Escape Slides

[blind pew]

Greasers…

My first landing was on a 32 in the pouring rain, with crosswind in Shannon, I had come from the VC10 but learnt the basics on the gripper where we were taught fly the aircraft into the ground on wet runways - I had spent a brief period on the BALPA tech committee which included a trip along the then unopened M40 where they had experimented with cutting grooves into the concrete road surface. I then had an aquaplaning incident on the Hammersmith flyover which led to Kléber offering me a new set of rubber FOC. It was then I realised that there was a lot of rubbish spouted re aqua planning speeds and touchdown techniques.
I flared late but a tad too soon (hadn’t flown a jet with such a low eyeball height) and then eased the stick forward which rotated the aircraft around the CofG raising the Dunlops and greasing it on. The two skippers, one the boss and the other the first non military instructor U/T, clapped. They thought it was intentional and for the next couple of years it was my basic technique until a skipper asked me not to flare so late as it scared him. We were extremely well paid and trained with a complicated set of operating rules which gave us a huge amount of scope to do our own thing which included a stabilised approach criteria of final approach configuration SELECTED by 400ft which meant stabilised around 300ft. The not so nice was the undercarriage length and ground spoilers which had to be armed on every landing which led to a gentle touchdown then a squatting feeling as they extended. The 51 was the worse one as iirc the wing loading was higher, attitude was slightly less and they would run out of elevator. We had a couple of guys that would put on a large amount of thrust as they flared and restrict the dumpers from opening but I would bleed off a little speed over the threshold whilst trimming the elevator back and easing the stick forward to give me enough pitch control which ALWAYS worked.
With everything else I generally closed the throttles early, depending on type whether I needed to trim, then a late but complete flare in one go then hold the attitude which means looking way ahead. The times I’ve cocked up are invariably down to not looking in the right place, which happens to many who do one landing a month after being awake for 18 hours.
The 80 floated more and we had a regulation that we had to touch down between 600m and 900m iirc and if you didn’t then the captain was back in the rhs at best. This came about after the Athens accident which also led to the regulation that the flight deck had to exit the aircraft last at the furthest doors which comes back to the rear slide which we covered on conversion courses and SEP. The Athens accident was caused by something I detested which was the late as possible stand on the anchors to save brake pad wear technique. I nearly dropped off the cliff at the end of Gothenburg one freezing night because of this..only time I’ve heard JT9s surge in emergency reverse.
There was a rear slide problem if the nose gear collapsed though..might have just been the 80. The cockpit heights were low and the 80 had a distinct wrong look on the ground. You had to positively land the nose wheel and if you were a tad slow it would thump down. We had a 30 land gear up at Milan with a brand new trainer who was doing the cockpit smoke clearance drill for captains with oxygen masks on, forward pax door open and DV window open. The safety pilot didn’t do his job and it was only when they couldn’t taxi the aircraft with loads of umph that they realised the gear was still up.
There were a few BEA skippers who did a similar late rotate and push technique which worked well but it needed ability and confidence and wasn’t for copilots to try; just smile and think one day.
I fly with the irish a lot..without exception the lassies do nice landings as do a few of the blokes but there are many who just fly it into the runway. Generally you can judge the landing by the cabin announcements..those that bother can land. Never felt a thump on the 146.