Guys,
I think that we ought not to lose sight of the basic objective - getting the bird safely onto the ground.
On the one hand we don't want to get sweaty palms during the flare and subsequent crash because the aeroplane was allowed to get a bit too slow.
On the other we don't want to get palpitations as we go off the far end because the aeroplane was allowed to get a bit too fast.
The Vref additives as recommended by Boeing (and I guess that Airbus has a similar story) are just an attempt to provide sensible guidance to help us keep sensible boundaries on how we might try to achieve the goal of a sweat free landing.
OldAeroGuy,
I suspect that Mutt and I will enjoy your commentaries on these sort of subjects. I see that you do not have an email contact. Perhaps you might like to email me (and perhaps Mutt as well) for the purpose of establishing a comms link ?
[ 12 October 2001: Message edited by: john_tullamarine ]