I loved every hour of my 5,000 hours as a skipper of best airplane Boeing built (MHO of course). I sure miss my F/E too. But life goes on.
The 727-100 series does not need the punch of thrust beforetouchdown as the stretched 727-200 needs. The -100 series is an extremely well balance jet aerodynamically speaking. Like a light twin one can chop the power,flare and make a normal landing within the 1,000’ runway markings with consistency.
The 727-200 has much different characteristics during theespecially during the last 50' of the landing phase. If one flares the jet withback pressure, the mains will be driven onto the runway as the center of liftis forward of the mains. It’s takes acoordinated effort to make a proper landing… a punch of thrust to help check the decent, and actually abit of forward pressure to ensure a nice touch down. No float and always within 500’ of the 1,000’marker. A nice feature about the 727 is when the power comes off thejet does not float like the 737.
I used the same technique with airports with 5,300’ runways inthe Caribbean and Tegucigalpa before they blew off the top of the mountain southRunway 02 which now has about 5,500’ of useable runway beyond the threshold.
Barring a last minute high rate of sink requiring power you will always get a better landing touching down with idle thrust.
And that includes the B727 
That said, Stilton, many -200 drivers and MD80/90 pilots may not agree with your assertion.
Last edited by captjns; 3rd Nov 2012 at 10:27.