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Old 7th Jul 2013, 07:53
  #10 (permalink)  
fireflybob
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: UK
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Visual approaches? All in "Handling the Big Jets" by D. P. Davies.

As a young (rather naive) Second Officer with BOAC on the B707, I recall doing a (night) visual approach to (I think) Kuwait in the mid 1970s.

I always packed D.P. Davies book in my case as it was good reading on layovers.

The approach had no electronic glideslope or VASIs (too early for PAPIS) but I measured that we would be crossing the coastline at 5 miles out from the runway (it was a clear night). I therefore planned (and achieved) crossing the coastline (clearly visual and also on radar) at 1,500 ft in the landing configuration and flew 700 ft/min to a successful landing with a stable approach. All executed by hand flying and no FMC/EFIS autopilot or autothrottle.

Something is seriously wrong with the system if pilots cannot hand fly a visual approach.
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