OMR:
If you care to ask intelligent thought provoking questions or make uselful accurate statements, then we will do our best to get you what you need.
In the first place, you're not the forum moderator, nor teacher, nor hall monitor even, nor do you hold any other position of authority here (or anywhere else that I can determine). You don't have to "get" me anything. I'm not your student. This is not some Greek forum where highly-revered elders sit around dispensing their wisdom to the young. And if any of you think it is, you're mistaken. Check your egos at the door, boys. None of you is Plato.
Narcissus, maybe...
In the second place, I *did* ask some "thought provoking" questions which people chose to ignore. Everybody simply assumed that TOT was already making a steep, "fly neighborly" approach to the runway when that farmer joyfully tossed his hat in the air. ...Everybody but me, that is. I wondered just how far out TOT
really was on finals, which would have a direct effect on how steep or shallow his approach was. Everybody just assumed that TOT's assertion of "100 metres to run" was accurate. ...Everybody but me.
Heliport eventually asked TOT to provide more information, but the request was spurned.
So I started digging in my memory for airports in the U.K. that I've been to with a runway configuration similar to that described by TOT. The only one that really came to mind was the old RAF base at Kemble.
I recalled that Kemble is a very noise-sensitive area. So I did a little homework. Runway 31 is not an active nor preferred runway; it can only be used by request due to that very noise-sensitivity. Runway 31 is 1000 metres long, and the LDA (landing distance available) is 823 metres. This means that the "threshold" is 177m from the beginning of the pavement. Extending "outbound" (to the southeast) from the runway is a grassy area, and then a road, and
then the chicken farm that TOT referred to.
If TOT was at Kemble, and if his position report was accurate (verified by the gesturing farmer below him), and if he was at 75 feet, then he
really had about 200 metres to go to the threshold. 200 metres = 600 feet. Using our table of tangents, this equates to an approach angle of just 6 degrees.
While it is true that TOT was approaching at an angle steeper than that of a "standard" ILS approach, runway 31 at Kemble is not so equipped. In fact, at 1000 metres in length not many large aircraft will be using it. Small airplanes do not make much noise on final. Helicopters, as I've noted before, make as much noise on final as they do on departure- maybe more if you include the added blade slap associated with approach.
Just because we are making our landing to a runway does not require that we make shallow, airplane-like approaches. In fact, it may be very inadvisable to do so. I cannot believe that TOT was unaware of how noise-sensitive the area around Kemble is. Nor do I think that this was TOT's first visit to the airport. But even if it was, he should have familiarized himself with the area beforehand.
I believe TOT
could have stayed higher and come in steeper. This would not have put his little 269A at perilous risk, and would possibly have avoided the farmer's wrath. Gee, I think I've been saying that from the beginning.