All the pilots out there (NSR)

[DoubleD]

The incident at Midway got me thinking about a recent flight from Atlanta to Sarasota-Bradenton on a MD-88. Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard, but a few seconds in we all noticed that we weren't slowing down.

We could hear the engines get killed and what sounded like the reverse engaging but still no deceleration. After a little while longer, it became obvious the pilot was having difficulty slowing down.

He turned off the runway at the last possible moment. We were still carrying enough speed that everyone was thrown off kilter by centripital force. I was in an exit row window seat, and saw runway lights on the ground about 20 feet from our hard turn to the right. My wife was sitting next to a career traveler who was white knucked for a while, and that's what really got me thinking.

What would cause something like this? Weather was mid 70s, no r*in, no turbulent descent, arrival time ~930 PM, it didn't look like the pilot overshot the touchdown. We didn't get an explanation from any of the crew, some of them looked a little shaken, but acted as if nothing had happened.

[yeti]

>> Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard

Just so you know, that particular urban legend is horse sh*t in the purest ray scerene.

[Dr Z]

>> Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard

Just so you know, that particular urban legend is horse sh*t in the purest ray scerene.

Navy pilots don't land, THEY ARRIVE; on brick one ,even if they have 12k of concrete ahead of them.

[DoubleD]

>> Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard

Just so you know, that particular urban legend is horse sh*t in the purest ray scerene.

I know, I have a buddy who flies for the Navy and I get on him all the time.

[BigKahuna13]

Who knows. Maybe he was carrying extra speed on final for some reason or maybe there was some low altitude windshear that caused an increase in
ground speed just before touchdown, but that's pure speculation.

[Dr. NO]

Engines shut down after a hard landing ? Sounds more like you ran out of fuel and he was just happy to smack something besides a mountain.

That, or the co-pilot was in training and screwed up which means the pilot got to clean his drawers after they disembarked.

[Luckyontheducky]

Any landing you walk away from is a good landing. If the plane can be reused, it was a GREAT landing.

[RedRider]

Sounds to me like he just came in too hot, as for the reversers..who knows why they didn't deploy.

Doc - There are MANY instances of airliners landing and running out of Jet fuel on the way back to the gate. You got that right!

[RustyK]

Just remember;
All the parts on your aircraft were made by the lowest bidder.

[Mister Moose]

The incident at Midway got me thinking about a recent flight from Atlanta to Sarasota-Bradenton on a MD-88. Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard, but a few seconds in we all noticed that we weren't slowing down.

We could hear the engines get killed and what sounded like the reverse engaging but still no deceleration. After a little while longer, it became obvious the pilot was having difficulty slowing down.

He turned off the runway at the last possible moment. We were still carrying enough speed that everyone was thrown off kilter by centripital force. I was in an exit row window seat, and saw runway lights on the ground about 20 feet from our hard turn to the right. My wife was sitting next to a career traveler who was white knucked for a while, and that's what really got me thinking.

What would cause something like this? Weather was mid 70s, no r*in, no turbulent descent, arrival time ~930 PM, it didn't look like the pilot overshot the touchdown. We didn't get an explanation from any of the crew, some of them looked a little shaken, but acted as if nothing had happened.

Hard to tell, but several comments. It's common for controlers to request a long landing, or a high speed exit due to traffic imminently landing, and they are trying to avoid telling the second aircraft to 'go around'. The lack of deceleration and high speed turn may have been on purpose, but executed just a little too fast.


It would be almost unheard of for a pilot to corner the aircraft at a dangerously high speed as you are trained that A) the nose gear is the most vulnerable, and you do not want to collapse it, B) Cornering reduces your chances of stopping, it rarely improves them.

There are high speed exits built into all larger airport runways these days.

When you say you saw "runway lights' out the window, what do you mean? There are many lights on an airport at night, in many colors. The centerline lights change colors at the last 2,000 feet.

"Engines getting killed" sounds like normal power reduction to idle. What do you mean by "sounded like reverse engaging"? Reversers make no noise engaging, and if they failed to deploy you would have felt forward thrust when the engines spooled up.

If the safety of stopping was in question, there would have been aggressive braking. You can ruin the brakes in a panic stop when reversers fail, but thats cheaper than a new airplane.

My guess is it was no big deal, a normal procedure clumsily executed. Some pilots earn the name 'cowboy' because they are hard on the airplane.

