B-727 rate of descent

[beachbumflyer]

Hi guys,
To those of you who have been lucky enough to have flown the B-727,
what would be the rate of descent with full flaps, gear down and power off?

[captjns]

An excessive rate of descent that would trigger Modes 1 and 2 of the GPWS system and eventually Mode 5 as you descend below the glide slope.

Actually we did it in the airplane above 10,000' as a demonstration maneuver during maintenance acceptance flights. As I recall, it was in excess of 3,500 fpm. During maintenance acceptance flights, we would extend the flaps to 40 degrees via the alternate flap extension system, while the normal extension was limited to 30 degrees. Again, that was at a pretty light weight as we burned off most up to the point we got to the alternate flap extension portion of the flight.

[PJ2]

beachbumflyer;
You dont' say what pitch attitude, but at 5deg ND in the configuration stated, about what captjns said.

However, at 5deg NU in the same config, it's about 16,000fpm down in a 727...:)

Lovely airplane but you never, ever cut the power above about 10feet RA...:ouch:

[hetfield]

while the normal extension was limited to 30 degrees. ?Ooops, not on the types I have flown. F 40 was even recommended for CAT II in my airline.


Otherwise mentioned data are about right. Dropped like a stone...

Lovely plane :sad:

[captjns]

Our's were not Cat II on... thus limited to flaps 30.

[MarkerInbound]

All of the hush kits that I've seen (FedEx, Quiet Wing and Valsan) got rid of flaps 40 in the mid 90s to meet Stage III noise standards on the approach. Less sheet metal in the breeze=less thrust to maintain glideslope=less noise.

Our VSIs only went to 6000 fpm and it took very little effort to peg them. I did one gear down ferry and when it was time to start down, it worked out to less than one mile forward per every thousand feet down v. the standard three miles per thousand.

[captjns]

All of the hush kits that I've seen (FedEx, Quiet Wing and Valsan) got rid of flaps 40 in the mid 90s to meet Stage III noise standards...

True statement... part of the STC requirement... also for Raisbeck. However with the Raisbeck kit, the LEDs were restricted from their full extended position, thus resulting in, for a lack of a better term, improved climb, and approach climb performance. It also resulted in greater weight penalties too over the FedEx hush kit. Raisbeck equals smoke and mirrors.

[JammedStab]

And with Raisbeck, you are now limited to 28° flaps, so your approach speed is a couple of knots faster, so landing distance is longer or lower payload for a given runway. About 3,500 pounds on a 6,000 foot wet runway at sea level if I remember correctly.

Thrust off at the 20' RA call will work just fine, with a slight flare then push onto the runway. Might be different with 40° flap though. Such as this flight where power was chopped too early.

ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 727-92C N18479 Yap Airport, Western Caroline Islands (YAP) (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19801121-0)

[toby320]

well, B-727 in landing configuration in proper altitud you can descent arround 6000 f/m or more beautiful airplane you can do a lot of manuvers and be always inside of the margin of security.

toby.

[captjns]

I spent 8 years of on the old 727. Boeing quit building jets when they ended the 727 production line:(.

You could land the -100 like a light twin. Over the numbers, chop the power, flare, and grease it on constistently. Never had to worry about CG either:ok:.

[con-pilot]

Once during a recurrency session we had finished all of the requirements for the recurrency and had about 30 minutes left until the session was over. The sim instructor said that he wanted us to try something, it was not part of the training and it would not counted against us if we failed to perform the maneuver. My partner and I said sure, why not.

The instructor put us over the Outer Maker for 25R at LAX. Speed was 250kts IAS, configuration clean and had us at 10,000 feet. Then he said, land straight in, no turns and then he unfroze the sim.

I made the landing, about a third way down the runway, but we still made it.

The first thing I did was raise the spoilers, at the same time I called gear down and then told my partner in crime in the right seat to put the flaps down on speed all the way to flaps 30. I could see that we still needed more drag, so I reversed all three engines. That did the trick. The IVSI was of course pegged full down. The tricky part was the timing to come out of reverse to slow the rate of descent to a manageable level prior to touch down.

Then my partner and I swapped seats and he actually had to stow the spoilers and add thrust to get to the runway, but he cheated. The first thing he did was go into reverse, then spoilers, gear and so on.

