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August 03, 2007
Subject: off the net for a few days
Computer died just before leaving town last week. I'm back with more gig,ram or whatever than the space shuttle has.
We have had several excellent flying days with lots of new and old students getting in lots of soaring in strong lift. Good planning and execution has led them all to return safely and smoothly.
Landed the jet in Boston the other day with a stiff crosswind. Came out of the clouds with the autopilot crabbing to track the localizer signal. This looked like too much fun for my electronic partner to hog. So with a click of my thumb, I disconnected "George" and hand flew the last couple of miles. Our target speed was 155 knots due to the weight and wind. We add 1/2 the wind and all of the gust to our Vref and that gives us our target speed. Max add is 20 knots in the older classics and 15 knots in the NGs. At about 35' I added some right rudder, then a bit of left aileron (going from a crab to a slideslip) to align the fuselage with the centerline and squeezed on some power to correct for the loss of lift as the swept wing lost a bit of lift during the change from crab to slip. A small amount of aft control wheel to flare and we touched down with a satisfying chip of the mains as the power came to idle. The wheels spun up, the auto spoilers deployed and we settled as the struts compressed accepting the full weight of the plane from the wings. I pulled the thrust reversers back to idle reverse, as the autobrakes began to apply the selected braking level, 2 in this case. I eased the nosewheel to the ground and passing 80 knots applied manual braking and closed the reversers. Just like the glider, I steered with my feet to track the centerline until we slowed to taxi speed. The next high speed turn off was mine and I called for the after landing checklist. See you at the airport. Steve.
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