Originally Posted by
Denny Crane
As you know,
you can land at speeds above normal approach and landing speeds but why would you if it is not necessary due to conditions? In my opinion, landing fast (even 5 knots), if not necessary for conditions,
is building a bad habit pattern for the future when you might need to be precise. I had an instructor, whom I greatly respected and who was a great pilot, once tell me exactly what I'm asking now.
If you can hold 5 knots above proper speed, why aren't you holding proper speed? I didn't have a good answer for him.
ACL is right about the float factor in a heavy (not fighter!!
). I don't know the exact numbers but you will definately add greatly to your landing distance unless you touchdown fast.
Denny
1st bold: Agree completely - if not due to some reason that the pilot feels he needs to carry a few extra knots. Of course my post was more addressing the landing distance estimation if landing a few knots faster than normal rather than the exercise of why someone would be landing fast to begin with.
2nd bold: If someone is holding a few knots extra for a reason then he really isn't building bad habit patterns - for the present or the future.
Btw - it isn't as necessary for me than many others I know (usually land based) - but I promise you that you would never need to be more precise on landing than many of my peers have to be on a regular basis. They have pretty good habit patterns built when it comes the landing pattern and such
3rd bold: This is good advice (and attention to detail) holds true for more than just airspeed too - wouldn't you agree? Altitude, heading and any other deviation one can think of all fit into this same category. It is all about attention to detail - without losing the big overall picture of course!
4th and final bold: Now this makes alot of sense - talking FLOAT factor rather than stopping distance. Again - I don't think much about the float factor right now - but I hope too in the future
Still seems a little excessive, and I'm not into the math enough to try and figure it out, but I can see where it eats up plenty of extra runway to bleed off some amount of *extra* airspeed.
USMCFLYR