent... hope everything works out for you here!

Here is a pic I took this winter in CYVQ, Norman Wells, Northwest Territories... it was -45 C!

You can see the nosewheel gravel deflector and the vortex dissipators protruding from under the nacelle which blow back bleed air from 3 holes in the end of the tube which prevents rocks from being sucked up. There are also mud flaps between the mains and reinforcement on the underside of the inboard flaps.

The entire nosewheel well is also modified to allow the deflector to retract up and ahead of the nosewheel.

http://www3.telus.net/public/shepskii/Norman-Wells-45C.jpg

[Cobra]

Here is a pic I took this winter in CYVQ, Norman Wells, Northwest Territories... it was -45 C!


-45 C :confused:

Great shot btw.

[Spyder-F16]

-45 C :confused:

Great shot btw.

It is likely that it was -45C there. The Northwest Territories do go pretty high up in the lattitudes.

[Shepski]

It sure as hell was but not a lick of wind... thank God! You can see the condensation coming out of the APU. We operate well inside the arctic circle on some of our flights.

That was the coldest temp I saw all winter and on average, up there, it was about -20 C over the winter. I also did trips down to Arizona so that balances things out. :)

I was also going to mention that the deflector limits gear operation speed to 180 and extended speed to 200 so we have to manage our descent profiles a little more. Cobra,you're on a -37 NG correct?

[rjetster]

Shepski,

That is a very “cool” picture, gives me the chills just looking at it!:shades:

[Shepski]

Shepski,

That is a very “cool” picture, gives me the chills just looking at it!:shades:

LOL!

How about this one... high over Alaska's Wrangel-St. Elias range with Mt. Logan(highest mountain in Canada) in the top left corner near the Yukon(Canadian) border... we were coming back from Kenai... south of Anchorage... not a spec of green... all snow and ice!

http://www3.telus.net/public/shepskii/B747-over-Alaska.JPG

[3rdELTy]

it was -45 C!
WOW :bigeyes: This January in my town temp dropped to -30°C. It was cold even for my dog :bigsmile:
But the good thing about it was that the pond was frozen pretty well so we could go and play some hockey :)

[rjetster]

WOW!!! stunning shot! Keep them coming Shepski...

[Cobra]

Not for a sec did i not beleive it was that temperature. I'm not a fan of the cold .. thats all! (hence the smilie face!)

In summer time we regularly get almost the exact opposite temps ... up to +48C

We are dual endorsed on both classics (-400's) and NG's (-800's). We also had -300's but the last one went last November ...man were they a little pocket rocket! Also a little bit of nostalgia ... one of those 300's was the first ever EFIS jet and was the testing platform used by boeing prior to being delivered to us. It also shows you how long in the tooth they were getting.

Here's an image i scanned from our magazine showing an RNAV departure from Queenstown in New Zealand. The orange and red is terrain so you can see it does a loop around a hill before departing.

http://www.fighterpit.com/images/rnav.jpg

:smile:

[klhaviation]

Shepski

I was up in Marquett, MI a few months ago and we had -30F one morning...Started the engines okey but lost the left on the roll (well before V1) The mechanic said it was the cold temp (air was so cold the density of air fuel mixture flamed us out). We were in a Beech 99 (PT6A28s) Do ya'll have this problem in turbo jets up there in Canada?

[Shepski]

Yikes that's hot Cobra... the cold you can dress for and be comfortable when outside but the heat... you can only undress so far! :) Looks like a fun departure!

Mike,

-30 isn't really that cold. ;)

Did you have any anti-ice fuel additive in your fuel load like Prist? I used to fly the PC-12, Merlin SW2A and King Air B200 up in the arctic. In the PC-12 which had no fuel heaters we had to manually add Prist from cans to the fuel(attached to the fuel truck nozzle) for anti-ice because up there there was no additve in the trucks like down south. In the Merlin and King Air, with oil/fuel heaters we didn't have to but did if the temperature was very cold like -40, which is very rare over the course of the winter. The Learjet 35A also required anti-ice additive and we used Prist from the cans if we were out of North America as the FBO's didn't have the additive in their fuel trucks.

[Vampire14]

Here's an image i scanned from our magazine showing an RNAV departure from Queenstown in New Zealand. The orange and red is terrain so you can see it does a loop around a hill before departing.

http://www.fighterpit.com/images/rnav.jpg

:smile:

Sweet - Haha the Queenstown arrival/departure is the shizzle.:thumb:

Being a new arrival in Oz fron NZ I am slowly getting used to the heat I think - 40 deg C is a long way from a mega hot day of 28 in NZ!!

Pete - maybe put in a word at work that you might need some 737 gravel kits for those 'little dusty' strips...and drop me a line at HP Design after I have a word with Shepski :bigsmile:

[Deathcoffin]

Invasion

[klhaviation]

Yikes that's hot Cobra... the cold you can dress for and be comfortable when outside but the heat... you can only undress so far! :) Looks like a fun departure!

