I mean, really, how difficult is it? I have flown in just about every kind of passenger plane manufactured and been all over the world on both US and foreign airlines. I remember with great fondness a Cathay Pacific flight. After 15 hours, that 747 landed like a butterfly on a flower petal. And it was in the old Kai Tak even. The 737 I was on tonight landed with a thud and pitched everyone forward. I'm pretty sure the seat belt cut into the chub of that fat guy sitting next to me.

Rant over. I'm going back to my own bed tonight. Phew. 6 nights in a hotel is brutal. Sucks to get old.

 

Sometimes it's smooth. Sometimes it's not.

 

I doubt 1 hard landing means it's a difficult plane to land. Likewise 1 smooth landing doesn't make it an easy bird to fly...but you should know that, you fly 172's right?

 

Hard landing and heavy braking to me suggests he/she wanted to get stopped pronto (for whatever reason)

Trailing link gear hide a multitude of "firm" landings while straight legs magnify everything. or maybe it was:
gust causing a loss of airspeed
a little wake turbulence
a slick runway (and wanted to make firm contact with the ground)
anti-skid issues (see above)
his/her tenth leg of the day
he/she was operating on reduced rest
he/she was on the fourth day of the trip
a random false warning distracted him/her at touch down
tower called asking what gate he/she was going to
just one of "those" days

(all of which have happened to me)

Side note: those perfect, you never felt the touch down, landings put more wear on tires than a normal/firmish landing. On the super soft landings, the tire's initial contact patch is smaller and the tire takes longer to spin up. The result is more initial skidding and excess spot wear.

 

Fly,

Well I sure dont wear out many tires then. LOL

 

Makes me think of the difference in landing a CRJ 200 vs a CRJ 700...Every landing is a soft to medium thud in the 200 because of the trailing link no matter how good you are.....The 700 with the straight gear, if you do VERY good its a good smooth landing, if you do anything less than great passengers lose fillings, especially in the back or so the flight attendants say.

 

Glad to hear you are keeping SWA profitable. By the way, can you forward my resume? I am a heck of a nice guy and am willing to pass out peanuts

 

737...tricky
A320...smooooooooooth



Also I bleieve the 738 main gear caster a little bit...

 

...and now starts the "My airplane can land smoother than your airplane!" "No it can't, the FBW sucks!" "No, it works great!"

And then there's the Maddog. For whatever reason, in the back of a MD-80/90, it always feels like the landing has lowered the field elevation...

 

One of my pet peeves is pilots who jump on the brakes. That one act can change a great landing in to one the pax would like to forget.