The first flights I did on the 757 were on C engined aeroplanes and I thought it went like stink. All the Thomas Cook aircraft are E engined and make the C engined aircraft seem like a Robin Reliant!

JFK has always been mafia central. All the various ground based companies are under a certain amount of control. Other companies have tried to set up but have been ‘dissuaded’!

At Flap 30 on a 757, if you overspeed then load alleviation will occur retracting the flaps to 25 until the speed reduces back to below 162 knots (168 knots on the 300). Do any airbus types do this or does it just rely on autothrottle not allowing a higher speed for the relevant flap setting?

Thanks for the info Darren. I didn’t realise the automatic idle stop wasn’t an original installation. In that case the Swiss must have insisted that the manually applied stop remained in place despite the automatic stop being in place as their Saabs always had both whereas the Saabs Aurigny inherited from you and the ones we borrowed from Skyways and Regional Airlines all had the manual stop removed.

As Moondance says.

To open the window you slide the map holder rearwards to create space to open the locking catch (the ‘pole’ in the picture). Presse the button on the top of the pole and rotate it 180 degrees rearwards. The window is now unlocked so that cranking the lever (circled in the picture) causes the window to come inwards before sliding rear in its tracks and then crushing the item you forgot to move that was stored behind your elbow!!! Reverse the process to close.

The 757 lands firmly off a flapless approach due to reduced amount of tail clearance from the high approach attitude to flare adequately to arrest the descent rate. Done correctly the landing will still be within limits but it requires much more finesse than a normal flap 25 or 30 landing. Bearing in mind that you get to practice one in the sim every three years you can perhaps see where the problem lies.

From our perspective the main worries for landing without trailing edge devices are:

1) high approach and touchdown speeds means a lot of energy has to be killed through the brakes.

2) this also means a lot of runway length required. Combine this with icy wintry weather and you’ve got a big problem.

3) a very high body angle on the approach due to lack of flaps will mean almost no flare available or you will strike the tail. The landing/arrival is going to be FIRM.

4) because the approach has to be flown with relatively little drag the thrust settings will be low. In the event of a go-around there is a large risk of seriously asymetric spool up.