Few Cloudy
16th Mar 2002, 21:24
I have to write this down, while I can still remember it. Remember the feeling of it and not just the theory. It was already two days ago and I know how soon the sensation recedes when you don’t fly. . .. .The easiest part to remember is the actual tactile feeling as the mainwheels touched down. It wasn’t quite the absolute silky dream-on cream-on which impresses the passengers but it was a very gentle double kiss, with the spoilers not quite knowing whether to come or not. . .. .Prior to this we had made a flaps 40 approach because there was almost no wind and we were close to max landing weight. This put the cockpit closer to the ground and the thrust had to be kept on longer before the retard. Got a nice sense of how high we were due to the proximity of the cockpit to the ground as we entered the ground effect and the rate of descent began to break by itself. Then I slowly closed the thrust levers and added backpressure to counter the thrust induced pitch change. . .. .We hung there for a split second as she sunk gently on and then put the thrust into idle reverse, as the runway was long and it was still early in the morning. Just remembered to hold the pressure to stop the nosewheel crashing on - not like the MD-80, where you physically had to land the nosewheel by pushing the stick forward. Braked a little right after the reverse deployed and disconnected the autobrake. Let her drift along till just before second high speed exit and then braked a bit more and just rolled out at taxy speed. Said to myself "that’ll do" and heard the FO say "nice one". "Just as well," I thought, "with the missus on board.". .. .So what is so special about that? You and I do it everyday. Well, just that it was the last one I’ll be doing and the last time I’ll get up on a bloody freezing morning and the last time I pull on a yellow bib to cross the tarmac and the last time I fly level over the cloud layer in departure and talk to London control and get direct BAMES and turn up the instrument lights as the sun comes over the horizon and see Paris and get a short cut steep descent to Geneva and do the approach and – yeah, the landing. Just so I don’t forget it, I had to write it down. . .. .Keep enjoying it guys – and "Thanks" to all who made it possible.