Ve764

My first go around in a jet was a 72 with -17 engines landing at Gitmo,and man that baby shot back up in the sky. III thanks for reminding me forgot about the trusty A/B mode!!!! Kieran,we are envious but pay us back with great stories of your own some time.

III Corps

At 'my house' we had a lot of guys from different airlines and it was amazing to see how differently the same machine was operated by different carriers. FWIW, at 'my house' DOWN was ON and UP was OFF. I can't remember which it was but at TWA, it was one way and at Eastern it was the other.. UP/OFF or DOWN/OFF. At any rate, when they went to Lockheed for the L-1011 the same fight erupted.. which was was it? The -1011 was the first airplane, I am told, where there was a push to engage/push to disengage switches which solved the UP/DOWN ON/OFF problem.

There were various techniques to land the Tri-Motor. Some favored the 'push' where in the flare, just before touchdown you released a slight amount of back pressure. The wheels were aft of the center of rotation and by releasing or even a slight push would lift the gear so you could roll the Tri-Motor on. Of course, this all called for excellent timing. Others just parked the nose in the flare, pulled power off and held the picture. That also worked. What didn't work was, as I have noted, pulling back hard in the flare to save a landing. Didn't work in the MD-80 either.

The wing is the thing on the Seven-Two. We used to refer to flaps 40 and 100% wing disassembly what with the leading edge slats, flaps and *triple* slotted fowler flaps. From the back with full flaps, the 727 looked like a bird of prey mantling.

For new engineers, we would often pull all the dim caps off the lights on his/her panel and set them neatly in rows. Yellow was caution, red was emergency, blue for in-transit and green for operating.

On heavyweight takeoffs, you would brief the engineer that if anything really bad (engine failure, fire) happened, begin dumping fuel immediately and don't stop until you were on final. The Seven-Two was the last airplane I flew with dump capability. Never lost an engine on takeoff but did shut down the JT8D about 5 times for various reasons.

We had some machines with the nosewheel brakes and with them, the Seven Two would really stop.

III Corps

So you're on the Seven Five now? Another fun flying machine but won't go down and slow down anywhere near like the old Seven Two...

org1

True about the slow flaps extension...but if you really needed to get down, you could put the speed brakes out and dump the gear at anything less than 270 then go to 320 for the descent. We were over McCarran one day at FL 180, and landed straight in on RW 4 (pretty sure it was 4, long time ago) at Nellis. No pax, of course. I believe it's less than 20 miles. It's really true what they say: if you can see it over the nose in level cruise, you can land on it. The one thing you didn't want was to be low, slow, and dirty, but if you kept a bit of extra speed to arrest the descent and spool up at 1000 agl or so, it was a piece of cake. I made my last flight on the 72 in may of this year, I'm missing it already. Would have been a great airplane to retire on.

BoxFlyer

I've got over 6 years in the 727, all three seats. Over-all, truely great jet! Sure, the jurassic jet can't go direct, no moving map or have auto-throttles. But you can do things in this jet that others, especially the wide bodies can't do.

Lost our A hyd. system once, maybe disconnected one csd over the years, but that's about it for problems. The 72 is a real champ. It loves to get up and fly.

Ve764

Yeah I flew 72's in and out of MDW. Did a couple of high speed RTO's.Thank goodness for nosewheel brakes. III once again good point sir.

III Corps

What was fun was to set about 2800-3000lbs on each engine in the pattern and not touch the throttle again. Play the gear and flaps right and you wouldn't have to touch the power. Downwind at 210--drop 1 and then 5 .. turn base and go 15... turn final, at slightly above glidepath drop the gear, and then 25 and then go 30 flaps and never have to touch the power except for minor adjustments.

I had a KC-135 instructor who would count the number of power changes for a mode of flight. Taxi out.. see how FEW power changes you had to make to get to the runway. Same for taxiing in. Same in the pattern. It taught you how to think WAY ahead and how to plan your use of fuel. I think the best I ever did was with a medium weight Seven-Two on a cold day I got to the runway without ever moving the throttles out of idle.

Thedude

Nah...Try going fully configured and pushing over to maintain Vref. It will take about 10 degrees pitch down and will give you in excess of 6000 fpm descent rate. Its a real elevator ride and you can really hit it if you can see it.

One of my last flight in the 72 I had to do the above metioned and I didnt spool up till under 200' and I rolled it on in STL...damn lucky....and yes I would rather be lucky than good.

In 6 years of flying the 727 I never really had much in the way of emergencies. I lost A system hyrdo a couple of time, had a few strut overheats, packs crapping out, lost control of pressureization of the cabin and flaps not fully extending but all in all....I never had to shut down an engine. But then again I had a few co-workers that had more than their fair share. My favorite one is the 13th Stage bleed tapet blew completely of the engine and through the engine cowling, they said it sounded like a shotgun going off and of course they were max weight on a hot day. I think they might had to change their shorts that day.

org1

...unspooled, fully configured, Vref, 200'?? (!!!!)


[QUOTE=Thedude;96107]Nah...Try going fully configured and pushing over to maintain Vref. It will take about 10 degrees pitch down and will give you in excess of 6000 fpm descent rate. Its a real elevator ride and you can really hit it if you can see it.

One of my last flight in the 72 I had to do the above metioned and I didnt spool up till under 200' and I rolled it on in STL...damn lucky....and yes I would rather be lucky than good.

Thedude

[QUOTE=org1;96148]...unspooled, fully configured, Vref, 200'?? (!!!!)


Yup.....you should try it sometime.