Question about turboprop planes(?)

[Saris]

Dumb question, I know
But how do you land these? Am I supposed to do the reverse thingie in the air or when Im on the ground?
Everything goes super smooth until my final decent, where if I push the throttle to 0% the propeller starts spinning like crazy
Im just gaining speed and it's making the landing quite rough

Can someone please explain to me how to land these things, because the game doesn't really tell you

[ждун]

never do reverse in the air.

most high performance turboprops like the caravan have a constant speed propeller.
Reducing torque (throttle down) automatically adjusts propeller pitch angle in order that to maintain certain rpm with less torque. It does not rotate faster, its just changing pitch and this looks and sounds like its winding up, but in fact it keeps going with same rpm. So this is normal.

Your problem is that you are reducing speed too late. When you are descending on final you gain speed because you are descending, you should have already reduced speed and have the flaps out. Try to not push the nose down, this makes you fast quickly, you should descend slow with flaps and nose slightly up.

[Twelvefield]

You can look at your engine RPM and see that you aren't redlining the engines. That's part of your normal instrument checks.

What our friend ждун is describing is called a "flare landing". You should look it up. With a flare, you use the drag of the aircraft body as as an aerobrake to control both your speed and descent.

Another instrument you should watch is for your vertical speed, which tells you how fast you are ascending or descending, usually not to exceed 500' fpm for smooth operation.

So, you need to line up your aircraft with the runway, establish that descent rate so that you come smoothly down to the runway threshold, and then manage your airspeed. At minimum, this will likely be 5 nm away from the airport, or more. Your ILS instruments, properly tuned, will indicate the glideslope you need to follow to accomplish this.

Once you are lined up, descending and properly trimmed, you add flaps gradually and at the correct point extend your landing gear. Check your instruments, make throttle adjustments, and trim again. Your goal is to achieve stall with the nose pointed slightly up a couple feet above the runway surface at the threshold. The stall hits, and you drop like a rock for a few inches and touch down: a butter landing.

This is a lot to learn on a multi-engine low altitude turboprop. It's way easier to learn these operations on a C172 first, which is why that class of aircraft is the world's most popular trainer. Start with VFR flight, then learn IFR flight, then move up to retractable gear, then dual-engine, then turboprop. A turboprop is a slick plane, easy to overspeed and difficult to aerobrake. It's like learning to drive on a MacLaren.

[OldGuy_UK]

i usually set torque to 40% on approach and landing, then when wheels touchdown hit the reverse thrust and wait for a second or two before applying brakes, 85knt approach in a Caravan is my usual, and goes fine.

[Saris]

Guess I need some more practice, I'll try the 40% and 85knots, just wish they would properly teach you how to use these planes
I was redlining hard on my decent and had no clue what I was doing
Had a bouncy landing

Thanks for the tips thou guys, I'll keep improving

[Puttness]

One tip with flying approaches that sounds counter-intuitive is you want to control your rate of descent with throttle control and not pitch inputs, since pitching nose down is a good way to gain too much speed for a safe landing and you generally want to approach the runway slightly nose up. A good rule is to never descend at more than 500FPM.

Another thing to keep in mind is when you have landing flaps set you might need to actually use more throttle than you'd expect in order to avoid losing too much speed while your nose is slightly pitched up.

Even though that's the "right" way to do things, I don't do that and still achieve very smooth landings. I usually nose down to the runway as needed (most large airport runways are way longer than any GA plane would need to come to a stop so excess speed isn't a big deal, landing flaps setting also usually add a lot of drag that counteracts this) and right as I am about to touch the runway I pull up and level off slightly, releasing just enough backwards pressure on the stick to let the wheels gently touch the runway. You want your plane to be trimmed slightly nose down for this method, so that as you pull less and less hard on the stick in the last phase the plane lowers itself to the runway. If your plane starts to point towards the ground when you let go of the stick, then you are trimmed nose down.

Don't worry too much, although this simulator has some of the most realistic physics of any flight sim out there, it's still as easy to fly turboprops as it is to fly piston props as long as you remember the basics of landings. They CAN fly faster than piston props, but some of them (like the Grand Caravan) are just as slow as piston planes and are known for being able to take off and land at very slow speeds and very short distances. Just remember to use your flaps as they can make or break a landing. On smaller planes the maximum flaps setting is generally what you will use for landing. On airliners and larger planes you might not always use the maximum amount of flaps for landing.

Lastly, sometimes it is actually safer to land the plane a little hard compared to a very gentle touchdown. With very gentle landings and too much speed you run the risk of "floating" where you come back up off the runway and end up wasting a lot of runway length having to touch down again. Also, firmly planting the wheels down with a slightly harder landing allows you to brake harder and stop sooner. With a gentler landing you also run the risk of your wheels skidding, or one side getting more traction than the other and causing your plane to steer off to the side of the runway as you try to slow down.

[kimmy]

on the C208 i'd set the mixture/engine condition lever to low idle after touch down (and during taxi) as the plane will continue to gain speed even on idle throttle.