Hi NG,

question to the group:

Nice story, and obviously very skilled performance, but I always
thought jets were supposed to land with about 70-80% power on, to be
prepared for a potential go-around? (Because spool-up time from idle
would be prohibitive in that case?)

thanks,
Friedrich

...
It was a beautiful day in land that Mickey built- 76 degrees with
full sun while the northern folks got their first freezing blast of
winter. We headed
off-shore over the islands of the Caribbean. I was on the second
radio talking to old friends and catching up on news from all the
islands that I don't get to visit much anymore. Caught up with some
old friends on the air-to-air frequencies as well. The flight levels
were smooth and the visibilty was excellent.

Then it came time for top of descent. This time was going to be
sweet. There
was no complicated arrival procedure and there was no traffic in
front of us. We were number one. The center controller cleared us to
decend from FL330 to 11,000' at pilot's discretion.

One of the keys to good fuel economy in a jet is to stay high as
long as you
can and then descend at idle thrust. I looked at our weight, and
tailwind. As I slowly pulled the throttles back to idle, the nose
slowly dropped to maintain airspeed. I switched from Mach airspeed
to indicated airspeed around FL240. I monitored the DME's ratio to
the altimeter. It was holding constant. I leveled off at 11,000' and
let the airspeed bleed off to 250 KIAS. We switched to the approach
controller who cleared us down to 3000' and direct to the outer
marker. The power was still at idle, the speedbreaks
were still stowed, and the approach was looking good.

I called the field in sight from 20 miles out and was cleared for
the
visual. I pulled the nose up slightly to bleed the speed down to 200
KIAS for the airport traffic area. At 1500' the slats and flaps were
extended. Then the gear and the rest of the flaps. The old-timers
taught me to carry an extra 20 knots into the flare when doing an
idle-thrust landing. That prevents you from developing an excessive
sink-rate which prevents the gear
from going through the wing.

I bled off the extra airspeed and more in the flare. The touchdown
was sweet. There was just a hint of a bunny-hop before the
ground-spoilers popped, but the runway is so bumpy that the
passengers probably didn't notice. Without moving the throttles from
idle, I popped the reversers and let it roll to the end of the
runway. We rolled onto the taxiway without using the brakes. It was
a perfect idle-thrust approach from top-of-descent
to the gate.

I spent the rest of the day sitting with my crew at a bar on the
beach enjoying the little things in life. Over the bar was a
television. The folks
on the television were surrounded by snow. I bet their day wasn't
near as perfect as mine.

D.

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