High winds at Schipol. What a landing!

[misd-agin]

In general you can fly the 777 just like you fly a 727, 737NG, 757, or 767. Twenty plus years ago a newbie asked "how do you land the 727?" Uh, just like any other airplane? It's not a monster. "Well guys have been telling me all sorts of techniques." Uh, slow down on the roll inputs, fuselage alignment and zero drift, start flaring and bring the power to idle. "You land at idle? Guys said to NEVER do that." Yes, every landing is at idle, it's an airplane. Guys talk themselves into believing it's some seven headed monster. It wasn't. It only had two heads, the happy one or the sad one if you didn't fly it just right.


Basic flying - have the fuselage aligned with the runway and zero drift(almost always downwind, very rarely upwind). Drift = lateral load. Landing on the downwind landing gear ruins a decent sink rate touchdown.


If you're landings are 'close' but are 'harsher' than you'd expect verify that you have no lateral drift and the fuselage is tracking straight at touchdown. In this sense they ALL fly the same. The 727 and 737NG(with flaps 40) punish the landing quality the most if track/drift isn't perfect. 757/767 are nicer, and the 777 is the easiest. It just absorbs less than sterling track/drift or sink rates. It makes everyone look good at touchdown.


Now there are a couple ways that the larger jets, IMO, are different.

The 767 and 777 are more roll sensitive than the smaller jets. Not completely sure why. Friends have talked about it but we're not sure if it's a fuselage flex issue (ie wings move fractionally before the fuselage which attempts to 'catch up'), the size of the engines creating a greater mass that is offset from the roll C.G., or perhaps a gyroscopic effective from the large N1's? We don't know. But we do know the w/b a/c tend to have a bit of a sideways 'lurching' or 'bump' if you make large, or rapid, opposing roll inputs. The 777 in particular gets a sideways bumping motion (hate to say this but it's probably the easiest way to explain... similar to braless lateral motion...). More than the 767 it requires a slight pause before changing the roll rate request or reversing the roll request.


The 727, 767, and 777, to my recollection more than the 737 and 757, get a wing dropping sensation if large roll inputs are made. At larger roll control inputs the roll spoilers start deploying and with large inputs it literally feels like the wing is falling as opposed to rolling. And the typical reaction, sometimes called 'startle reflex(?)', is to counter-act that roll input with a large roll command to the other side, to correct the drop/roll, and the 'drop' is now done to the other side. And the over-correction starts towards the first roll direction, and back and forth it goes. If you feel that look at the wing. If you see large spoiler movements that is some of the motion. It could also be caused by gusting/shifting winds. And if you're in a 777 and feel a slight sideways lurching movement, look at the ailerons and see if they're going up and down. If they are you've found the source of the motion. It's not uncommon to feel it on the 777. So it that sense I'd agree, you can't fly a 777 like a 757/767. It will exposure less than smooth control inputs while the 767, and especially the 757, aren't quite as roll sensitive.


Due to the FBW the 777 flies slightly differently. It's not night and day. After a couple of flights I completely forget what my initial impressions were. I just remembered it was different. The 777 is very nice flying. But it requires gentle roll inputs to avoid shaking the airplane.


I just watched the 777 landing again and again. You can see the right wing inboard aileron and the amount of roll inputs being made. You can also see some of the pitch inputs (large screen helps). Right before the last right wing drop you can see that a significant right roll input (aileron up). Without FDR data, or being in the cockpit, it's hard to tell how much of the wing drop is from a roll command vs. a possible wind gust.




Navy friend said 'spoiler bumping' was actually a technique used getting onto the aircraft carrier. 'Golden hook' winner, he said it was a 'cheating' way to get the F-14 to drop slightly - rapid left and right roll inputs would result in some roll spoiler deployments. Done fast enough he said it would result in a slight altitude reduction if you felt you were going slightly long.


And mistakes? Ha. Who said they're perfect? Flew two legs recently. Arrival and departure at the first stop were under difficult conditions. We did well. Next arrival was in clear skies...and we ended up missing a step down so we ended up high on profile and ended up capturing the glide slope from above. Quickly fixed, but three pilots, with 40,000-50,000 hrs TT, and at least 15,000+ hrs in type, flat out missed it. No excuses. But rapidly corrected.