Here's the premise, "Everybody takes off, but not everybody lands."
Obviously, the act of taking off would be hard to execute in any way that's different enough from any airline's operating manual's description of the act to fail to qualify as such.
However, at the other end, when it comes time to bring the flight to an end, it is possible (and the point of this post) to actually avoid landing the airplane.
"Was that a landing?" is the thought that goes through my mind when I fly with a guy who regularly touches down at speeds higher than Vref (by Vref I also mean Vat which is defined as "indicated airspeed at the threshold, 1.3 times Vso the stall speed in the landing configuration") or who touches down at a speed equal to or even higher than the computed Vtarget (Vref plus additives, where I work Vtarget is a minimum of Vref+5 knots and a maximum of Vref+20 knots).
I think that you can't call that a "landing". When you fly an aircraft to the runway at a speed that's above it's computed Vref, you haven't landed it. I'm willing to admit that it probably takes skill to put an aircraft smoothly onto a runway when it (the aircraft) is still well above its stall speed because at that speed it really wants to continue flying, especially if you're touching down at a speed as high as Vtarget.
So touching down at higher than Vref speed (or at or above Vtarget speed) isn't a real landing, instead it's simply flying the aircraft until it's completely out of altitude.
My interpretation of a "real landing" is that you've committed to ending the flight, which is to say that while you're still in the air you've begun reducing the thrust so as to reduce the aircraft's total energy state so that when it touches the ground it is below that of Vref and decreasing rapidly.
Obviously, the act of taking off would be hard to execute in any way that's different enough from any airline's operating manual's description of the act to fail to qualify as such.
However, at the other end, when it comes time to bring the flight to an end, it is possible (and the point of this post) to actually avoid landing the airplane.
"Was that a landing?" is the thought that goes through my mind when I fly with a guy who regularly touches down at speeds higher than Vref (by Vref I also mean Vat which is defined as "indicated airspeed at the threshold, 1.3 times Vso the stall speed in the landing configuration") or who touches down at a speed equal to or even higher than the computed Vtarget (Vref plus additives, where I work Vtarget is a minimum of Vref+5 knots and a maximum of Vref+20 knots).
I think that you can't call that a "landing". When you fly an aircraft to the runway at a speed that's above it's computed Vref, you haven't landed it. I'm willing to admit that it probably takes skill to put an aircraft smoothly onto a runway when it (the aircraft) is still well above its stall speed because at that speed it really wants to continue flying, especially if you're touching down at a speed as high as Vtarget.
So touching down at higher than Vref speed (or at or above Vtarget speed) isn't a real landing, instead it's simply flying the aircraft until it's completely out of altitude.
My interpretation of a "real landing" is that you've committed to ending the flight, which is to say that while you're still in the air you've begun reducing the thrust so as to reduce the aircraft's total energy state so that when it touches the ground it is below that of Vref and decreasing rapidly.
