The aircraft up close
Drag to rotate, scroll or pinch to zoom. On the aircraft that already support it, you can use the controls below to lower the landing gear and the flaps and open the thrust reversers.
control surfaces
The models are certainly not perfect and sometimes look as if they walked straight out of a cartoon, but for a first attempt I am very pleased with them. They are still being improved.
The models are our own work (Processware / Vlucht in beeld), all rights reserved: they are not free to reuse elsewhere.
When do the landing gear, the flaps and the lights come on?
An aircraft does not broadcast this: ADS-B gives altitude, speed and climb or descent, but not the position of the landing gear, the flaps or the lights. What you see is an estimate based on normal procedures — usually right, but not for every aircraft.
- Landing gear — down below 600 m (2,000 ft) at less than 190 knots while descending; up again above 180 m after take-off.
- Flaps — in steps as the aircraft slows down: one notch below 3 km at < 215 knots, halfway below 1.5 km at < 175 knots, fully down in the last 750 m at < 150 knots. On departure in the take-off setting up to about 1 km.
- Engines — fans, propellers and rotors turn while the engines are running: always in the air, on the ground as soon as the aircraft is moving. Slower than in reality, otherwise a screen would only show a flicker.
- Thrust reversers — the rear half of the engine cowling slides open in the first seconds after touchdown, as long as the aircraft is still rolling faster than 45 knots; they stay closed on a take-off roll.
- Landing lights — in the wing roots, on in the last 600 m and on the runway; the taxi light on the nose gear is on while the landing gear is down.
- Navigation lights, beacon and strobes — always on at night: every aircraft shows them as soon as it flies.