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Old 22nd May 2017, 17:24
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FCeng84
 
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What about reduced "ground-speed" for water landing?

There seems to be quite a bit of discussion here about where this airplane was with respect to lower speed limits. I wonder what is known about the relationship between speed across the water and chances of surviving a water landing? When landing on a paved runway (with or without gear down) touchdown sink rate is more important than ground speed. When landing on water, speed across the water might be more important. I would have thought Sully's desire would have been to get as slow as possible short of stalling to reduce the kinetic energy that would be released in short order once on the water. To that extent, Sully might have wanted to be able to command a few more degrees nose up pitch attitude to further reduce speed at touchdown.
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