On the wrong foot….
Quote
"Remember that in a Jet Pitch controls Sink rate and thrust controls Speed."
Maybe I've been through all the wrong trainings, instructors, career, everything…
But last time I checked, IN JET AIRCRAFT, pitch controls speed, then we control flightpath with thrust.
I dont recall any Boeing manuals (or Airbus for the sake of this thread) teaching it differently. Our military background friends with AoA experience will certainly confirm the same.
This can be a VERY long discussion of course (Pitch or power etc etc) but regarding your specific question relative to flare, your experience will prove that in order to arrest descent, you add thrust. The reason you pitch up is to bleed off excess speed during flare.
If you are coming down fast (on VS rates that is) and you pitch up without adding thrust, you'll probably have an unpleasant experience.
Anyway, thats the way I've seen it happening, medium and heavy jets for 20 years +, but as always, I just might have been lucky, doing it the wrong way all this time and getting away with it.
Personal advice, keeping some thrust in, or adding a short burst during flare if needed, decreases the required pitch and you touch down smoother (because of the angle of the landing gear compression strut in relation to the horizontal).
There even used to be a term called "the Boeing flare" in the older days (before Airbus), where the pilot would pitch the nose over momentarily during flare in order to "grease it". Different wings too, I know.
Nowadays of course, pilots care too much about flying the numbers, making a big fuss for keeping 1 knot over Vref+5. I still keep Vref+10 min and fly a manual approach almost always, so flare is hardly ever an issue.
Nobody got hurt for carrying 5 extra knots, remind yourself to remain a pilot and refuse to become an accountant.
I know there will be comments but at my age, I can take them. Fire on…..