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.
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.