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Old 8th Apr 2011, 19:28
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Telstar
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Euroville
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My opinion: It's not a very forgiving aircraft to land; it's one of the most difficult aircraft I've ever flown in trying to get consistently good landings, speed control is often difficult as it's such a slippy aircraft, the fitting of winglets did not help. They also do a LOT of training as a result of the revolving door policy of employee relations which leads to lots of training flights and inexperienced F/Os. They also fly to a lot of black hole out of the way airfields with minimal lighting. It all adds up.

Also Boeing Policy is a firm touch down, on speed and on the markers. Holding off in the flare to grease it on uses a lot of runway. Passengers perception of a good landing versus the reality are sometimes far apart.

To summarize:

1) 737-800 is very long and needs this kind of manouver

I don't think it is the length necessarily but the -800 is a bit of a cut and paste aircraft with lot's of different generations of the 737 cobbled together and is very much a compromise in some areas!

2) 737-800 needs a strong flare, otherwise is difficult to control at landing

It's not the strength of the flare rather the quality and timing.

3) a gentle landing requires a long runway, and ryr uses little airports with short runways

The runway length should be immaterial. The technique should remain the same regardless of runway length, i.e On Speed, main gear on the aiming points, positive touchdown, retarding measures applied on schedule.

4) insufficient training

For all their faults Ryanair gives lots of sectors to trainees, far and above what other airlines give.

5) boeing philospophy

See point 3.

6) ryanair policy

Ryanair advocates the method described in the Boeing flight crew training manual (FCTM), again point three.

7) other....

Again, it is a slippery bugger and I rarely see anyone touchdown at Vref, it's usually too fast or if you go below Vref trying to correct aggressively in the flare it drops like a brick! Coupled with some black hole airports and very fatiguing rosters. Those are my excuses anyway.

Edit: (P.S I see you are from Paris, so I assume you fly out of BVA? That has one of the highest incidence of hard landings in the company. It's a black hole, like landing on an aircraft carrier, No Papis, a big hump in the runway, rough winds in the winter, that catches even the 'Top Guns" out once in a while...)

Last edited by Telstar; 8th Apr 2011 at 19:43.
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