727 IranAir ldg without Nose Gear. Video and Question?

[JanetFlight]

Few days ago after flight from Moscow »»»

y0m0ujn8FeE

However one doubt...why no Spoilers/SB after the touchdown/landing roll?

Avoiding the possible CG change to a forward position, leading to a previous nose down attitude, maybe?

However...very nice crew job!:D

[BOAC]

Never flown the 72, but it's the same for a 73..

[kms901]

Beautifully done !

[Desert185]

If armed, the spoilers when extended would tend pitch the airplane over on the nose at perhaps an undesireable rate.

As a side note, I used to fly 727's for Iran Air in the 70's. That video brought back some memories.

[bubbers44]

Very professionaly done. Looked like minimal damage due to their gentle lowering of the nose at the end of the landing roll. I loved the 727. I would have retired in it if they hadn't screwed up the schedules at the end so much.
We old guys are lucky we got to fly some of these wonderful airplanes while they were here.

[Old Fella]

A very well handled emergency landing, congrats to the crew. Never operated on the B727, just wondered if they have a similar 'last resort' system for getting the NLG down as in the B707? The Johnson Bar was stowed and operated from the Lower 41. If you are reading this Hoppy you may recall how it broke during a demonstration during '79. :ok:

[bubbers44]

As I recall you could go back in 1st class, pull a panel up, and see if the nose gear was down. I don't think you could lower it from there though. It has been 15 years but I am quite sure you couldn't.

[fc101]

I'd be pleased with that landing even with nose gear down....

Now just to sit back and wait for the ensuing Pprune discussion about how this couldn't be done in an Airbus, how ME pilots are pooly trained etc etc...oh, and could someone post the METAR ;-)

[stilton]

All three landing gear can be manually cranked down via three access hatches in the cockpit.




A crank is connected and after about eighteen million turns each one will lock down. Done this a few times in the sim many years ago practicing for hydraulic failure.



Of course if things are disconnected or broken that's another story.



Great job by the crew, the wonderful flying qualities and enormous pitch authority on the B727 certainly help.

[Fly380]

I flew 707's for Iranair in 1975 and following a nightstop in Frankfurt, when we arrived at the airport we were told that the aircraft inbound the day before was being towed from the hangar as the previous evening they were unable to lower the nosewheel normally and had to use the emergency system as described in an earlier post. The reason it wouldn't extend was that it hadn't been lubricated. I'm not suggesting this was the case here. We returned to Teheran with no further problems.

[con-pilot]

A crank is connected and after about eighteen million turns each one will lock down. Done this a few times in the sim many years ago practicing for hydraulic failure.



It happened for real to me three times, once I cranked it down when I was playing FE and the other two times the guy playing FE cranked it down while I looked from the left seat.

Oops, I take that back, one of the times we had a real FE on board and he cranked the gear down. Really didn't have to watch him, he knew what he was doing.

The crew in the video did an excellent job.

As for the non-use of the spoilers, for some reason I seem to remember Boeing recommending not to use the spoilers if landing nose gear up or showing unsafe/not down and locked. But I have not flown a 727 since 1998, so I very well could be wrong. I need to dig out my old training manuals and look that up.

[stepwilk]

why no Spoilers/SB after the touchdown/landing roll?

You want to stop even faster???

[stepwilk]

(Of course, memory is one of the first things to go.)

It's the second thing to go...

[dusk2dawn]

My old 727 QRH says
AFTER TOUCHDOWN PROCEDURE.....
- For both main gear down and nose gear up, raise speedbrakes fully.

Anyway, nice job!

[gulfairs]

18 million turns, I thought it was 18 million and 2!

[grounded27]

However one doubt...why no Spoilers/SB after the touchdown/landing roll

Please no expert but I have seen many an aerodynamic breaking rollouts esp. on classic 747's. I feel they did not want to loose the drag of aerodynamic braking (not ideal in a normal landing) or rather risky in a normal landing. If they dumped the spoilers I feel the nose would have hit the ground with less control and at a higher airspeed. Lovely landing!

[DC-ATE]

bubbers44-
We old guys are lucky we got to fly some of these wonderful airplanes while they were here.

