Beagle: Your VC10 landings must have been superb, because it's certainly my experience that long haul landings today are far smoother than they were 20 or 30 yrs ago. Back then every flight seemed to arrive with a bang and I can remember overhead lockers popping open! Today, speaking as a cattle class customer right down the back on BA and Virgin, one can always feel the trailing bogie wheel touch first and then a smooth transistion to the ground. There was an intermediate period maybe 15 yrs ago when a crew would get a round of applause from pax for a good landing, but that doesn't seem to be needed now!