Can a MD-80 autoland?

[aa73]

When I trained on the -80 at the now defunct airline our sim instructor insisted that we disconnect autothrottles when they started reducing thrust at 50' and bring them back to idle ourselves while managing the flare and sink rate. After about 60 hours of holding onto the tail (my first jet), I still couldn't see the last 10 feet of the sink on landing. Then two unfortunate saps, a green on green crew, changing over from the 737, struck the tail of one of our -80's trying to save a high sink rate, and forced a huge and expensive repair job. We all lost our jobs two weeks later with bankruptcy and shutdown (unrelated to the tail strike of course).

It was a new CA's (great guy) first landing in the plane, with a new LCA (to the aircraft). The story I heard was that the autothrottles 'went to flight idle early' and he dropped the nose to maintain airspeed, producing the high sink rate.

The mad dog will bite you if you're not careful.

Another winner.

One way to save a slammer on the ol' Dog was to slightly ease forward on the yoke at the last instance... worked pretty well on the 727, too. The main gear is so far behind that you were actually "lifting" the main gear along with the tail, reducing the slam factor. Pulling back just drove the mains down even harder.

Tail strikes were definitely a possibility with a high sink rate/idle thrust. I believe it was around 10.7 degrees of pitch when the tail would strike.

 

[Ameriagle]

So you are essentially landing with power! If the auto-throttles are engaged they begin to retard at 50' which means they reach idle at about 30'. If you delay to 30' that would put you at 10-20' before you are at idle, which is power on in my book! 30', power at idle, and the yoke against the stop....I had a friend that did that once!

 

[michael707767]

So you are essentially landing with power! If the auto-throttles are engaged they begin to retard at 50' which means they reach idle at about 30'. If you delay to 30' that would put you at 10-20' before you are at idle, which is power on in my book! 30', power at idle, and the yoke against the stop....I had a friend that did that once!

Actually, no. Probably 97% of the time I do not use the autothrottles on approach. I only use them when I have too. So when I pull the power to idle, sure there is a slight delay as the engines spool down, but I don't slowly go to idle. And as I said, I am at idle by 30 feet, not starting to pull it to idle. Even the, I only wait that long when I am heavy, the stab is back around 10, and I am doing a flap 40 landing, which in itself is something very rare for me. On most landings I am at idle by about 40 feet, and I have no problem getting a smooth touchdown, with plenty of elevator authority left.

Look at it this way. The people who designed, built and tested the airplane have the throttles going to idle 50 feet. Do you really think they would have built the airplane that way if it could potentially be a problem?

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

I only flew the doggy for a couple months... I would make sure to keep the fast/slow donut ever so slightly on the high side. I would begin flare at around 20-30 feet and pull the power around 10 feet. Seemed to work out right in the touchdown zone every time with a nice smooth landing (until the maddog decided I was getting cocky and decided to make me have a slammer).

The autoland sequence is definitely a bit scary, but works.

 

[XTW]

The MD80 autoland works just fine just as long as you don't f*ck with it and it is done in IMC, 700RVR conditions. Don't do it VMC, it'll scare the crap out of you!


X

 

[spg2bmd]

Wasnt there a T dub that landed in BNA and didnt quite make it? Maybe they just thought auto land was enabled...

 

[stlflyguy]

Wasnt there a T dub that landed in BNA and didnt quite make it? Maybe they just thought auto land was enabled...

On a -30 series DC9?

Bwahahahahaha! Bwahahahahah!

If I remember correctly, the F/O was just off IOE with some crankin' winds...the Captain just didn't react fast enough to catch the sink rate that the F/O had developed at the last minute.

stlflyguy

 

[jimcav]

I heard the fo was a cocky ER intern punk with very low time. Supposedly he carried an attitude all the way to the 709 ride. Didn't last too long. This from a TWA -9 check airman friend.

 

[F/O]

One way to save a slammer on the ol' Dog was to slightly ease forward on the yoke at the last instance... worked pretty well on the 727, too.

Check and roll!!

 

[glasspilot1]

What's a 709 ride?