Taking off from Santa Ana (SNA) - wooo that was fun.
- Thread starter pezzy84
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Sorry. Just my interpretation from memory. Didn’t look up exactly how you described it, but I’m sure you said that your runway landings were like carrier landings.
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I will check it out , thanks.
I probably said that I bring the same precision to the game, or something like that.
To catch a 3 wire on a NIMITZ-class ship, the airplane must be on centerline, within about two knots of airspeed, and within fifteen inches of glideslope. That’s 38 cm for the rest of the world. I used to get the 3 wire most of the time. Honest. I’ve got some “Top Ten” patches on my flight jacket to prove it.
Where I see airline pilots (and I teach in the airplane, now, so this discussion comes up) err in the landing process is the transition to visual. They allow the rate of descent to shift, slightly, and the aim point to shift, slightly, so that when they cross the runway threshold, they are 20 feet or more, sometimes as much as fifty feet, high - which leads to a poor landing. Long, for sure. Sometimes firm, sometimes a go around. It could’ve been fixed with a tiny nose and power correction ten seconds earlier.
So, a good landing, in my experience, comes from rigid discipline in the approach. A Naval Aviator flying aboard the boat makes hundreds of tiny, timely corrections to power and flight path in the last twenty seconds. Watch an F-14 landing video and pay particular attention to the horizontal tails, they never stop moving as the pilot continues to work Stick, rudder and throttles, and perhaps DLC, to keep the jet precisely on parameters through the turbulent air behind a moving ship. That’s how I learned to fly. It’s ingrained now.
I’m fascinated by airline pilots, who came up through the civilian ranks, or through the USAF, who set the power, leave it, and then accept being 5 knots off airspeed, and accept being a dot off on glideslope. Good pilots in most respects....
But clearly grew up in a world in which that level of precision was never required.
Maybe they think they’re being smooth, or that it doesn’t matter. I’ve heard both explanations.
But every knot matters. So does every foot. On means on, not even a foot, or a knot, off. Being on the flight Director means an equal number of pixels above and below, and on either side of, the aircraft reticle, not just the symbols touching.
It’s discipline, and precision, that lead to a good landing in an airliner. The difference between back then and now, is that at about 20 feet (30 in the 767, 50 in the 747), the nose is tweaked up a bit, the throttles come smoothly to idle, and my aim point shifts to the far end of the runway to flare, maintain centerline, and touchdown smoothly.
Easy enough to find. I misinterpreted. I did find video of the last US F-14 landing before it was retired. It definitely looks like a hard landing.
A carrier landing was a normal landing in the F-14. Constant sink rate (700-800 FPM) until touchdown.
At every Naval Air Station, there was an FLOLS, a Fresnel Lens, the "meatball".
So, every landing at an NAS was a chance to practice a normal carrier landing with the same visual cues.
I used the term "slam" as I've heard that to describe a carrier landing.
F-14 Questions Answered - Ask Away
Astro, In a past post you mentioned landing an F-14 successfully with a massive fuel leak. Did you ever find out what failed that caused the leak? And how close did it come to causing an in flight fire?
bobistheoilguy.com
We have a few short runways in California here where they might try landing a 737 or Airbus A319. Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport has 6000 ft. Santa Barbara doesn't have much more runway than that.
Ah, OK. I think I misread your post in this thread and we got our wires crossed as a result. My apologies.
Yes. Your memory is excellent. I landed the F-14 “carrier style” for every normal landing. With good reasons.
Not a popular (or even good) technique for an airliner. Their max structural limit for a hard landing is about 600 feet per minute (I think, this is in the maintenance manual, not our flight manual). Normal carrier landing in a fighter was about 700-800 feet per minute.
By the way, I found this precise verbiage in our FM.
“Idle reverse, as a minimum, is required for all landings. If conditions warrant, use reverse thrust up to maximum without delay.” It goes on to discuss performance and requires maximum reverse for all contaminated (rain, slush, snow) runways which is pretty much what I said.
“Idle reverse, as a minimum, is required for all landings. If conditions warrant, use reverse thrust up to maximum without delay.” It goes on to discuss performance and requires maximum reverse for all contaminated (rain, slush, snow) runways which is pretty much what I said.
I wonder what Iran did with their F-14s. I get that they're trying to keep them in the air by cannibalizing parts and trying to produce new ones. I know the landing gear is the same, but I'd think they could make them last longer since replacement parts are kind of hard to come by.
Wish I knew. Do they flare the landing to spare the strain on the airplane? We had an issue with wing sweep pivot bearing retaining pins that limited the G on some airplanes until they got updated pins. It’s kind of a big deal if that bearing comes loose - that means the wing comes off.
Are they facing that, or other fatigue issues? We had a Navy Tomcat accumulate over 10,000 hours. That’s an incredible life for a fighter. It was still structurally sound. But it had parts support and good maintenance. I’m doubtful that Iran has either.
Are they facing that, or other fatigue issues? We had a Navy Tomcat accumulate over 10,000 hours. That’s an incredible life for a fighter. It was still structurally sound. But it had parts support and good maintenance. I’m doubtful that Iran has either.
I found this video that claims to show an emergency landing after an engine failure. Looks like it's showing bits and pieces of the actual emergency landing, but with cockpit and other footage that looks too staged to be from the actual emergency landing.
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Very interesting. Another thing, the vast majority of airline pilots do not deal with “black hole“ approaches vey often, if at all, like landing on a carrier
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Minimum “idle“ reverse on the Airbus in case the spoilers were not armed before landing. If someone forgot to arm them, they will still deploy when idle reverse ( or more ) is selected.
Oh the 757, I wanted to fly it so bad. Maybe I should have stayed with US Airways. 
As awesome as the jet is, that price would have been too high!!Oh the 757, I wanted to fly it so bad. Maybe I should have stayed with US Airways.
I like the g force take offs and landings. But then that is just me.
Naval aviator ,,Duh.
