scooter2525
Very well Member
I only did that once!
Lufthansa 747 balked landing at LAX
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
JDean3204
Well-Known Member
A pretty sweet burrito shop on Sepulvida, but from Century kind of a walk
There’s an awesome McDonalds on Century and the 405 freeway. Double McRib, extra slivered onions!
zmiller4
Well-Known Member
Agreed, seemed like they flared late, but that wasn’t a firm landing by any means.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
I'll out myself on this one. My first landing in the 74 (and I had very little lag between the billion landings in the sim and going on OE, so no excuse there...and I had been flying the 76 fairly recently, which is big enough to be kinda similarish, so no excuse there, either), the C/A had to take the airplane. In my defense, I did flare, just not anything like enough, so I don't think it would have been a carrier landing like Lufthansa's. Don't know what happened. Brain lock? Anyway, as you say, it can happen, even to an ace like me!
Credit to my OE Captain, who was both Johnny on the spot in arresting the decent and incredibly nice about the whole thing. We've flown together since and had a few laughs at my expense when it was my turn to land...
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
Well, a stable approach is part of the equation. Constant airspeed, constant glide path angle - a falling rock is stable by this definition.
Agreed the touchdown was fine, I was just commenting on the lead up. Possible the prior landing was still on their mind. Either way, successfully executed it second time around. Hopefully with no damage.
JustinS
Well-Known Member
I agree. Extremely poor technique. I guess I should’ve made that more clear in my post, but I thought that was obvious…
Might be on to something if the comment at the end of the VAS Aviation video is correct and that LH "confirmed" it was a training flight.
NovemberEcho
Dergs favorite member
A300Capt
Freight Dawg
If you do this flying gig long enough you will experience a “ahhh..•” landing or two as the PF or PM. Goes with the territory. Most of the time it was just a blow to your ego and you were forced to buy the beer that night. My first exposure to being an OE instructor was on the A300 when we first started receiving them in early 2000 era. We were hiring at the time and some of our new hires had come from turboprops which meant this was there first jet. I was sympathetic to that since I came from that background. The learning curve was steep but most did fine.
I had one student (f/o) who had been doing great all week while we flew morning out and backs (turns). The last day was a straight-in visual to 35L at SDF in CAVU conditions. The student was riding the G/S about a half a dot high all the way down (no biggie but a debrief item). By this time I had been lulled into a false sense of security, since the student had been doing so well, combine that with general all night flying fatigue. About 1/4 mile from touchdown the student decided to correct for this half a dot high situation by aggressively shoving the nose over. I remember a flash of the VVI needle quickly dropping to a place I’ve never seen that close to the ground. I grabbed the controls and quickly firewalled the thrust levers and tried to raise the nose to a normal flare attitude but knew we were gonna hit…hard. We did…and bounced pretty high. All kinds of alarms started going off in the cockpit as I waited for the engines to spool back up. We came back down and bounced a second time. Just as the x-wind was pushing us off the side of the runway, the engines finally spooled and we went around. About 800’ ft the tower asked us if everything was ok as they saw a rooster tail of dirt and grass after the second bounce just as the engines got to full power. I replied that I thought so and they cleared us for the visual back to a normal landing. The f/o was profusely apologizing and I remember my legs were shaking as we taxied off the runway. Talk about an adrenaline rush going from being half asleep to feeling like you’re running for your life in a split second. Fortunately, no damage was done except for egos and lesson learned for both of us. I NEVER let my guard down after that until we were safely parked at the gate. The student learned to be on glideslope and, most importantly, never shove the nose over in a big jet that close to the ground or you’ll setup a dangerous sink rate you might not be able to recover from.
Second time (literally a few months before I retired), MD11 going into PHL. Frontal passage, nighttime with wildly gusty winds, wet rwy with rain showers moving out. It’s was gonna test my limits and skills (as shaky as they are), let alone a new f/o.. Was the f/o’s leg (we were suppose to arrive well before the front but ATC delays changed that and it was gonna be close). 3/4 the way to PHL the front passes...crap! Wind gust to well over 40kts. I asked the f/o if he was comfortable with the landing in those conditions and I definitely needed his “A” game tonight. He was pretty new and prior background was military C130’s. He said he was good to go….he really wasn’t. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know.