[Dr. NO]

The incident at Midway got me thinking about a recent flight from Atlanta to Sarasota-Bradenton on a MD-88. Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard, but a few seconds in we all noticed that we weren't slowing down.

We could hear the engines get killed and what sounded like the reverse engaging but still no deceleration. After a little while longer, it became obvious the pilot was having difficulty slowing down.

He turned off the runway at the last possible moment. We were still carrying enough speed that everyone was thrown off kilter by centripital force. I was in an exit row window seat, and saw runway lights on the ground about 20 feet from our hard turn to the right. My wife was sitting next to a career traveler who was white knucked for a while, and that's what really got me thinking.

What would cause something like this? Weather was mid 70s, no r*in, no turbulent descent, arrival time ~930 PM, it didn't look like the pilot overshot the touchdown. We didn't get an explanation from any of the crew, some of them looked a little shaken, but acted as if nothing had happened.

Hard to tell, but several comments. It's common for controlers to request a long landing, or a high speed exit due to traffic imminently landing, and they are trying to avoid telling the second aircraft to 'go around'. The lack of deceleration and high speed turn may have been on purpose, but executed just a little too fast.


It would be almost unheard of for a pilot to corner the aircraft at a dangerously high speed as you are trained that A) the nose gear is the most vulnerable, and you do not want to collapse it, B) Cornering reduces your chances of stopping, it rarely improves them.

There are high speed exits built into all larger airport runways these days.

When you say you saw "runway lights' out the window, what do you mean? There are many lights on an airport at night, in many colors. The centerline lights change colors at the last 2,000 feet.

"Engines getting killed" sounds like normal power reduction to idle. What do you mean by "sounded like reverse engaging"? Reversers make no noise engaging, and if they failed to deploy you would have felt forward thrust when the engines spooled up.

If the safety of stopping was in question, there would have been aggressive braking. You can ruin the brakes in a panic stop when reversers fail, but thats cheaper than a new airplane.

My guess is it was no big deal, a normal procedure clumsily executed. Some pilots earn the name 'cowboy' because they are hard on the airplane.

Hmm, back to my original post, rookie co-pilot being trainged to land and f'd up. Hit hard, failed to reverse properly and then pilot took over to get the hell out of the way.

[spanky]

Engines shut down after a hard landing ? Sounds more like you ran out of fuel and he was just happy to smack something besides a mountain.

There are no mountains anywhere near Sarasota!

[DoubleD]

The incident at Midway got me thinking about a recent flight from Atlanta to Sarasota-Bradenton on a MD-88. Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard, but a few seconds in we all noticed that we weren't slowing down.

We could hear the engines get killed and what sounded like the reverse engaging but still no deceleration. After a little while longer, it became obvious the pilot was having difficulty slowing down.

He turned off the runway at the last possible moment. We were still carrying enough speed that everyone was thrown off kilter by centripital force. I was in an exit row window seat, and saw runway lights on the ground about 20 feet from our hard turn to the right. My wife was sitting next to a career traveler who was white knucked for a while, and that's what really got me thinking.

What would cause something like this? Weather was mid 70s, no r*in, no turbulent descent, arrival time ~930 PM, it didn't look like the pilot overshot the touchdown. We didn't get an explanation from any of the crew, some of them looked a little shaken, but acted as if nothing had happened.

Hard to tell, but several comments. It's common for controlers to request a long landing, or a high speed exit due to traffic imminently landing, and they are trying to avoid telling the second aircraft to 'go around'. The lack of deceleration and high speed turn may have been on purpose, but executed just a little too fast.

No chance. We were the last plane to arrive at the airport that night. Sar-Brad is not exactly O'Hare.


It would be almost unheard of for a pilot to corner the aircraft at a dangerously high speed as you are trained that A) the nose gear is the most vulnerable, and you do not want to collapse it, B) Cornering reduces your chances of stopping, it rarely improves them.

It might not have been dangerous, but it was, by far, the fastest turn I've seen. Everyone was thrown to the left in their seat.

There are high speed exits built into all larger airport runways these days.
Doesn't look like it


When you say you saw "runway lights' out the window, what do you mean? There are many lights on an airport at night, in many colors. The centerline lights change colors at the last 2,000 feet.

