Landing

[A Drunken Lobster]

Why is the landing so punishing, I hovered over the surface of the water at 39 knots and just barley touching it down to land on the water and lose three quarters of my health every time. I've also landed at 79 knots and taken no damage it seems not very consistent. That said any tips or advice from anyone would be appreciated or if its a known issue that will be looked at thanks!

[Graveblight]

when you go in for a landing there should be two white lines under the wings that show up. not always it seems if they are red you will take damage and white your good. i find being about half way throttle between off and the yellow bit a good approach speed. keep plane level and nose up slightly then dip a bit before hitting water. when am about to hit the water cut throttle to where only about 3 squares are left behind the line. and make just about every landing smooth

[Cleric 110]

Landing safely is about nose attitude and sink rate, not airspeed, and you can make safe landings at fairly high speeds, it's just difficult. Landings are a nice, appropriate challenge considering this is a fairly casual flying game, otherwise it'd just be autopilot simulator.

The starting plane will start to stall out around 60 knots and you won't be able to bring the nose up any more below 55. For a straight-in landing you want to reduce power to about 60-70% and let the plane slow. Put the nose down to descend, and gradually bring it back up as you lose speed. Your altitude should be fairly steady or decreasing slowly. If you're starting to slow down too quickly, you want to throttle back up, but since it takes several seconds to change throttle and accelerate, you need to catch this early in order to correct it. A quick tap of the water boost can be used if you're really in bad shape.
On the other hand, if you're too fast, you can make maneuvers to bleed off some extra speed quickly. The rudder is especially effective at losing speed, and just wiggling it back and forth can quickly lose dozens of knots in just a few seconds. Be careful not to overdo it.

Once you're below about 10-15 meters you'll see a couple of bars appear next to the floats, showing their distance from the water and fading in color from red to white as your approach changes. They're independent of each other and can help indicate if your plane is banked to one side, so you can adjust and get both floats down at the same time. Red indicates that you're coming down too hard and will take damage on touchdown, white is a safe landing. At low speed the plane will continue to descend even if the nose is pointed up, and a slight nose-up landing at right around 65 knots is ideal.

Of course different planes will all handle differently and perform at different speeds, but the basic controls and instruments are the same. There'll be a learning curve for any new/modified plane, practicing both the basic controls and with any individual design is important.

[A Drunken Lobster]

Thanks gang I'll give your tips a go and see how it goes!

[Kameraden]

Should try landing a plane in Rise of Flight. I spend weeks just learning how not to destroy my own airplanes on that.

[Quaiv]

Don't just nosedive in the ground, instead land smoothly like a proper pilot.