Lufthansa Boeing 747 at LAX 4/23/2024

[Colonel]

Low time pilots try to kill themselves and wreck the airplane on nearly every flight, it seems.



$10k a scratch. Betcha didn't know an Aztec could do that. I sure didn't.



Names of the above have been changed to conceal the guilty

I don't think you guys understand how bad it is now. I had a guy - smart guy - just
tell me that it took him 13 months, 80 hours, 496 landings and 4 instructors to solo.
Not PPL. Just solo. And that's not unusual now. They go quiet when I tell them that
my father (and everyone else in his RCAF class in 1951) went solo on Harvard/T-6
after 10 hours. That's a heavy, supercharged, aerobatic taildragger that today's
private pilots need hundreds of hours of flight time, to master. Remember the T-6
that crashed at OSH recently and people wailed that the instrument-rated pilot only
had 200/300 hours and shouldn't have been flying it? What the fuck?!

Their flight instructors are terrible. When I tell them that, they bristle. But in 1951 the
flight instructors were WWII veterans. See the difference?

[Nark]

On board sensors record all sorts of parameters during all phases of flight. (Not just the FDR).

The Airbus has a “load 15” report that will automatically print if there is an exceedance on landing. Most common will be >2.5 G’s at touchdown.
Requires a maintenance write up.

ALSO!
A suspected hard landing. The absence of a load 15 doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.

I’d say this may qualify …

As for external indicators on the landing gear, I can’t think of any. Of course if you see cracked fittings/fairings that a different thing.


Since we’re on the subject, most common damage on a hard landing is a scrapped tail on the Airbus.
Ding bat on the controls, recognizes the “bounce” calls a go-around then proceeds to over-control and pitches too high. The increased thrust vector pitches the nose up further.
Good times, so I’m told.


Best bounced landing I ever saw was in Hondo. A Swift Air 737 was doing OE, dude bounced OUT of the touchdown zone. (I have connections and asked after our flight). I turned to my FO, who was also doing OE and said “see, your landing could have been much worse.”

Swift went out of business 4 weeks later. Coincidence? You decide.

Where's the 2.5g measured? On the gear itself or in the cockpit?

They live in the accelerometers, which the main one is under the floorboard in the center of the plane.

[David MacRay]

That 747 is old enough it probably shrugged that off.

You would probably need a partial rebuild if it was a new Max or some junk.

The colonel’s comments about Havards brings back memories. I remember around here possibly 1993 there was a company offering Harvard flights for around $400. I balked at the price but one of the flight instructors at the time was saying, “That’s a dream flight, once in a lifetime chance to fly a war bird.” Um ok.

Now I am older so I can appreciate them a bit more.

I also remember even then most flight instructors, even though they could probably use the rudder, had no interest flying anything with conventional gear. “Too scary, what if you ground loop it?”

Now I might be addicted them and I was not even current on the mighty C-172 when I played with the flying club Citabria for around 9 hours, on pavement no less.

On the other hand, a few years earlier, I didn’t fully enjoy doing touch and goes with Shiny’s converted 172 tail dragger in the crosswind. I probably learned something while bouncing the poor thing etc. He only took control once so, I guess I could have been worse.

[JW Scud]

The Wx looked pretty challenging. That treacherous clear blue California sky will get you every time.



If you have to land a working aircraft in perfect wx, remember to keep the autopilot on, ok?

[Colonel]

That was an NTSB intern ... I wonder where he is today?

[Slick Goodlin]

Is that one of those Q-tip props I’ve heard about?

[David MacRay]

It is now.

[Eric Janson]

That's gotta be logged as a hard landing. Lucky he didn't tailstrike on the go.

I'm not so sure - he flared too low and "pulled" the wheels onto the runway. I suspect it looks worse than it actually was - jmho.

The landing gear is designed to absorb a no flare landing - 700'/min until impact.

His recovery attempt was to push forward to stop the upward motion - I do the same.

Looks like the other Pilot had already commanded a go-around at that point - this looks to have been well flown.

Happens to us all from time to time....

[Colonel]

How many landings a month would he get, flying overseas?

[Eric Janson]

How many landings a month would he get, flying overseas?

Not sure - 3 in 90 days is the minimum. They may do recency sims where you fly circuits for an hour.

I had done 1 landing up to mid March this year. I do a fair amount of Line Training so spend a lot of time watching.

Should be getting 2 landings this month - I'd like a few more.