Landing a 747
In a 747 landing or any widebody for that matter, how do pilots know when the wheels have touched the ground. Can you feel it as you do smaller aircraft. I asked a 747 F/O this question and he said that on contact the speed brake automatically retracts. However, I was watching one of those airliner videos and it was an MD-11 and the brake retracted well after the nose wheel touched the ground- (it was an autoland so I don't know if this accounted for the speedbrake action).