Interesting Story w/ Pics

ToddP

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 28, 2003
Messages
1,387
Location
Spokane, WA
Aircraft
Dominator Gyro / RV9
Total Flight Time
500 Hours
Randy Olson asked me to post the following. Its pretty interesting.
*************

When you convert the numbers from metric, the runway is 50 ft wide...the
gear on a 747 is 41 feet wide, pretty impressive.

Below is the story of the landing of "Lebombo" as written by the Captain
(Captain Dennis Spence) who flew her on this last flight.

The aircraft empty weight was 164 000kg and we had 20 000kg fuel on board.
The aircraft was TOTALLY airworthy and every component was serviceable, it
even has toilet paper in all the toilets!!!!! We had a snag before start
with the PMS (Performance Management Computer) so one was ordered from
stores and it was fitted before we departed. Take-off weight was 183 000 kg
and the V1/VR speed was 125 kts. Max thrust was 1.6 EPR but we de-rated to
1.55. We applied nearly max thrust on the brakes and it had acceleration
that made the M3 drivers look like they were standing still. We rotated
just after intersection Lima, some 3000 ft from the beginning of 03 Left,
and climbed away with a body angle of nearly 30°. We were given vectors for
Rand from the west, but because of some cloud we only became visual too
late to commence the approach, so we were re-vectored and approached from
the south. We joined right-hand downwind for 11 and got the gear and flap
30, landing flap out early. As there is no approach aids on 11, we plotted
an ideal path using the DME at RAV. The threshold height of 11 is 5500 ft
MSL at 0,7 DME RAV, so by the simple rule of 300 ft per nautical mile, we
had our path plotted.

3,7 DME : 6400 ft
2.7 DME: 6100 ft
1.7 DME: 5800 ft

We did not want to touch early, because of the "lip" on the approach to 11,
so we had a chalk line at 50m (150 ft) drawn across the runway to ensure
that this would not happen, because of the visual illusion of such a narrow
runway ( 15m wide compared to 60m wide at JNB). The distance from the nose
of the aircraft to the rear of the gear is 114 ft, so we would not want to
touch down before the nose was at this line. Also, the demonstrated landing
distance from the flight performance manuals, and computed by the
performance engineers at SAA is 3000 ft. This is using ONLY brakes and NO
thrust reverse, but we must remember that this is for a new aircraft with
new brakes, not one with 107 000 flying hours on it !!!! To ensure that we
minimized the possibility of an over-run of 11, we then put another chalk
line at 3600 ft from the end of R/W 29, so if we were not on the ground by
this mark, we would go-around and have another attempt. In the Simulator we
tried various scenario's using JNB 30L , NO aids, except for the 300 ft/NM
plot, a 5 kt crosswind and a 5 kt tail wind, NO reverse thrust, and every
time we managed to stop before intersection Lima.

Well it worked at Rand, and we did NOT scratch the paint!!!

I managed to keep it on the center line and touch down at the point we
wanted - Bug speed at the weight of 178 000kg was 118 kts, but on short
final with the wind at 070/08 I elected to fly it at 115 kts. When Dennis
Mc Dermot, our Flight Engineer called 20 ft on the radio altimeter, I
closed the thrust levers and planted it firmly onto the runway, aircraft
carrier style. Well most of our energy dissipated rapidly, and by using
medium auto-brakes, until I lowered the nose wheel, we managed to stop just
before the intersection of 11/35. Stew just "cracked" the reversers, in
case we need them, but because the engines will be removed and used again,
we did not want to ingest any debris, as ALL the engines were overhanging
the runway. The brake temperatures did not move higher than the mid green
range.
 

Attachments

  • [RotaryForum.com] - Interesting Story w/ Pics
    Randy1.webp
    69 KB · Views: 0
  • [RotaryForum.com] - Interesting Story w/ Pics
    Randy2.webp
    7.9 KB · Views: 0
I'm curious though Randy, whats the story behind this? Why were they bringing this 747 into the small strip?
 
I wish I knew. The message was sent to me by someone else and he didn't know why either. Sorry.
 
Back
Top