Ok,
Here's my 2 pennys,
Mdurand is a great pilot, watch his vids and listen to his bug on approach. He is a good guy and a great pilot.
FACT: Different airplanes will fly differently.
How can I know this? I'm a newb jet jock and have only flown 2 of my jets??!!!
Well, the two that I have flown are an A-10x and a SM F-15.
The A-10x, for me, does the best just as previously stated. I chop the throttle just before I start my crosswind approach. Yeah, this thing is called a box. God I love you guys. I'm about a runway high at this point as well. I let this A-10x settle into a nice decent pattern WITHOUT any throttle. ALL. THE. WAY. DOWN. Why? Because I find the she has no tip stall tendancies and loves to flare just like a prop plane on landing. I have had perfect landings on this airplane everytime I've flown her. I did catch a huge thermal once about 2 feet over the runway and lost my mains when she came down. But that sort of thing is our RC equvalent to a micro burst!
But I have practiced and practiced and now have 30 landings on my A-10x.
Now to a scale bird that many consider a trainer. The f-15. Mine is of the skymasters variety and is very light for large scale jet. (Well at least compared to my f-18
) I have landed her twice and have had to work on the landing gear once. My first landing, my fingers were shaking so bad that she was wobbling in the turns just from my fingers!
Well, I didn't slow down on landing and I clipped the elevator which I replaced.
On my second landing, I practiced and practiced and practiced my approach. I would chop the throttle and see how long she would glide for. And she glided a long time with hardly any loss in altitude!! This really helped my nerves. BUT, this was with the gear up and with out any flaps.
This f-15 didn't show any bad tendancies with the flaps at any setting, so I decided to land with my "mid" setting. I set up my box approach as above, chop my throttle before my cross wind approach and watch her like a hawk as she glided down wonderfully. Until I got 3 feet over the runway and she dropped straight down, nose up, right on the mains, about 100 feet
before I wanted to touch down. And mind you I was still movin' along quite fast on that approach. I bent one of my mains, no internal damage. No big deal. What did I learn? The F-15 will need more nose up and THROTTLE on that approach. Anyone on RCU would have told me that. But that what we're here for.
I have learned that these two "trainer" airframes fly very well, but land very differently. And they differ the MOST, just. before. touchdown. The f-15 needs a little throttle (I think about a 1/5) on that final and the a-10x doesn't. I'll need to practice more on my f-15. When it comes time to fly my next jet, I'll need to practice my approach. Over and Over.
Sorry for rambling.....
Raf