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Dork Jets

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Actually some Citations don't have reverse. The new Premier from Beechcraft doesn't have any either. I don't rely on them when I land anyway.
 
Many of the Brasilias at Lakes didn't have reversers either. Oh wait, that was because the EECs were inop and it took forever and a day for them to be fixed.
 
The AVRO gross is 93,500lbs and we don't need reverse. We can get into shorter runways then most porps. Our ref speeds most of the time are around 110kts, with BIG brakes, and BIG lift spoilers we can stop fast.
 
First of all, we are talking about BRAKES!!!

You BREAK your leg!

You use BRAKES to stop an airplane! You report BRAKING action, not BREAKING action!

OK, I feel better.

On thrust reversers, the Air Force seems to think that simpler (ie none) is better. The R-model 135s get those big CFM-56s with no reversers. The T-1 gets those JT-8Ds again, with no reversers. Just use up those brakes! Tires and brakes are cheap, I guess!

As for the B-1, I can only speak from what I heard out in the system as an airlift guy. Supposedly a B-1 on a training mission in Europe got it's wings stuck in the full aft (ie high-speed) position. No amount of checklist running or cussing could get the wings out, so they started looking for a looong piece of runway to put the beast down on. (I can only assume here that with its wings folded back a B-1 cannot AR, because it is either going too fast for the tanker or not maneuverable enough. Otherwise, just gas up and go to Dyess). Anyway, the longest piece of concrete in Europe is at Frankfurt, with (I'm relying on memory here) 13,123 feet of runway. So, the B-1 lands on 27L, promptly blows all of its tires, and instantly becomes an international incident. The Germans are screaming to "Get that BOMBER off our runway!!", and the plane cannot be moved because it has no tires. Supposedly the USAF got fined something like $12,000/hour for the time that the B-1 sat there and garbaged up the runway. Remember, this is just an airlift guy's version of the story, so the actual events may be less dramatic! ;)
 
In agreement on the Velcro. Never needed reverse though. Vref is so low that they would be useless. Below 80 kts, reversers are not very effective any way. We normally touch down between 90-100kts. We can easilly land in 3000 ft. Yo can do it much shorter, but as stated before, the brakes are very uncomfortable if they are used too aggressively. New captains tend to get really brake happy, at first, and it is not uncommon to turn off with the brake temp high message lit up.

What a fun airplane. I know we all have pet names for it but at ACA we prefer the POCKET ROCKET!

Quoted from EWR tower: " Blue Ridge ****, you look like a missle! Cantact departure.":D
 
The B-1 did indeed land at FRA with aft wing sweep. A remarkable piece of airmanship by the crew. Preferably, a landing on the lake bed at Edwards is indicated. Approach speed was probably 250 k. The brakes on the B-1 are outstanding (no thrust reverse) and the tires are good to 250k, but you can bet the fuse plugs went pretty quick. Now what do you do with a 200,000 lbs of aircraft with 8 blown fuse plugs, and no spare wheels on field and probably 8 in theatre. UGH. BTW, refueling the B-1 with aft wing sweep is no big problem. And also, BTW, when the airplane first came into the inventory, the design engineers told us it was impossible for the wings to get stuck back. Yea, right.
 
B-1 Landing...

Tried to post a reply once...but got lost in the system...grr...

Previous posts got most of the story correct on the Bone that landed at Frankfurt. I was in the squadron when it happened and the crew briefed us when they got back. I also have video of the landing and rollout, and subsequent MX... The aircrew actually did a emergency refueling (or had at least planned to, ,y memory goes slightly fuzzy) to give them more time to troubleshoot. They didn't blow the tires on the landing...actually they blew about 15 min later, along with the thermal plugs. After putting out the fire, the MX guys worked all night to replace the wheels/tires and got the aircraft off the runway just as FRA was about to accept the morning wave of landings...

Funny story, the AC does a practice low approach to check flying charactistics, and tells the CP to call out runway remaining markers once he lands. On the landing, upon touchdown, the CP says "Uh, there aren't ANY runway remaining markers...." DOH!

Yea, Rockwell had built the wing sweep units completely sealed saying they would NEVER need MX...go figure! The MX guys had to hand roll the wings forward to 20 sweep to shuttle the Bone back to Dyess, limiting it to about .7 mach...

FastCargo
 

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