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Other questions say bouncing an airliner is bad, why bounces happen, and how to recover from a bounce. How do pilots practice bounce recovery?

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  • $\begingroup$ I am guessing that the answer is "in a simulator." If that's the answer, how is the simulator configured to cause the bounce? And who does the configuring? $\endgroup$
    – Anonymous Physicist
    Jun 10, 2021 at 0:48

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Airline pilots practice everything in a simulator, both in initial training as well as every year or so for recurrent training.

A friend of mine is a new sim instructor (and retired captain) at an airline, and he learned to teach this exact lesson yesterday. To ensure the plane bounces, they configure extreme wind shear at a certain altitude above the runway, so the plane essentially stalls and slams into the pavement.

He tried it first at 30ft, and the pilot easily handled the small bounce—too easily, he thought. He then tried 50ft, and the impact was so severe that the sim went “off motion” to protect itself from damage, and the (simulated) plane did not survive. So, the correct setting seems to be somewhere between those two values.

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    $\begingroup$ I am curious what "extreme" means. $\endgroup$
    – Anonymous Physicist
    Jun 10, 2021 at 2:26
  • $\begingroup$ The wind speed used probably depends on the make of the plane and the speed at that moment, to get 'perfect' stall-like conditions and force a bounce. $\endgroup$
    – Mast
    Jun 10, 2021 at 10:51
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    $\begingroup$ @AnonymousPhysicist True anecdote: we were investigating cracks developing in military jets used for training navy pilots operating from aircraft carriers. We had no real idea what g forces were involved, so we instrumented a plane and got a flight instructor to perform a series of deliberate "heavy landings." The guy chickened out at about 10g, so we set the measurement system to record up to 30g. Eight of the first ten landings flown by the trainees were "off the scale" !!!! $\endgroup$
    – alephzero
    Jun 10, 2021 at 13:25
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think that a "bounced landing" (and recovery) is specifically included in air carrier training or testing curricula as a required maneuver. Not saying that no one has ever done this in a sim, but I have never seen this type of training. $\endgroup$
    – 757toga
    Jun 11, 2021 at 15:06
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There is the "bounced landing" button available for the instructor in the IOS of the flight simulator

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  • $\begingroup$ Interesting, what simulator are you referring to? $\endgroup$
    – 757toga
    Jun 12, 2021 at 20:00
  • $\begingroup$ I am referring to Level D flight simulators $\endgroup$
    – Afe
    Jun 13, 2021 at 9:10
  • $\begingroup$ Can you provide some evidence? What's the IOS? $\endgroup$
    – MD88Fan
    Jun 15, 2021 at 14:25

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