It was rough…turbulence was very…VERY moderate (*wink*). Airspeed was basically dollar cost averaging at best. The MD can be a beast. The f/o was actually doing a pretty good job coming down the ILS. As many know, the MD11 can be very sensitive to ummmm….landings. We had 2 office personnel sitting in the back jumpseats and I could hear them gasp every so often as the turbulence picked up. I had warned them it was gonna be a little rough. I was in go-around mode the whole way down but was willing to see how conditions were as we got closer to the rwy. Like I said, the f/o was doing an admirable job staying on the ILS and augmenting the autothrottles. At around 100ft I quickly noticed he was trending a dot high on the g/s and increasing (probably went 100% outside cues). I said, “Don’t get high…”. A second later I heard the thrust levers slam back to idle…uuggghhhh, Noooo! Maybe a C130 turboprop technique but something you NEVER want to do in a big jet…especially one as quirky and temperamental as the MD11. As I felt the bottom begin to drop out I took the controls and slammed the throttles full forward through the overboost bar. We hit hard…and I had visions of the FedEx MD11 flipping over at EWR.
Fortunately we were light, the engines spooled fast and we were off and running without touching down a second time..which would’ve been very bad. I flew the next approach and was probably the toughest I’ve ever experienced in the MD. The next couple of hours we watched every other aircraft go around and many diverting afterward. My fault for allowing a relatively inexperienced f/o attempt that the first time. I told him he had done an admirable job in very tough conditions. The screaming from the jumpseaters didn’t help him. Probably should’ve diverted but decided to attempt Fate one more time. Taxing in my thoughts were…I’m getting too old for this •
Ya’ll be careful out there!
As they say in carrier aviation in the Navy “never attempt to center a high ball, when in-close”
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
The guys who fly it seem to love the thing, so I'm sure it has redeeming qualities. But riding in the back feels like being in an elderly washing machine. Everything squeaking and rattling and of course you have those two little tiny washing-machine portholes to look out of and see whether the blue part is up or down when you finally come to a stop...
A300Capt
Freight Dawg
My favorite jet by far! Was woefully overpowered, fast, uber quiet cockpit (we flew a lot with headsets off above FL180) and the automation was smooth and way ahead of its time.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
A300Capt
Freight Dawg
The weirdest thing was you NEVER heard or felt the gear retracting or extending. It was little disconcerting at first. You had to look at the lights to know anything was going on. The Bus sounded like someone hit the bottom of your seat with a medal baseball bat on gear extension and retraction was also noisy. That along with the added wind noise, vibration and pitch changes you knew the gear and doors were moving. The MD had none of those. I think my heart stopped the first time I went to extend the gear and got zero noise, vibration or pitch change. After a time delay the green lights just started one by one to illuminate. Took awhile to get use to based on previous aircraft. At cruise going .84-85 the noise level was like sitting in your living room. The B757 (mostly the packs) was the worst with the Bus being a close second on loudness.WHAT? SPEAK UP!
Probably would’ve saved my hearing a lot more had I gotten on the MD a decade prior.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
It's difficult to know what is a rational noise level since I'm already half-deaf from uh let's call them "indiscretions" in my younger years (both airplane and music related). But I'm pretty sure the afterthought-cockpit they pasted on to the top of the 74 doesn't get in under that bar. Headsets off is bearable in cruise, but one does begin to wonder what the mic is even for down low.
Although I suppose it's all relative. A profound portion of my hearing-damage certainly comes from once...*ONCE* operating a Beech 99 without a headset. It was a post-MX flight, and I had left my headset in the car. No worries, we're just taking it around the patch, should be fine. Fast-forward to 30 seconds in to the flight and it was very clear that this was a *serious* mistake. The mechanic in the right seat is clearly screaming at me, like I can tell by how the tendons in his neck are flexing, but I can't hear a damned thing other than the prop that's like 4ft from my dumb noggin.
Uncivilized is what it is. Unlike, it seems, the MD. I finally understand. Plus I hear the VNAV (or whatever it's called) is pretty great.
Although I suppose it's all relative. A profound portion of my hearing-damage certainly comes from once...*ONCE* operating a Beech 99 without a headset. It was a post-MX flight, and I had left my headset in the car. No worries, we're just taking it around the patch, should be fine. Fast-forward to 30 seconds in to the flight and it was very clear that this was a *serious* mistake. The mechanic in the right seat is clearly screaming at me, like I can tell by how the tendons in his neck are flexing, but I can't hear a damned thing other than the prop that's like 4ft from my dumb noggin.
Uncivilized is what it is. Unlike, it seems, the MD. I finally understand. Plus I hear the VNAV (or whatever it's called) is pretty great.
KLB
Well-Known Member
Cincinnati has some cool restaurants if you know where to look. It is by no means a foodie paradise, but you can get by.
