what is the speed of an airplane while it is landing?

Answer 1

Decreasing to Zero.............#######

Answer 2

Depends on the aircraft and the current load. The wing loading answer already given is right.

Some people have given some very silly answers for landing speeds. Typical final approach speeds for commercial jets are around 135kts. Heavy they will come in faster and lighter not much slower. A340, A380s, 747s and 737s all land at broadly similar speeds. Impossible to give a full range because there's a chart for that which varies with load and speed.

The slowest I know at landing is the Fiesler Fi 156 Storch at 32mph.

Military jets don't land all that fast, they tend to have low wing loading. F-18 lands ar 132kts and the F-4 at 138kts. Most fighters are low wing loading, so they can land slow. Aircraft that you would think would land fast, like the Starfighter and Buccaneer, often had blown flaps. In the Buccaneer's case that saved them 17kts. Minimum approach speed for Concorde was 160kts and SR-71s approach at 250kts but slow to 175kts for landing.

Answer 3

At touchdown, the speed of the aircraft should be just barely past the minimum speed required for flight. That is, just slightly above 'stall' speed.

Here are some approximate speeds:
Stall speed for a fully loaded F-16 fighter jet might be over 100 mph. The Concorde landed at about 140 mph. A Cessna 172 touches down somewhere about 55 mph. The actual figure can vary due to weight, balance, modifications or other configurations of the aircraft.

EDIT:
These are TOUCHDOWN speeds. The safe FINAL APPROACH speed for most aircraft is about 10% to 20% higher than stall speed.

Answer 4

It depends on the plane. Each plane has a specified landing speed. Generally, the smaller the plane and the lower it's cruising speed, the lower it's landing speed. It has to have just enough speed at landing to keep it airborne but, just as the wheels are about to touch down, the pilot "flares" to suddenly decrease speed so that the plane will drop a couple of feet onto the runway.

Answer 5

Depends on the airplane. The landing speed is MUCH slower than the takeoff speed. At takeoff the plane needs to go as fast as it possibly can to get off the runway. When landing the idea is to go as slow as you can (without falling out of the sky). It also depends on the weight of the aircraft, and the size of the engine. I have worked on a plane that has a cruising speed of less than 70mph. It's landing speed, if there was a strong wind, could be as low as 20mph.

Answer 6

Each type of aircraft has specific speed when landing, however the objectives of every landing are to touch down while moving forward and downward as slowlyas possible while maintaining enough airspeed for better control.This is done by interupting the approach angle and reducing airspeed at a very low height.Wind factor will also affect landing speed.

Answer 7

Different plane, different speeds. When I went to Hawaii last year in a 747 we landed at about 180 mph. Just last week when I came down in a trainer w were only going 40 mph. Also if you consider this an airplane, the shuttle makes a decent at an astonishing 14,000 mph.

Answer 8

Simple answer . Ranges from about 45 miles an hour for light private planes to close to 200 for military jets. Passenger jets usually land between 120 and 150 miles an hour .

Long answer. Depends on the wing loading ( how heavy the plane is in relation to the wing area. ) and the design of the aircraft. Fighter aircraft are built for speed so compromise on low speed capabilty so they land fast and need long runways. Passenger jets need to be able to use ( relatively ) shorter runways to service communities without long runways so their wings are designed as a compromise between high and low speed flight and have slats on the front of the wings and flaps at the back of the wings to help in slow flight.

Answer 9

1st of all it depends on the aircraft and 2ndly if it is a 747 it will land at 180 mph at start to decreas very quickly to maybe 10 15 mph then to 0

Answer 10

The landing approach speed is also referred to as the Vref speed. They calculate is by multiplying the speed at which the airplane will stall in landing configuration (wheels down, flaps extended...) by 1.3. They formula goes as follows Vref = 1.3(Vso) where Vso is the landing config stall speed.

Answer 11

yeah,,,its depend on the equipment..landing speed bit lower than takeoff.