Vindication for the Pinnacle TVC Crew

[172driver]

I have seen the TD zone mentioned several times in this thread. Most of us think of the TD zone as 1000'-3000' down the runway, which is a correct definition, and where we are required to land by the FAR's.

The critical thing that is possibly being overlooked is that our landing performance is based on touchdown AT 1000', not in the TD zone. I know it's hard to get the CRJ on the thousand footers, but you absolutely have to do it if you are dealing with tight performance numbers.

 

[Stepclimb]

I have seen the TD zone mentioned several times in this thread. Most of us think of the TD zone as 1000'-3000' down the runway, which is a correct definition, and where we are required to land by the FAR's.

The critical thing that is possibly being overlooked is that our landing performance is based on touchdown AT 1000', not in the TD zone. I know it's hard to get the CRJ on the thousand footers, but you absolutely have to do it if you are dealing with tight performance numbers.

Oh it goes further than that!

Certification standards in the US allow the factory test pilot to have up to a 3.5 degree approach path and 8 ft/sec descent rate crossing the threshold at 50 ft and 1.3 Vstall. They then are allowed to slam the aircraft down and immediately apply full manual braking to establish the demonstrated landing distance.
Your factored dry distance is 1.667 times the demonstrated and the wet/slippery distances only add another 15% on top of top of the factored dry distance.

I'm pretty sure the factory test pilot is hitting the runway BEFORE the 1000 ft markers at 480 ft/min.

Flying the aircraft in this manner is the only way to validate the landing data. Of course no one on the line is intentionally landing this way in the course of day-to-day flying......

The FAA admitted to this shortcoming in the certification standards following the SWA MDW accident, but stopped short of NTSB recommended FAR rulemaking.
Instead, they issued SAFO 06-012 that "recommended" operators get actual demonstrated contaminated data from the aircraft manufacturer or add an additional 15% "safety factor" to the WET factored landing distance when operating on contaminated runways.

 

[Stepclimb]

Most of us think of the TD zone as 1000'-3000' down the runway, which is a correct definition

Actually the TD zone begins at the threshold, not the 1000 ft markers, but your point was valid.