Question for the Airbus drivers

[DC8 Flyer]

I believe it has to do with the amount of wing diheadiral that the airplane has. The greater the diahedrial the easier it is to get a decent landing out of it due to better low speed handling characteristics. Flew DHC-8's and DC-8s
in a prior life and neither one had much in the way of dihedrial. Landings left much to be desired...But then again,maybe it was me.....????

PHXFLYR

Yeah, that's my story too, and I'm sticking to it!

Say you don't know a fella with the nickname trei, do ya?

 

[Longhorn]

Easy plane to land or not, people go through periods of not being able to land at all. 16 months on the plane now and I always here guys say that eventually you will get into a rutt where you cant land to save your life. I never belived it until the end of last month. Everthing was fine. I was able to grease it almost every time and them BAM....cant land it at all. I am just now starting to get the feeling back but for 3 weeks no matter how hard I tried, it was an hard, ugly landing. Normally not a bad thing since I fly with the same guys all the time but rather ugly when you have never flown with the guy and its only an out and back.

 

[OpenClimb]

I agree with Longhorn. I'm very inconsistent with my landings. I'll have a dozen absolute greasers in a row and start thinking I've finally figured it out. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I can't buy anything better than a plunker. Very frustrating.

It's kind of like golf for me. It's more a headgame than a physical thing. I think I try to fly the way I think a captain wants me to fly and it leads to inconsistency. If the captain leaves the power on until Feefee calls him a retard, then I start doing that instead of my normal 30' thing. Then I start floating. Then I try to fix the floating by flying it on with less of a flare. Then I pound a landing or 2 and I decide to break the descent a little higher... then I decide to leave the power in... aaaarrghhh.

 

[B1900FO]

It's kind of like golf for me.

I agree! I'm finding that golf is like flying. You'll have a string of great games and then you go through a period where you sometimes wonder why you're even allowed to hold a golf club.

It's those great golf games, beautiful sunsets and sunrises from the air, and a greaser of a landing that keep us coming back for more!!

 

[sayagain?]

Flew the 737 and now the Bus and have found that the 320 has been easier to get good consitant landings, except in a stiff crosswind.

Did a auto-land in the Bus the other day and let's just say that it wasn't pretty. The passengers didn't believe us when we told them that it was an autoland.

 

[AKAAB]

As I've told the passengers in the past - even Tiger Woods misses a putt once in a while.

Longhorn is too hard on himself. He got more compliments for a grade-2 plopper the other day than he got when he greased it. Go figure.

Also, if he'd stop humming the Aggie fight song during his landings, he might do better.

 

[Longhorn]

Aggie fight song? Oh no.....wrong school...UT...Longhorns

You disappeared the other day. I guess you were on bus 2. Once second you were there and the next you were gone.

 

[aa73]

Don't feel bad folks... After 3500+ hrs on the -80, I just created another runway dip in LGA the other night while landing on 4 after a flawlessly smooth approach, the lead F/A had to dig the landing gear out of her a$$ when we blocked in at the gate.

No matter how much experience, landing the -80 makes a pilot look like a novice every so often.

I agree, the 320 series seems to get pretty consistent good landings. The 737-800 seems to have pretty stiff main ldg gear and is pretty unforgiving with even a little crab angle.

Watch out for the new bump on your next takeoff roll on Rwy 4, it is right around the 500ft marker....

73

 

[UAL'01]

You put the the nosegear at the 500 ft marker? No wonder that one was a bad one. Must have used a lot of power to taxi without the main gear...just kidding...

 

[Bringupthebird]

There is not one-size-fits-all landing technique for the bus. When it's cool (below 100 F) you can pull the power off at 50' and make pretty good landings. High temps or really low weights (I can't explain that one) require the power to be held in there for a little longer. How much longer? Well to answer that you have to buy my DVD- "I Don't Know, But It's Doing It Again"

 

[727RedTails]

I will agree with BringuptheBird's assesment.

AnimalTale, the ladies always did say you greased them in the J32.

 

[starchkr]

Landings huh...well my first few were pretty bad...I think it had to do with the whole landing with my a$$ 5' off the ground for 5 years and then having to learn that to land this plane smoothly you need to actually flare at least 25' higher...lets just say the first few times i was looking for the old learjet sight picture and forgot about the Airbus sight picture...yeah, that equals no flare for landing, talk about testing the gear and runway strength...the worst part was i had to fly with the same F/A crew for that four day trip and i got razz'd for the entire trip.

 

[Eaglepuke]

My best landings are the ones I put no effort into. If I try to grease it, it won't happen. If I do get a greaser, I can rarely look back and remember how I did it. I guess I fly best when in a spaced out trance.

 

[Capn Mike]

It's called autoland!

Just kidding busdrivers:laugh:

Actually the autolands are quite firm at times.

Have you noticed how sometimes you will grease one on and get no comments from the pax and other times you will think you banged it on and get the compliments. Maybe they are just being sarcastic.

Mike

 

[Thedude]

The 737 is by far the easiest plane to get a good landing out of, just like the days of the C-172. Now, the B-727 is another story...

Come on...the 727 isn't that hard to land....well maybe from the panel