Now I really don't know if that would work in the actual aircraft and I for one never wanted to be in the position to have to find out. Course we did bend the rules a bit, like you cannot have the spoilers out and any flaps extension at all and it is certainly not recommended to deploy the reversers in flight.

But it was fun.

However, the answer to the question is with flaps 40, flight idle and gear down you peg the IVSI, so I really cannot tell you what the actual rate of descent is.

Oh, we were authorized to remove the flaps 40 block for operational reasons and had to do so on a few occasions. A couple of things on flaps 40 landings, one is that it takes a lot and I mean a lot of power to stay on the glide path with 40 degrees of flaps, when you pull the power off you land even if you are still ten feet in the air, it feels as if the aircraft drops straight down and you don't use up much runway landing.

I really enjoyed my 7,000 of hours flying the 727. When I win the big lottery I'm going to buy one to run around the world in. ;)

[hetfield]

I really enjoyed my 7,000 of hours flying the 727. When I win the big lottery I'm going to buy one to run around the world inAfter all the years of bus driving I'm in the mood to spent some money not to buy but to fly some circuits with this lovely aeroplane.

[JammedStab]

How about two flights. First one heavy takeoff on a 30° day with a couple of knots tailwind and max thrust. The only sound as the thrust came up was the air conditioning airflow increase. A long, long takeoff roll and rotation with the end of the runway in close view and mains leaving the ground with 1,000' left. Careful not to strike the tail, 10° max until clear of the runway then 15°.

Airborne with only the sound of the wind in the cockpit and the trim wheel spinning rapidly mixed in with slow speed trim as the aircraft hangs in the air with your noise abatement thrust. It must be quiet for the folks below because it is so quiet inside. In the big turn through 180° of heading change while retracting flaps trying to maintain the right pitch attitude for a positive rate of climb while not exceeding the maximum flap extension speed for that selection of flaps/slats(taking forever to retract) but staying above the minimum allowable speed. Finally clean and able to accelerate.

No flows because the F/E does it all for you. Checklist, company calls, weather, logbook. Rate of climb through 20,000' is only 500 fpm, how are you ever going to get to 290, but you do. It is noisy inside now. A nice relaxing cruise and then descent for landing at max landing weight on a 6,000 foot runway.

Oops, are you too high, in fact very high. No problem, your little friend is the handle beside you extending 10 big panels to 45° and after all, if you really need to, the gear comes down at 270. So what if you were 340 knots at 20 miles...or less.

But now the flaps are coming out. The big trim wheels clicking away as you slow down. Those sleek swept wings are going to almost come apart as the flaps are selected, creating almost a full half circle of camber in order to change the mach .84 cruise speed to as slow as 110 knots on final at light weights.

Flaps 2° seems to take forever with only 4 of 14 LED's on each wing extending and you wanting more drag now. Flaps 5° takes just as long with all Kruegers and slats now extended. The rest of the flaps extend quickly and fortunately you can go down and slow down at the same time. It all seems to come together at 1,000 feet as you bring the power up and hold your pitch attitude and speed with frequent minor adjustments of thrust for the turbulence. Didn't someone say that more modern planes adjust thrust automatically? Roll response for turbulence is spritely on final with four ailerons and spoilers.

In the flare now with power off, controlling for a bit of a crosswind with what now seems to be a more trucklike response. Just a slight check and then push forward to plant it at the thousand foot markers. The elevator still very effective if the nose is coming down too fast, you grab the spoilers and three reverse to modulate near max. And reverse thrust actually does something for you beside make noise on this aircraft. The F/E is holding the thrust levers closed and ready to keep your hand from pulling too much reverse.

Taxiing into the 90° turn to the gate with the aircraft's long body and mains way back there, the nose is brought well past the lead in line in order for the mains to line up. Then the flight deck swings back to the centre of the lead in line. You look at the wing tip to make sure it is clear but can barely see it. Later, walking by the engines reveals no shortage of oil drips. The lower rudder half blown over by the wind but the upper half aligned with the tail because a B pump is on. And why does that B pump make such an annoying noise.

Then a short flight empty on a cold day, it climbs like a rocket on rotation and departure with the VSI pegged. Things are happening fast but the F/E tosses the bug card up and has the ATIS and company calls done. Just a quick brief and you are on the way down and before you know it, on vectors and slowing down as you hand fly at slower and slower speeds. 160 knots now, clean with a nose high attitude of 6 or 7 degrees, maybe more as you turn onto final. It still seems odd to be so nose high in order to maintain level flight. Then you configure on the glide with the gear coming down by the marker with its loud air noise.

