Can a PPL pilot land an A380-800?
Can a PPL pilot land an A380-800?
Well the answer is yes, but not consistently and in a simulator.
On Saturday 24th February 2018, I visited the Emirates Aviation Experience in North Greenwich, London (right next to the O2 arena) to put my flying skills and knowledge to the test.
I took the left hand seat in an A380-800 simulator to try out some approaches, landings and take offs in both day and night conditions at both London Heathrow Airport and Sydney Airport in Australia.
After about 5 minutes of training to familiarise myself with the controls of the A380-800, I was on my own!
My first attempt was a day time visual landing at Heathrow airport. This one couldn’t have gone any better, the approach was stable, air speed was good and touched down almost on the center line.
My second attempt was a night take off from Sydney Airport in Australia. This one went pretty well too. The thrust was slowly set to take off power and not full power like in the Cessna and Piper aircraft I am used to flying. The take off roll was smooth along the center line and rotated at 150 knots.
Attempt 3 was a night landing at Sydney Airport. I was happy with this landing too. The approach was stable but with the airspeed a tad too high, it meant I landed just a little bit later along the runway than expected, but the excess speed was lost in the flare and touched down nicely on the center line.
Attempt 4 was other night take off from Sydney Airport. Again this one went well, rotating at 150 knots as I did in the previous take off.
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This is when things started to go a bit pear shaped. I think the level of concentration affected my fatigue levels. My 5th attempt was another night landing in Sydney. In all honesty, I should have just gone around, as it was clear early on in the approach that I was too high and too fast and trying to correct this gave me too much to think about. This meant that I ended up touching down far too late on the runway and almost missed the runway completely by only just squeezing the aircraft to right right of the runway.
The 6th and last attempt wasn’t great either. This time I was back in London at Heathrow and while the approach initially looked good in the final stages my airspeed was just too low and by the time I tried to recover by adding more power, it was too late and I touched down just short of the threshold.
Although it took a lot of concentration, it was a really good experience and give me a tiny amount of confidence that I might be able to get one of these jets down on the ground if the need was to arise.
The Emirates Aviation Experience also have a Boeing 777 simulator too and plan to visit again to try this one out.
View the video on my YouTube channel