Sully spoke at Travis AFB today for an hour. What an awesome speaker and professional aviator. We watched the tapes and animation and then he spoke of everything that went on. It's amazing to think of all the things they accomplished in the 208 seconds from the time they took the birds to touchdown. They ran an extensive checklist, talked about options of landing places with ATC, got the APU up and running, were able to get the brace call in, and the list goes on. If you have seen his interviews you know he is a very modest man. To this day he will just say I was simply doing what I was trained to do. Most of the audience were aviators and it was cool to ask questions about airplane stuff. He touched down at 125.2 knots and 9.8 degrees nose up. When asked how it compared to a normal landing he said it was pretty hard. He said if he did it again he would have flared higher and at a higher speed. I can't imagine even trying to think about a speed and when to flare in a situation like that. I'm glad I had the opportunity to hear him speak and shake his hand. He is a true hero in my eyes.

Haven't met him but he seems like a good guy. I have been told that the Captain that piloted the Souix City DC-10 into the corn field after loosing everything does speaking engagements too, ....and that it is riveting. Bravo to both of them..

Yes that is Capt Al Haines. I have heard him speak twice. Also an excellent speaker.

I would of liked to have heard him speak and listen to the Q & A session. I think he deserves all the credit he gets.

Both Sully and Skiles spoke at Oshkosh this year (or maybe it was Sun-n-Fun, I forget). What a great presentation! Jeff Skiles deserves as much credit as Sully, and Sully is the first to say it. They're not only terrific pilots, they're great speakers too. I heard SPA gave Sully an honorary membership.

ASW.

Capt.Sullenberger is a trained sailplane (glider) pilot... just like the top fighter aces in history, the top test pilots in history, the first man to walk on the moon, etc. etc. etc. Anyone see a pattern here?

I've also had the privilege to hear Capt. Al Haines speak, what a fantastic and powerful presentation !

All who demand more gray hair and real-world experience in airline cockpits say Aye!

EZ Flap: while watching live video on the Hudson landing, I was loudly exclaiming to various uninterested non pilots "bet he's a glider pilot"! Same with the guy who deadsticked an airliner into a Canadian airstrip 15 years or so ago, piece of cake to hear him tell it.
Myself: I got 55 minutes of soaring a ridge deadstick this year, with one 1200' gain and several 500'+, once a hang glider pilot always one I guess. Great practice if ever.......

Airliners make great gliders,

Back in the day when we flew in quiet, non radar controlled, uncongested airspace into small airports.... the old WW-2 captains would play games with us. The deal was to close the throttles at altitude. You were then allowed only one power setting prior to touchdown. Done right we would glide at 340 kts. to 10,000ft. then transition to a 250 kt. glide until about 5 miles out. Thereafter we would typically spool up for stabilization at around 500 ft. agl. It really wasn't too difficult with a bit of experience. The really dicey flyers would glide all the way to touchdown....never adding any power. I saw it performed and did it myself on occassion. Gliding to touchdown was forbidden by the airlines's proceedure manual and after a few threatened terminations....the fun ended. Even the idle decents and stabilizing(power up ) at 500ft. ended as our airline and the industry transitioned into congested airspace at major terminals and we joined the "daisey chain" in trail ...being vectored, with altitude, direction and speed determined by ATC....usually until final approach or the outer marker.

During the mid/late 1980's ATC established many approved arrival proceedures that allowed "constant decent" at idle power all the way to final approach. When left to the pilot's discretion(beginning of decent and speed) the constant decent approaches worked just like the old days when we were "playing around." The experiment with constant decent approaches eventually ended largly as a result of congestion but also because pilots would chose different decent points and speeds resulting in improper spacing, at which time ATC would have to step in and adjust everyones flight path.

During the last several years of my career I probably got one or two chances a year to do it all on my own and glide all the way down to a short final before extending slats, flaps, gear and stabilizing power. Those rare opportunities usually occured on very late night or early morning arrivals....when there were few or any other aircraft in the area. Now everyone seems to be going to the same crowed terminal area at the same time and pilot perogitives have become very limited.

Yes....airliners are great gliders. It is fun to glide for 100 miles and land without ever touching the throttles. But is sure was always nice knowing that 125,000 lbs. of thrust was availabe with the flick of a wrist. I wouldn't want to do it dead stick for real....expecially into a river.

Have fun,
Bob

I think United is doing the glide to final procedure when possible this year to save on fuel. On a flight to Birmingham, Al. the pilots did just that. I remember it was quite all the way down to short final. They even seamed to have waited to the last minute to lower the landing gear. It was a late night flight too.

z3skybolt wrote:Airliners make great gliders,

Back in the day when we flew in quiet, non radar controlled, uncongested airspace into small airports.... the old WW-2 captains would play games with us. The deal was to close the throttles at altitude. You were then allowed only one power setting prior to touchdown. Done right we would glide at 340 kts. to 10,000ft. then transition to a 250 kt. glide until about 5 miles out. Thereafter we would typically spool up for stabilization at around 500 ft. agl. It really wasn't too difficult with a bit of experience. The really dicey flyers would glide all the way to touchdown....never adding any power. I saw it performed and did it myself on occassion. Gliding to touchdown was forbidden by the airlines's proceedure manual and after a few threatened terminations....the fun ended. Even the idle decents and stabilizing(power up ) at 500ft. ended as our airline and the industry transitioned into congested airspace at major terminals and we joined the "daisey chain" in trail ...being vectored, with altitude, direction and speed determined by ATC....usually until final approach or the outer marker.

During the mid/late 1980's ATC established many approved arrival proceedures that allowed "constant decent" at idle power all the way to final approach. When left to the pilot's discretion(beginning of decent and speed) the constant decent approaches worked just like the old days when we were "playing around." The experiment with constant decent approaches eventually ended largly as a result of congestion but also because pilots would chose different decent points and speeds resulting in improper spacing, at which time ATC would have to step in and adjust everyones flight path.

During the last several years of my career I probably got one or two chances a year to do it all on my own and glide all the way down to a short final before extending slats, flaps, gear and stabilizing power. Those rare opportunities usually occured on very late night or early morning arrivals....when there were few or any other aircraft in the area. Now everyone seems to be going to the same crowed terminal area at the same time and pilot perogitives have become very limited.

Yes....airliners are great gliders. It is fun to glide for 100 miles and land without ever touching the throttles. But is sure was always nice knowing that 125,000 lbs. of thrust was availabe with the flick of a wrist. I wouldn't want to do it dead stick for real....expecially into a river.

Have fun,
Bob

Iv'e previously mentioned my dad on this site, he is a retired Pan Am captain who retired in 707's around 1976. I remember him telling me in the past about making dead stick landings for fun in the 707 from 35,000 ft going into Honolulu and other places. He'll be 94 in December but is still sharp as a tack and still flies with his friends. I just got off the phone with him and asked him again about the simulated dead stick landings. (He was what you might call a "maverick" and liked to spice things up a bit.) He would pull the power all the way back at altitude and not use it again (untill on the ground taxiing.) He told me he did this hundreds of times. Back then they had flight engineers (3 in the cockpit) and the engineers were the ones who calculated fuel burn etc. He said it drove them nuts at first screwing up their figuring for fuel burn because he would use significantly less fuel than what they would figure for. After a while they would get used to it when they flew with my dad. I asked him about other traffic and ATC when doing this. Of course there was far less traffic back then. He said he would have to make sure he stayed ahead of things with the controllers, always getting cleared for the next step down ahead of time to make it work. The 707 was a great glider and he flew them through their whole run.