Take-off and landing

Take-off and landing present a particularly hazardous part of the flight of an aircraft. During take-off the aircraft will be heavily loaded with fuel for the journey and the engines will be working at high rating in order to take off in as short a distance as possible. The take-off for a commercial airliner is further complicated by the need to adhere to appropriate noise abatement procedures. This may typically involve an initial climb at high angle in order to put the maximum distance between the aircraft and the ground at the boundary of the airfield. This may then be followed by the need to reduce throttle setting as a populated area is reached.

Landing, too, has its difficulties. The pilot has to manoeuvre the aircraft to a precise touch-down point in three-dimensional space. Furthermore when touch-down is achieved the aircraft must be flying in the correct direction, aligned with the runway, and must be at a low air speed to facilitate bringing it to a halt in a reasonable distance while retaining a safe margin over the stalling speed.

Take-off and landing have common features; for instance the object of the exercise is to transfer the weight from wheels to wings (or vice versa) in as short a distance as possible. However the conditions of weight are considerably different because most of the fuel will generally have been used on landing. Also the engine power output used will differ considerably in the two cases. For these reasons we consider them in separate sections.