I mean the end of the runway. If we had not turned, we'd be in the grass. The lights I was talking about were running perpendicular to the runway in groups of 5. Looking at the map, we landed from top left to bottom right, and turned right onto "A"

"Engines getting killed" sounds like normal power reduction to idle. What do you mean by "sounded like reverse engaging"? Reversers make no noise engaging, and if they failed to deploy you would have felt forward thrust when the engines spooled up.

Bad use of words. We could hear power reduction. But things got very loud before we even started slowing down - could be wind over the flaps, maybe the breaks, I don't know

If the safety of stopping was in question, there would have been aggressive braking. You can ruin the brakes in a panic stop when reversers fail, but thats cheaper than a new airplane.

It seemed like the breaks were used pretty heavily, my in-laws were outside the terminal and could hear the landing (we were the only one at the time) and they thought something was seriously wrong.

My guess is it was no big deal, a normal procedure clumsily executed. Some pilots earn the name 'cowboy' because they are hard on the airplane.

[/b]

[BigKahuna13]

The incident at Midway got me thinking about a recent flight from Atlanta to Sarasota-Bradenton on a MD-88. Definitely a Navy pilot - hit hard, but a few seconds in we all noticed that we weren't slowing down.

We could hear the engines get killed and what sounded like the reverse engaging but still no deceleration. After a little while longer, it became obvious the pilot was having difficulty slowing down.

He turned off the runway at the last possible moment. We were still carrying enough speed that everyone was thrown off kilter by centripital force. I was in an exit row window seat, and saw runway lights on the ground about 20 feet from our hard turn to the right. My wife was sitting next to a career traveler who was white knucked for a while, and that's what really got me thinking.

What would cause something like this? Weather was mid 70s, no r*in, no turbulent descent, arrival time ~930 PM, it didn't look like the pilot overshot the touchdown. We didn't get an explanation from any of the crew, some of them looked a little shaken, but acted as if nothing had happened.

Hard to tell, but several comments. It's common for controlers to request a long landing, or a high speed exit due to traffic imminently landing, and they are trying to avoid telling the second aircraft to 'go around'. The lack of deceleration and high speed turn may have been on purpose, but executed just a little too fast.

No chance. We were the last plane to arrive at the airport that night. Sar-Brad is not exactly O'Hare.


It would be almost unheard of for a pilot to corner the aircraft at a dangerously high speed as you are trained that A) the nose gear is the most vulnerable, and you do not want to collapse it, B) Cornering reduces your chances of stopping, it rarely improves them.

It might not have been dangerous, but it was, by far, the fastest turn I've seen. Everyone was thrown to the left in their seat.

There are high speed exits built into all larger airport runways these days.
Doesn't look like it


When you say you saw "runway lights' out the window, what do you mean? There are many lights on an airport at night, in many colors. The centerline lights change colors at the last 2,000 feet.

I mean the end of the runway. If we had not turned, we'd be in the grass. The lights I was talking about were running perpendicular to the runway in groups of 5. Looking at the map, we landed from top left to bottom right, and turned right onto "A"

"Engines getting killed" sounds like normal power reduction to idle. What do you mean by "sounded like reverse engaging"? Reversers make no noise engaging, and if they failed to deploy you would have felt forward thrust when the engines spooled up.

Bad use of words. We could hear power reduction. But things got very loud before we even started slowing down - could be wind over the flaps, maybe the breaks, I don't know

If the safety of stopping was in question, there would have been aggressive braking. You can ruin the brakes in a panic stop when reversers fail, but thats cheaper than a new airplane.

It seemed like the breaks were used pretty heavily, my in-laws were outside the terminal and could hear the landing (we were the only one at the time) and they thought something was seriously wrong.

My guess is it was no big deal, a normal procedure clumsily executed. Some pilots earn the name 'cowboy' because they are hard on the airplane.

[/b]

hmmm....my kid brother used to work line service for a small regional at LGA back in the 80s. At that time American's terminal was located near
the departure end of rwy 31. He claimed that American pilots would routinely land long and make the one of the last turnoffs on 31 to cut down on taxi time.

<stupid_ass_speculation>Given the configuration of SRQ and the fact that you were landing on 14
maybe he was intentionally landing long and things got a little out of hand
</stupid_ass_speculation>

[yeti]

This is why most guys I know are with FedEx: better pay, security... and boxes don't bitch and moan.