US pilot hailed for smooth touchdown without landing gear Read more at http://www.9ne
 

Special skill required? Don't think so. :}

Looks like a Hawker... No big deal in my books.

Not just the pilots
 

And congratulations to the emergency services people whose vehicles appear to be no more than 30 - 50 metres from the aircraft when it finally comes to a stop

Yes, so often they seem to hide at the threshold and then struggle to keep up with the landing aircraft, only arriving 'on scene' some considerable time after the aircraft has stopped.

I realise that a 'disabled' aircraft might not make the usual runway length, but, in general they seem to 'go further' than normal, leaving the crash tenders to lag well behind.

Could at least some be positioned a safe distance off to the side so that they could respond accordingly instead of having to chase from the threshold after the casualty has passed-by them?

There might be an SOP (I'm sure that there is) but maybe the pack could be split with some starting from the end where the incident is expected to end (obviously not within a possible diversion area if the casualty veers off the centre line).

On the video, the very low rate of descent at touchdown and the steady, wings-level attitude did stand out. "Smooth" seems like the word, and noticeably so. Of course, everybody knows that 'greasing it in' is one knot shy of dropping it in like a box of loose parts, but in this case he had the knot.

Video link doesn't work for me, but this seems to be the same landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yo2w_WkcqM .

Pomposity at it's PPruNe Best...
 

and


I *know* both of you have performed hundreds, neigh, thousands of landings just like this.

So the fact this pilot landed safely isn't even worth a congratulation, right?

:ugh:


Glad somebody else at least watched the video and noticed this.


Was going to make the same comment - they were on their game with this one.


Of course, it's really nothing. Everyone does this every day with the same result...

A hawker? In that case it is a matter of lifting the plane, fix the issue, lower the gear and take off again :D

Things are build like a tank :ok:

are they no longer laying foam carpets these days?

Foaming the runway is no longer considered good practice.

- Foaming is probably a waste, since most types of foam will just drain away before the airplane can land
- Even if you have the right kind of foam, it takes > 1 hour to properly foam the runway
- You run the risk of running out of foam to fight an actual fire, if the plane subsequently crashes

Plus there are too many variables to assess any benefit (vs. risk), such as the weather, runway conditions, aircraft condition, pilot's experience, etc.

And who's going to clean up all the foam after?

Isn't ground effect wonderful!