Escape Slides
 

A friend was asking me about these this evening and I directed him to some of the many YouTube videos showing testing and training. In the process I saw some examples I had never seen before - such as an early MD80 (or 88) that had a ventral emergency exit that involved jettisoning the entire tail cone of the aircraft!!

Has anyone in this 'cabin' ever been down a slide? Not just for training but for real?

The MD 80 series and I think DC9s had a ventral airstairs which were used for boarding disembarking where no jetways . So in the same way that normal aircraft doors have slides some of the MD 80 series had to have a slide there since it was classed as an exit . Probably a litl more complicated than the usual door slide arrangement but there is no other way out of the looonnngg MD 80 series. And indeed the cabin crew had to jettison the tail cone as part of the procedure. If you look at pictures of the aircraft you will see thesre is a pair of doors at the front behind flight deck/galler, double over wing exits and thats it so the tail slide was essential.

Then try this:

Pilots have some even more interesting option:

Early 727s had ventral airstairs but I don't know if they were emergency exits.

Somewheat OT I was on an Aero Peru 727 with ventral airstirs in 1979, As we got to the bottom the lady in front of me lit up a cigarette! Madness.

Flew the DC9 32/34/51 and 80 all of which had the tail escape slide as well as forward doors, overwing exits. Forward port door also had air stairs.
Can’t remember the rear doors set up though.
Never had to evacuate fortunately although once had a specific bomb threat where we ended up waiting over half an hour for steps because they couldn’t find anyone brave enough to position them. Different type without inflatable slides.

I guess that, in the days of the DC9 variants, the weight of all those doors was bearable and required. Not least as the a/c was built very strongly and must have weighed a fair amount.

Sometimes you didn’t even have to jettison the tail

Did you mean this? :E

One company took out the forward airstairs on their 111s to save weight only to have to replace them with concrete to keep them within the C of G limits.
No names no pack drills as I’ll get censured again.
The hard landing was part of the certification process which required a no flare landing at max weight with tailwind. Not long after the aircraft came into service a reinforcing patch was riveted above the forward entrance door.
it was a lovely aircraft to fly and only had one notable incident after hitting an extreme inversion which gave us at tailwind component of 23 knots and a large temperature increase which put us outside of the WAT limits and nearly saw us in the Schwarzwald as our flight procedures couldn’t cope.

Interesting feedback. Any stories from those who have trained on the slide? Do you think it doable in bad conditions, rather than a precautionary on the tarmac? Assuming, that is, that folks have removed high heels and left their cabin bag behind ...:suspect:

That last point is interesting PB, the DC9/MD80 series were not very high off the ground especially at the front the tail area was a bit higher up as Irecall but may be wrong . So there was never going to be much of an angle on the escape slides anyway . . If the gear was up I would think most people would get out unaided . What did occur to me at various times (although I have to say I was lucky enough hat almost all my many SAS MD 80 trips were up front ,) was going out the back way meant having to go yintot he darkest part of the cabin and then into an even darker space and pass between the engines which of course are likely to be the things actually on fire if that's the cause of the emergency.. You wouldn't have easily be able to see where you were going compared to a conventional door or over wing.

BP

I lived in Sweden for three years and did lot of biz travel. One thing about the MD 80 that struck me was that pilots seemed to able to and it very smoothly almost all the time. Now i know that sometimes thumping it on is a good idea-hydroplaning etc, but it happened so often that I did notice the difference. i flew on many other mostly European airlines at the same time and of course most of them flew 737s and A320s.


The odd hard landing on SAS did stick in my mind , especially where after one real locker opening thump the in charge ( on SAS then that was usually a lady close to fifty and usually very charming) made her announcement as 'Ladies and Gentleman as you may have noticed we have landed at Stockholm Arlanda which did cause some mirth.

Anyway you seemed to like flying the MD 80 and I know you flew for other airlines too, was the MD 80 especially good at 'greasers'

sorry for the thread drift

As travel is quiet, I am happy about thread drift. I did not do many sectors in DC9/MD80s, usually in the USA, and was always down the back. Seemed fine to me. I have heard pilots eulogise over the L-1011's ability to do as it was asked.

Greasers…
 

My first landing was on a 32 in the pouring rain, with crosswind in Shannon, I had come from the VC10 but learnt the basics on the gripper where we were taught fly the aircraft into the ground on wet runways - I had spent a brief period on the BALPA tech committee which included a trip along the then unopened M40 where they had experimented with cutting grooves into the concrete road surface. I then had an aquaplaning incident on the Hammersmith flyover which led to Kléber offering me a new set of rubber FOC. It was then I realised that there was a lot of rubbish spouted re aqua planning speeds and touchdown techniques.
I flared late but a tad too soon (hadn’t flown a jet with such a low eyeball height) and then eased the stick forward which rotated the aircraft around the CofG raising the Dunlops and greasing it on. The two skippers, one the boss and the other the first non military instructor U/T, clapped. They thought it was intentional and for the next couple of years it was my basic technique until a skipper asked me not to flare so late as it scared him. We were extremely well paid and trained with a complicated set of operating rules which gave us a huge amount of scope to do our own thing which included a stabilised approach criteria of final approach configuration SELECTED by 400ft which meant stabilised around 300ft. The not so nice was the undercarriage length and ground spoilers which had to be armed on every landing which led to a gentle touchdown then a squatting feeling as they extended. The 51 was the worse one as iirc the wing loading was higher, attitude was slightly less and they would run out of elevator. We had a couple of guys that would put on a large amount of thrust as they flared and restrict the dumpers from opening but I would bleed off a little speed over the threshold whilst trimming the elevator back and easing the stick forward to give me enough pitch control which ALWAYS worked.
With everything else I generally closed the throttles early, depending on type whether I needed to trim, then a late but complete flare in one go then hold the attitude which means looking way ahead. The times I’ve cocked up are invariably down to not looking in the right place, which happens to many who do one landing a month after being awake for 18 hours.
The 80 floated more and we had a regulation that we had to touch down between 600m and 900m iirc and if you didn’t then the captain was back in the rhs at best. This came about after the Athens accident which also led to the regulation that the flight deck had to exit the aircraft last at the furthest doors which comes back to the rear slide which we covered on conversion courses and SEP. The Athens accident was caused by something I detested which was the late as possible stand on the anchors to save brake pad wear technique. I nearly dropped off the cliff at the end of Gothenburg one freezing night because of this..only time I’ve heard JT9s surge in emergency reverse.
There was a rear slide problem if the nose gear collapsed though..might have just been the 80. The cockpit heights were low and the 80 had a distinct wrong look on the ground. You had to positively land the nose wheel and if you were a tad slow it would thump down. We had a 30 land gear up at Milan with a brand new trainer who was doing the cockpit smoke clearance drill for captains with oxygen masks on, forward pax door open and DV window open. The safety pilot didn’t do his job and it was only when they couldn’t taxi the aircraft with loads of umph that they realised the gear was still up.
There were a few BEA skippers who did a similar late rotate and push technique which worked well but it needed ability and confidence and wasn’t for copilots to try; just smile and think one day.
I fly with the irish a lot..without exception the lassies do nice landings as do a few of the blokes but there are many who just fly it into the runway. Generally you can judge the landing by the cabin announcements..those that bother can land. Never felt a thump on the 146.