Can You Land? puts you on final approach, a few kilometres out and a few hundred feet up, and asks one question. This guide explains everything the game measures and how real pilots think about the last two minutes of a flight, so that the next landing is a soft one.
On a phone, put a finger anywhere on the screen and drag. On a computer, use W A S D or the arrow keys. Drag down (or S) to raise the nose, drag up (or W) to lower it, and drag left or right to bank the wings and turn. The aircraft answers slowly, the way a real one does, so the most common beginner mistake is making a correction, seeing nothing happen and making it bigger. Make small inputs and wait a moment for them to work.
The throttle sits on the panel. More power holds you up and speeds you up; less power lets you sink and slow down. Pitch and power work together: raising the nose without adding power makes you slower, and lowering it makes you faster.
Every flight starts with the wheels up. Swipe the gear lever on the right side of the panel all the way down, or press G. The gear takes about four seconds to come down and lock, so do it as soon as the flight starts. Touching down without wheels is a crash, however gentle it is. A few aircraft, like the Cessna 172, the Twin Otter and the flying boats, have a fixed gear or land on a hull and skip this step.
Airliners come down a straight line in the sky, about 3 degrees steep, that ends at the touchdown point. That line is the glide path. Beside the runway sit four lights called the PAPI (Precision Approach Path Indicator), and they tell you where you are on it:
| The lights | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Two white, two red | On the glide path | Keep it like this |
| Three or four white | Too high | Lower the nose a little and take some power off |
| Three or four red | Too low | Add power and raise the nose slightly until it is two and two again |
Four red lights close to the ground is the most dangerous picture in the game: you will touch down short of the runway. Correct early, because the higher you are, the more time a correction has to work.
Every aircraft has an approach speed, which pilots call Vref. On the speed tape it is the yellow mark. Too slow and the wing stops lifting; too fast and the aircraft floats along the runway and lands long, or hits it hard nose first. The A320 approaches at about 110 knots, the Cessna 172 at 65, the Concorde at 160 and the X-15 at about 200. The aircraft guide lists every type.
The trick is to fix the speed early and then leave the throttle alone. If the speed keeps drifting, change the power a little at a time rather than in big steps.
Do not aim for the start of the runway. Aim for the touchdown zone, the pair of big white bars about 300 metres past the threshold. Landing on the bars scores best; landing a little before or after them still scores well; landing far beyond them means you may run out of runway.
Keep the aircraft on the centreline, the dashed white line down the middle. The score drops the further you are from it, and on narrow strips like Lukla or the Alpine Switchback, a few metres off the centre is the edge of the runway.
On the glide path an airliner sinks at roughly 700 feet per minute. Hit the ground at that rate and the gear collapses. So in the last seconds, at around 30 to 50 feet above the runway (the radio altimeter calls out the height and the panel shows FLARE), raise the nose a little. This is the flare. It turns the descent into a gentle settling, and a good one touches down at under 200 feet per minute.
Flare too little and you land hard. Flare too much and you climb again or float far past the bars, slowing down until the aircraft drops onto the runway. The best flare is small and smooth: raise the nose a few degrees, take the power off and hold it there while the aircraft settles.
One exception: on the aircraft carrier you do not flare at all. The Hornet flies onto the deck at a steady rate and the hook catches a wire.
When the wind blows across the runway, it pushes the aircraft sideways. To stay on the centreline you turn the nose a little into the wind and fly slightly crabbed, pointing to one side of the runway while moving straight down it. The windsock at the side of the runway shows where the wind comes from and how strong it is.
Just before touchdown, straighten the nose so it points down the runway. Touching down crabbed puts a sideways load on the gear and costs points; too much of it is a crash. Keep the wings level too: most aircraft crash if a wing is down more than 4 to 8 degrees at touchdown.
Each approach gets its own weather. Fog hides the runway until late, so fly the PAPI and the instruments until the lights appear. Rain and storms bring gusts and turbulence; windshear can make you sink or float suddenly, so watch the speed and the PAPI and correct at once. At night, the runway lights, the approach lights and the PAPI are all you have.
Flocks of birds cross some approaches. Fly through a flock and you lose the engines. Climb, dive or turn away as soon as you see one.
The game measures the moment the wheels touch, and the score is worked out on the server so it cannot be faked. It looks at:
The harder the aircraft and the map, the more coins a landing pays: the A320 on the Island pays the base rate, while the X-15 at Edwards pays several times as much. A perfect landing in an aircraft earns it a legendary paint scheme.
The result card tells you what went wrong. The usual reasons:
| Message | What happened | Next time |
|---|---|---|
| HARD LANDING | The sink rate at touchdown was over the aircraft's limit | Flare a little earlier, and arrive on the glide path, not below it |
| WINGTIP STRIKE | Too much bank at touchdown | Stop turning below 100 feet and level the wings |
| LANDED SIDEWAYS | The nose still pointed off to one side | Straighten the crab in the last seconds before the wheels touch |
| TOO SHORT | You touched down before the threshold | Watch for four red lights and add power early |
| OFF THE RUNWAY | Too far from the centreline | Line up early and correct the drift before the last 200 feet |
| OVERRUN | You landed too late or too fast and the runway ran out | Arrive on speed, aim for the bars, do not float |
| GEAR UP | The gear lever was still up | Swipe the gear lever down at the start of every flight |
| STALLED | Too slow, the wing stopped flying | Keep the speed on the yellow mark, add power before raising the nose |
| LOST CONTROL | The bank was far too steep and the aircraft spiralled in | Keep the bank gentle, under about 30 degrees on the approach |
| BIRD STRIKE | A flock went through the engines | Climb, dive or turn away early |
Every landing pays coins, which buy new aircraft and paint in the hangar. New maps open as your landings add up: the Farm Strip after 2, Alpine after 3, Maho Beach after 4, the Maldives after 5, Kai Tak after 7, the carrier after 12, Antarctica after 20, Lukla after 30, Edwards after 40 and Mars after 50. Some maps belong to one aircraft and open when you buy it. The map guide describes each one.
There is also a daily challenge, the same approach for everybody each day, a daily streak, flight chests, a ghost plane that flies your best landing beside you, and THE IMPOSSIBLE, a challenge map with its own leaderboard. The FAQ covers the rest.
PLAY CAN YOU LAND?