Uh.....the only thing wrong with your 727 was the engines were in the wrong place and it had a "T"-tail.

You shudda flow the -8 and THEN you'd know what a REAL airplane is !!:cool:

[stilton]

No problem with the DC 8 but if you'd had the privilege to fly the lovely B727
you'd soon understand the affection for it !

[DC-ATE]

Well, I had the senority to fly anything and I chose the DC-8. Only "real" airplane we had after the DC-6s were gone !!

[20milesout]

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/8479/qrhw.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/406/qrhw.jpg/)
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/2759/qrh3.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/444/qrh3.jpg/)

Also 2 pages about cranking the gear manually. Too lazy to copypasta any more, if you are interested, pm.

[Old Fella]

How good to see the F/E mentioned in the QRH. Most of the younger brigade probably don't know that it means FLIGHT ENGINEER.

[stilton]

With you there Old Fella,



I think not deploying the spoilers was an excellent decision, in this case, with good weather and a long dry runway combined with the desire to keep the nose off as long as possible keeping all the lift you had down to the slowest possible speed was simply good judgement.



Great job.

[Capetonian]

On a recent trip to Iran, I elected not to fly Iran Air even though they offered me a ticket in First Class. I chose another carrier and slummed it in the back.

Had I seen this video, I might have chosen Iran Air. The flying skills that this demonstrates are impressive. What saddens me, having enjoyed a visit to the country, is how Western sanctions against the regime, and they are of course justified, are hitting the people by exposing them to the risks of flying in old aircraft which cannot be maintained to normal standards.

[boredcounter]

To the Crew and the AFS who appeared all over the A/c like a rash very quickly to protect from fire.

Good to see

[BOAC]

keep the nose off as long as possible keeping all the lift you had down - ?? It surely is tail authority that keeps the nose up, not wing lift?

Reverting to 737 it is interesting to see the QRH says use speedbrakes if landing distance requires - I think a far better approach.

[Desert185]

stilton:
No problem with the DC 8 but if you'd had the privilege to fly the lovely B727
you'd soon understand the affection for it !

Having flown both, (and currently on the DC-8 again) I can tell you I have an affection for both. Right now, 11 hour plus legs would be a bit of a stretch for the 727. Different jobs require different tools...

[Old Fella]

BOAC. I think Stilton was pointing out that to have deployed the spoilers on touchdown would have reduced lift so dramatically that the horizontal stabilizer/elevator authority would have been insufficient to control the pitch-down to the same extent that it was in this case with the spoilers remaining stowed. I would seem to me that the lift produced in the configuration used could only help delay the point at which the nose came in contact with the runway. Obviously, if the runway was wet and/or limited length, bringing the aircraft to a stop as quickly as possible would be assisted by deployment of the spoilers.

[grounded27]

Point as I have known is that aerodynamic breaking utilizes lift as a strong force with drag as is natural (2 forces) of great dynamic only with the liability of lost of lift resulting in a loss of drag, this is greater than the drag induced by spoilers alone. During a normal landing (3 points down) aircraft braking, reverse thrust and a spoiled airfoil is ideal.

On a tail mounted engine with full nose up deflection it seems to me that a balance of reverse thrust with pitch may be the best option to slow this aircraft.

[SeldomFixit]

All the pontifications and disections and resections of QRH's etc and all you need to do is look at the vid - disect THAT and type it up as the bible - absolute professionals - well done:ok:

[30/30 Green Light]

No Johnson Bar on the 727,no way to get to the Lwr 41 from "up top" Worked well on the 707 when I had to use it for real once,but a bit harrowing waiting for the Green Light call from "up stairs"!!!:ooh:

[captjns]

How good to see the F/E mentioned in the QRH. Most of the younger brigade probably don't know that it means FLIGHT ENGINEER.

I'm shocked :eek: at the number of children of the magenta line that don't know what a B727 is.

The closest to a Flight Engineer I get nower days on the NG is when I have a Supee on the jump seat. They do the paperwork and communications. Alas the long gone days of the good old B727:{.

[PPRuNeUser0190]

I wouldn't worry too much about slamming the nose into the ground when extending speed brakes as they have an initial pitch up moment.