A long runway so a touch of extra thrust to try and grease it on to show off, then KaBang. Oh well, you've seen worse.

[captjns]

I used to fly the lead sleads, you know the ones I'm talking about.., the ones with the -9s on em:{:}:). Sometimes, during the summer, I thought I set a land speed records departing on El Paso's RW 22. Damn... I could have sworn I used 15,000' of the 12,020' runway available to get the jet off the ground:eek:. By the way, I'd ask the F/O, did you get the serial number of that runway end identifier light? Phewwww off the ground but wait there's the emergency turn procedure we had to do to the left to avoid the rocks and Ciudad Juarez. The spectacular 700fpm ROC decresaed to about 400fpm to 500fpm until the turn was finished. Flaps up get 250kts over the wing, sit back and relax as by the miracle of the sky gods another successful liftoff was accomplished from KELP. Damn... shouldn't have had those Wat-A-Burgers:E.

I think my all time favorite airport for the good old 72 was Tegucigalpa... no... La Romana (the old one which went through a gold course) in the Dominican Republic... no... Dominica... no... some of the GA airports.... no... oh forget it... way too many favorite airports:E.

[beachbumflyer]

What a MACHINE, guys.
con-pilot:
If I win the lottery I would buy one, too. Which one would you buy,
a -100 or a -200?
I saw a re-engined -100 with winglets in Málaga a couple of times and it
looked awesome. It looked like a Ferrari.

The good old times are over.
Well...may be not...

[con-pilot]

I saw a re-engined -100 with winglets in Málaga a couple of times and it
looked awesome. It looked like a Ferrari.


I had the pleasure of flying a full Valsan conversion 727-200 once. A very impressive aircraft. The only problem was that even with a fairly heavy load you could out climb the wing. I've talked to the crew of a corporate Valsan converted 727-100 and if I had not had the experience of flying the 200 version of the mod, I would have called them liars about what they told me the -100 can perform with the mod.

I used to fly the lead sleds, you know the ones I'm talking about.., the ones with the -9s on em

I know what you are talking about, trust me. Now the -100 did just fine with the -9 engines. However, we leased a former Air France 200 with -7 engines. Yes, I didn't know that Boeing built any -200s with -7 engines either, but they sure did. We were told that the reason that Air France ordered the -7 engines installed was because they were using these particular 727s as a in-country commuter type operation and would never have to carry much fuel. Now if that is true or not I don't know. What I do know is that even on a cool day with a full passenger load that thing used up runway on takeoff. Didn't climb worth a damn either and you better be happy to accept an initial altitude in the mid 20s for the first hour or so, because that was all you were going to get. Now that I think about it, I cannot recall ever getting above 31.0 in the blasted thing.

Also I've had a few takeoffs at Denver in the summer time with a standard -200 that made me wonder if we would clear the runway lights at the end of the runway. It seemed as if I could get up just after brake release, go back to the galley, get a cup of coffee and get back into my seat just in time to rotate.

[MarkerInbound]

Capt JNS, you could have had -7s. Company thought since -7s weighed less than -15s you could carry more. Isn't every day a standard day? And it's Whataburger.

[con-pilot]

Sorry, forgot to answer this;

If I win the lottery I would buy one, too. Which one would you buy,
a -100 or a -200?


A full Valsan converted -100, with long range aux tanks in both foward and aft baggage compartments. I see no reason to be too ostentatious. ;)

[captjns]

And it's Whataburger

Forgive me:{. It's been too long since I had a good burger. They were the greatest of the fast burger... next to In and Out Burgers. My F/E would go into fits when he found out we would be at an airport near an In and Out Burger joint.

It sure was nice cruising at 280 or 290 around the TRWs in the Midwest during the summer. Hell... we could not even make it into RVSM airspace most of the times.

[stilton]

Jammed Stab that was brilliant. I flew the 727 for seven years, first half in the back seat and the second in the right. It was the first jet I ever flew and still my favourite.


Your remarkable description brings back many fond memories.

[Maurice Chavez]

Still fly her today... Normal descent rate from TOD to FL100 (M.080 to 300IAS transition) about 2500 fpm, depending on gross weight, no speed brakes. From FL100 down, about 1700 fpm, 250IAS. Burn form TOD to touch down is around 750 kgs.

