Floating Feeling

[United744]

Hi,

It's been a couple of months since I last flew and I'm just getting back into it again (real-life sucks sometimes).

Last night I just flew an unprepared route and was a little heavy on the approach (710,000 lbs).

Vref was 163 kts and landing flap 30.

Came over the numbers, retarded to idle at 40 ft, flared, and the rad alt calls were as expected until 10 ft...then...nothing...for...ages...

Final touch down was 3000 ft after the threshold, after crossing the threshold 8 kts slow and touchdown pitch was 4.6 degrees, at a rate of 200 ft/min.

Wind was 1 kt, so not a factor.

Has anyone else had the aircraft float for a particularly long time unexpectedly? I actually ended up slightly low on the VASI during the approach so had to shallow out the descent a tiny bit to compensate.

I know a little while back some engine parameters were changed and apparently this affected flare/touchdown (I might be wrong), so for reference I was flying PW.

Given the overweight landing, AND discovering I was 8 kts slow crossing the threshold, the floating was even more of a surprise, given the rest of the countdown cadence seemed fine.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Hi,

there were no engine modifications in PSX that could influence your reported flare profile.

There are many normal factors that could influence your flare, e.g. runway downhill slope, inadvertent thrust increase by the joystick etc.

[United744]

Hi Hardy,

I have re-flown this a few times to test, and it appears I just flared more than I thought I did. +4.6 pitch is quite high for flap 30 and it makes quite a bit of difference, considering I nudged the nose down from an even higher angle.

The last touchdown was much better at 1700 ft, and +1 kt.