B737 FCTM says:
- Controllability is more difficult with speedbrakes extended.
- In case of evac you might not be able to stow them --> injuries

Isn't there something in the B727 FCTM?

[DRN11435]

I have a question regarding normal practice on a nose gear up landing.
Do the pilots pull the yoke back all the way whilst slowing down (obviously not right after touch down) and will the decrease in lift result in a smooth lowering of the nose on the rwy as speed and thus lift decreases? Or are the pilots required to "fly" the nose on the ground?

I am not a pilot myself and apologise for any silly comments.

[Airbubba]

From the Washington Post:

Iranian hero pilot gets cold shoulder

By Thomas Erdbrink, Published: October 29

TEHRAN — An Iranian pilot whose spectacular emergency landing was captured on video will not be allowed to fly a plane for two months, the Fars news agency reported Saturday.

The video shows the Iran Air flight slowly approaching Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport on Oct. 18 with its nose landing gear jammed. As rescue workers prepared for the worst, Capt. Hooshang Shahbazi balanced the plane using only the landing gear under the wings until it came to a stop.

The 40-year-old Boeing 727, which was returning from Moscow, had been blacklisted in Europe but not in Russia. A similar plane crashed in February in western Iran during bad weather, killing 77.

Shahbazi complained to news media here that Iranian authorities have not expressed any gratitude for his efforts, which saved the lives of 94 passengers and 19 crew members.

“They did not even call to say thank you,” Shahbazi told the Etemaad newspaper, which is critical of the government, on Saturday. Instead he was told to stay home for two months to recuperate from the incident, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Saturday, adding that there will be an investigation into the cause...

Iranian hero pilot gets cold shoulder - The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iranian-hero-pilot-gets-cold-shoulder/2011/10/29/gIQAffIbSM_story.html)

[punkalouver]

There's one of those wonderful bits of guidance found in QRH's everywhere.

What does "the 'REQUIRED' position" really mean?



The required position is one of the three scenarios listed below that statement. Perhaps Boeing knows that spoiler deployment pitches the nose up slightly allowing a lower nose touchdown speed or perhaps it is just to lower the likelyhood of an overrun or some other reason.

[lear60fellow]

is pprune banned in Iran? Would love to hear the story from the crew, 2 months at home to recover gives them plenty of spare time to write.

My father was F/E on the B727 for 11 years but the aircraft he loved more was the DC-10, B747 were a pain in the a.. but he loved his job, was the only one on the aircraft with a decent table for lunch.

On the other hand DC-8´s are wonderful to fly, had the oportunity to fly them, now I fly a very decent LJ60 rocket with steel wires on the controls so I don´t have to worry about normal laws, alternate laws and all that crap.

Good landing!!!

[sandos]

I am so very impressed by this landing, the speeds seems so low when the nose finally drops. Would this landing have been as smooth with a A320 or a 737?

[DC-ATE]

sandos-
Would this landing have been as smooth with a A320 or a 737?

Yes.....even a DC-8 !! :O

I'm not trying to belittle the fine job this Captain did, but almost all landings are done that way. That is with the nose in the air, landing on the mains first and then lowering the nose. In this case you just try and hold the nose off longer to slow down more. This guy did it "textbook" style for sure.

[Romeo E.T.]

having flown the 3-holer for almost 5 years, my hats off to the crew...including the FE... for this safe outcome.:D:D

[Fuel Dump]

I beleive that the 727 is the best plane to handle a nose gear up landing. Because of the heavy tail/light nose, with the help of the stab trim you can hold the nose up until about 60kt. That's what I found out for fun on some looong runway landings! There is no way you can do the same on a 737. I would guess another 20 or 30kt would be necessary.

[jason19]

I know something about that landing because i listened to captain Shabazi (pilot of Boeing 727) speech and if you would like i will give you some information.

[DownIn3Green]

Sandos,

Vref for the 727 at very light weights hovers right around 105 kts with flaps 40 (which isn't used anymore), but touchdown at that speed and it would be hard to hold the nose off...I suspect their Vref was around 125kts...

[Lonewolf_50]

Please post what you are able to, jason. Many pilots would be interested to hear the story from the source. :ok: