Connie and the Glide Slope

[Illi73]

As I am accumulating more flights on the Connie and getting a bit more experienced with it, I got the impression that there's something weird going on with the glide slope:

I'm flying to intercept the localizer and usually I come in well on time and at a lower altitude than necessary. This means I can fly level until I hit the glide slope as well and then, once I do I try to stay on the glide slope. This is however not working as I expected and I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong, if I'm getting wrong information or if this is normal due to 'adjustments' done for sitting fairly high above the landing gear...

Yesterday I flew in at LSZB (Bern airport in Switzerland, Europe), runway 14. It has ILS and VASI lights.
According to the data 'Little Navmap' pulled from FSX:SE the glideslope is 4 degrees (which I THINK equals -400fpm... or is that my mistake?)
The VASI lights show all red (because I'm still too low), but flying level I get one white light, then two and I align with the glide slope on -400 fpm. Then I get three white lights and I have to put my descent to even -600 fpm, which still doesn't seem to be enough as I get 4 white lights and have to go really pretty steeply down to not completely overfly the runway!

This runway was rather short (especially when coming in a bit high), only 4951m. That combined with the wind I made a fairly rocky landing. A pity, because I had planned my approach so well... but I'm doing something badly wrong and I'm not sure what. Guessing that -400fpm doesn't match '4 degrees glide slope', because 'feet per minute' also depends on your speed I guess? How do I calculate/do this correctly? I need some advice. Is there perhaps some rule-of-thumb or something?

(never really noticed or paid enough attention that much to this with the GA planes, but they are so 'light and easy to manouver' that it hasn't really caused me problems - not to mention I don't really need to worry about my passengers in those and so I can just descend as fast/slow/steep/etc. as needed/desired without much effect to "what people think of me" )


Also, as a (less important) side note... I regularly see this comment from a passenger that "it was like a house party on this plane!" and I'm not sure if this is a good thing, or bad! If 'house party' would involve the feeling you get when taking party drugs then I guess there may have been too much (sudden?) motion like abrupt corrections or turbulence? On the aforementioned flight I got the message "Those pilots were artists!" and I don't really know what to think of that... the landing was rocky, as I said, but maybe they were impressed I was able to set the plane down under these tricky circumstances? It wouldn't have been that bad if I had just gotten the glide slope right... but I have a hard time figuring out how to stay on it comfortably/correctly.

[alan CXA651]

Hi.
First of all , any posts on the connie are better placed in the connie sections of the forum , this way it will be picked up more quickly , by either A2A staff or the community .
As for the pax comments you mentioned , these are good comments , praising the aircraft and crew , any bad landings you will hear screams , and the crew will make a comment on bad landings.
The glide slope without doing maths i dont think 4 degs = 400fpm , i just try and keep the hairs crossed , by decreasing or increasing throttles to increase/decrease the decent FPM , and climb/dive to increase/decrease the speed , to maintain correct approach speed for the gear/flaps , i also select gear down and approach flaps just prior to entering ILS beam , and land flap possition on short finals.
As for decent speeds , at altitudes above 5000ft you can decend at 1000 FPM , but below this alt try to keep to 500 FPM for the pax , or you get the crying baby , this is to do with the pressurisation.
regards Alan.

[TreeTops]

The glide slope descent information on the chart is under the elevation view of the slope.
Speed of the Connie in the ILS descent should be around 120 knots.
The chart says 779 fpm for 110 knots, 920 fpm for 130 knots.
So for 120 knots the descent rate will be about 850 fpm.
This is quite quick regarding the passengers so care will be needed not to chase the glideslope down by increasing descent rate, but rather by slowing to 100 knots as required.

At 1000 ft AGL the cabin pressure should be equalised and it is from this moment that change in altitude will affect the passengers the most.

If you are capturing the glideslope from level flight, try to hit 120 knots just before capture and then by lowering the gear, setting approach flaps and pitching down, the throttle adjustments will be minimised.
From 500 to 300 ft AGL slow the plane to 100 knots. At 200-300 AGL and 100 knots, set landing flaps and the plane will slow to 87-90 knots at touchdown without touching the throttles.

[Illi73]

First of all , any posts on the connie are better placed in the connie sections of the forum , this way it will be picked up more quickly , by either A2A staff or the community .

Thanks. I will try to remember that if I post something more about the Connie later. This has maybe been more than just Connie related in the end, because it indeed looks like I had the wrong idea about the glide slope. Treetops also confirmed that with their example.

In the meantime, I tried to do more homework and I found the following page:
https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly ... cent-rate/

This is a really good description on how to calculate/estimate the rate of descent (for a 3 degrees glide slope). Aside from that, they explain how wind is to be calculated in and I had not even started to realize that head/tail wind had so much effect on your glide slope!

(On the way of becoming a better pilot again!) Oh yeah, and what they are describing in the article I linked, they are 'rules of thumb', no exacts. So the numbers on the charts are of course more precise... but this should already help me improve my approaches a whole lot!