We climb out on MCT, not Max Clim EPR, gives us about 95% N1, takes at MTOW to FL310 about 28 minutes and a burn of 3200 Kgs. The -100 is my favorite, she fly's like a sports-car drives.

[Captain Bob]

She was a beauty. I was lucky to fly all 3 seats for AA. First jet I upgraded to Captain on at AA. Have about 8,000 hrs in the girl. 7,900 of which were in the climb.

The 727 could come down as fast as you wanted it to. If you were ever too high in her, you had really muffed something up. The old saying from the great Captains I flew with was "If you can see the Runway over the nose, you can make it".

At one time AA was the largest operator owner of 727's in the world.

We had the
727-100
727-200
727-200A
727-200B

About 175 total

Enjoyed them all and very sad to see them go. They were truly in a class all by themselves. Went from Captain on the 727 to Captain on the 757/767. Haven't seen one in a while.

To those of you that are still lucky enough to fly this great bird, please enjoy every minute of it. I know I always will.

Bob

[Chinookflyer]

Slightly off topic, but does anybody know why the winglet conversions on the 727 never caught on?

[galaxy flyer]

I'm guessing the winglet mod came too late to the party. By the time they were offered all the airline operators were getting rid of them.

I, at the panel, whistled past Cohasset, intercepting the 33L final at KBOS at about 320 KIAS, yes, a bit over the speed limit, made the runway easily. Captain was a guy named Bakeberg, don't know what happened to him after EAL went under.

GF

[MarkerInbound]

I'd say about half the Corp./VIP planes have winglets. Most of the remaining freighters don't. It was cheaper to do the FedEx hush kit and all management sees is $$$$. Plus they weight more and that comes right out of the payload on those days when the plane is maxed out.

[captjns]

We flew one of the last, no... the last passenger -100 in captivity. It's lineage started with AA. It was one of the last ones off the assembly line. What was really unique about N1910 was that it was fitted with the aft zone temperature system which was found on the -200:):ok::). The cabin temp throughout the cabin was fantastic.

The -100 is one of those airplanes that you have to work at making a bad landing in. Amazing... v2 in the mid 120s... 340kts in the climb to .80... cruise at .87 descend on the barber pole to 10,000 then approach speed... somewhere in mid 120s... amazing. Now why can't Boeing develope another jet that do what the 727 did:{

Flew cargo -200s with -219s on the sides. Ferry flights were a hoot! 115,000 lb takeoff weight with 59,000 lbs of combined thrust? Move over 757:E.

[727gm]

Once upon a time was flying FL 350 at 0.84M or 0.85M (Postal run) towards DFW, and Ft. Worth or Memphis Center cleared us for descent to FL 280 or 260, oh, and can you maintain .84 in the descent?

Capt. answered "No Problem"

Center said "I wish they still made those things!"

[Spooky 2]

Okay I'll bite. What's a B727 200, 200A & 200B? A far as I know there was the -200 and then the -200 Advanced, so I'm guessing the versions you have cited were an American thing?

[con-pilot]

I learned to hate 737s while I was flying 727s, mainly because they were so slow. We had a regular run from the LA Basin to PHX once a week normally on Thursday's afternoon. PHX was also a normal RON couple with a late morning departure on Friday, if we didn't break down, which happened often. Not the 727's fault, we just had horrible lowest bidder maintenance.

Anyway, we'd blast out of the LA area, either from LAX, LGB or the old Los Alamitos Navy Base and head to PHX. As we were burning Government fuel and ready to party, as soon as we left 10,000 we'd climb at 350 kts IAS and then at what ever final altitude we received we'd ride the barber pole.

For about ten minutes, then inevitably Center would ask, in a high pitched voice, "Say Mach." We would reply .86 or higher, I was always tempted to respond, "What does the flight plan call for?", but I didn't. Then center would again inevitably say, "Slow to .78, you're following a 737 and overtaking them by over 80 knots." Every once in a while we'd get a sharp controller that would let us drop down to FL 250 and let us go as fast as we wanted. Now that was fun.

It was also fun to pass 737s at cruise while climbing at 2,000 feet per minute when we had a fairly light load.

Like I said earlier, I really miss flying the 727. But, I have to admit, on descent riding the barber pole it was real noisy in the cockpit.

But if you really want noise, put the gear down at 270 kts IAS, then lower the nose and speed up to 320 kts IAS, now we're talking noise.