Mike,

-30 isn't really that cold. ;)

Did you have any anti-ice fuel additive in your fuel load like Prist? I used to fly the PC-12, Merlin SW2A and King Air B200 up in the arctic. In the PC-12 which had no fuel heaters we had to manually add Prist from cans to the fuel(attached to the fuel truck nozzle) for anti-ice because up there there was no additve in the trucks like down south. In the Merlin and King Air, with oil/fuel heaters we didn't have to but did if the temperature was very cold like -40, which is very rare over the course of the winter. The Learjet 35A also required anti-ice additive and we used Prist from the cans if we were out of North America as the FBO's didn't have the additive in their fuel trucks.

No we did not take Prist on the 99s... According to maintaince the air was so dense that when it entered the cans after the compressor spooled up, it would not ignite...According to the mechanic, the Northwest Airlink Saabs had the same problem from time to time....

But here in Sunny San Diego we only have to worry about extreme VFR conditions, and making sure the AC is working...:smile:

[Prophet]

Moral of the story, Avoid increasing airspeed with thrust alone, use pitch, this will keep your AOA away from critical (stall), and you can compensate for the loss of altitude (lower glide path) with thrust...It takes practice...When you finally get it we call it corriliation in the CFI community.

So get your butts corrilation, and I will get my butt a dictionary so I can learn to spell better.

So mentally, you should be thinking more like helicopter?

I dont read a lot of the tutorials and such, but I have been told and try to practice that on landing to use thrust to adjust rate of decent not pitch.

Interesting. Almost seems that Y axis of stick would control thrust, and the throttle for pitch =)

Maybe I will try to map my cougar like this and see how my brain tries to wrap around that LOL!

[klhaviation]

Think like a helio??? no a real pilot could never sink to that level LOL:rofl.
Just kidding.

But yes in a sense the throttle does act like a collevtive on a chopper. Really it performs the same task. The engine on the chopper pushes wings (rotors) through the air, as does the engine on an airplane...except the wings are fixed. This increases lift. Pitch on a chopper transitions lift to thrust, this is pretty much the same technique in a fixed wing as well.

Now I don;t want to say that they are to similar because they do have drastic aerodynamic differences. But as far as pitching for speed and power for glide path (or climb gradent) it is the way to do it. Just think in vectors (or directions of force)

I would not remap the control axis of your stick...confusing to keep it strainght after all those years. Next time you are on final in the F-16 and the flight path indicator slips in front of the runway...add power...pitch sould stay about the same (not the AOA index to the left of the HUD, this will tell you if you need to pitch up or down, or airspeed will do almost the same thing @ 165-180 kts works for me in Falcon)...Avoid pitching up if the flight path parker is indicating short....you will experience a dramatic rate of descent or STALLLLLLL:bigeyes:. Bad Voodo for Falcons and Cessnas alike

Also avoid slow speeds in turns (stall speed increases in turns due to increased Gs) and avoid accelerated turns(pulling back too much on the stick in turns) this also spikes the Gs and increases stall speed. A good way to become a lawn dart.

[169th_Crusty]

Normal approach profile, in cloud and visual, is to extend flaps first followed by the gear. The Flanker seems to have a safety feature that if the pilot forgot the flaps then they would come out automatically when the gear is dropped.

Ideally... in the sim, for most realistic results, you should be extending the flaps at about 10 miles back and then gear no less then 4 miles back for a good stabilized approach. Adding flaps on short final will cause a balloon effect...

In a Mig29, or any other fighter jet the gear is normally lowered first,
followed by flaps (auto or manual) although landing w/o flaps is quite
routine in a Fulcrum (adding 25 - 30 km/h).
Leading edges are usually controlled by FLCS.
In Lockon FC, the Mig is simulated quite decently... IMHO:wink2:

[Cobra]

In a Mig29, or any other fighter jet the gear is normally lowered first,
followed by flaps (auto or manual) although landing w/o flaps is quite
routine in a Fulcrum (adding 25 - 30 km/h).
Leading edges are usually controlled by FLCS.
In Lockon FC, the Mig is simulated quite decently... IMHO:wink2:

are you saying it is routine to land the Mig29 without flaps in the game or in real life??

if it is done in real life, what is the reasoning for it?

[SUBS17]

Probably because they can:bigsmile:

[Deathcoffin]

To be honest i land better without flaps for the MIG in FC

[169th_Crusty]

Probably because they can:bigsmile:

That pretty much sums it up. Mostly training.

[Prophet]

I find it much easier to land.

Maybe its because I have no real flying training, and so I dont know what I am doing, but it seems like the MiG is just not stable with flaps down.

I prefer to go a little bit faster without flaps, especially with the drogue chute you dont need much runway to slow down.

[Lance]

what i do is put the gear down a bit earlier than the base leg, then put flaps down in base and slow down to 180to 200 knots (flying F-15C). I ALWAYS land with flaps unless i have a mechanical failure. Even with the MiG i havent found any problem landing with flaps! Its a good way to increase lift (and the resulting drag, that you might need if you see you might overshoot..the mig cannot use the airbrake when gear is down remember?) so basically..id rather land with flaps down at a lower speed than with flaps up and having to go a bit faster and increasing the possibility that i will end up running out of runway..(i fly alot at khersones to practice approaches and patterns).
And yes..im a Pilot in real life..as in Gliderpilot..so i guess..that influences me..although the aircraft iam CURRENTLY flying does NOT have flaps.

Flip