First off, I am in no way looking to judge what was or wasnt done by the crew. Its a given that they all, both front and back did an outstanding job - please see initial paragraph ofopening post. Tx
I am more interested in some of the suggestions being made by the armchair experts in suggesting that playing with the landing configuration, will give the crew a few valuable extra yards - full stop.
I personally dont think so and in fact am convinced that any tinkering with the config at that altitude would in fact have reduced further the touch down point.
All above responses are appreciated and most comfirm my original suspicions.
BOAC - excellent point on both the value of having the gear down if only to absorbe considerable energy at impace - valuable energy the crew n pax didnt have to. Also the transition from gear dn to gear up must surely dramatically alter the drag, not to mention the handling?.
Its the altering the flaps that most interests me. Loss of thrust is somewhat replaced by the forward moment of weight as the a/c is decending on a glide - not inconsiderable I presume in a 777. So this should give some additional energy worth managing. If full flap was already out, then as has been already been said, the only benifit the crew has from that is a lower stall speed, the penality being more drag. To reduce from full flap (often refered to as drag flap) would cause an initial tendancy to sink unless the nose is raised, which would stall the a/c if the original speed was at the lower stall speed. I can only see benifit in extending from some intermediate flap setting to landing flap at a late stage to perhaps allow a brief but valuable raising of the nose for the last x amount of feet.
I guess my question is, again, is there any benifit at all??
TX