Originally Posted by
KC10 FATboy
If you didn't pop the TRs or hit the brakes, the plane would eventually stop. I didn't say they were useless, and in the 145, they might make a difference. In the planes where I've had them, they only changed the ground roll by a few hundred feet --- yes, a few hundred feet. Sure, that could save your behind in a situation like this. Slats, flaps, and spoilers (not to mention brakes) were more important to the landing ground roll.
However, the point was, and still is, we have no idea what happened and the lack of TRs is premature at best.
I know we have no idea exactly what happened today, but another TSA plane went off the end in YOW over 5 years ago. That plane also didn't have TR's...so there is a trend now. Since we don't know what happened today I'll share a story that happened to me in the past.
The best brakes the world wont do you a bit of good if the tire they are attached to is hydroplaning...
I have hydroplaned a 145 on a wet Canadian runway and taken 9500 ft to stop...lucky for me the runway was longer than that. We were on speed and touched down around the 500 ft markers due to wetness of runway. Touchdown speed in the 145 is in the 120-130ish area. It took us about 8000 ft to slow 40ish kts to below 90 kts. Once below 90 kts we stopped hydroplaning and finally got braking action. We got the plane stopped in about 1000-1500 ft at that time. I know if we had TRs that day we would have stopped in much less than 9500 ft. We would have slowed to below 90 kts in way way way less than 8000 ft since we would have had reverse thrust to slow us instead of just spiolers and drag and stopped hydroplaning much sooner. Like I said I'm not saying that this is what happened today. This is a story from my past which is leading me to beleive that TRs make a huge difference in a 145.