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Sawing the MD80 yoke!

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typhoonpilot said:
The 80 can be a handful when it is gusty but that looked like bad technique, the guy was over-controlling. The sound at the end sounded like a radio altimeter was set for 0.


TP

RA, that's right.

Yeah, from 50' down, he was a bit wicked on the fore/aft movement of the control wheel.
 
Poor technique

I used to fly with a guy who was WAY worse than that. Even on a relatively calm day, you'd have to keep your hands well clear of the yoke when he was flying. He was a maniac on the controls, but he was very experienced. I always felt it was poor technique, and I think he thought I was lazy or laid-back on my landings because I just used minute adjustments to get what I wanted. I'm serious, this guy burned some calories below 50 feet AGL, and he was a check airman. I never could figure out why he did it that way.
 
It also looked like he cracked the reversers before the nose was down. That's a very good way to scrape the clamshells on the runway in that airplane.
 
There are quite a few people out there who jack the yoke on short final. The control responses in the -80 are so slow that you are just cancelling out all the inputs. I've seen it done in the GV (way too responsive for that kind of behavior!) and you could REALLY feel it. I always try to see how little input I can make all the way down.

It's just a bad habit--I remember almost getting into that habit myself. Some TWA Captain b!t@h-slapped me and I never looked back. :D

I always found the -80 was very stable on approach--you just had to realize it had pretty slow control response and needs a BUNCH of rudder to kick the nose straight in a cross wind. JMO.TC
 
I think pilots carry that over from other aircraft that have a lot of "stiction" in the elevator cable runs. Some planes have high breakout forces, so getting wild in the flare keeps you "in the loop".

It is still bad form.
 

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