Most amazing landing ever?

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Any landing is amazing really when you consider you have up to 500 tonnes of metal and people traveling at 300 kph trying to put down on a strip of stationary asphalt only as wide as a 2 way road in sometimes atrocious weather. The other amazing thing is the driver always seems to get the nose wheel on the centre line markers which scares the cough out of me with the bumping. They deserve the money they get
 
Best landing I had was in HKG on CX many years ago.
It was so smooth that I didn't feel any thud as we hit the tarmac. So light and graceful I almost felt like a round of applause was due.

Given that was home base I'm sure the pilot has done it many times to get it right.
 
Best landing I had was in HKG on CX many years ago.
It was so smooth that I didn't feel any thud as we hit the tarmac. So light and graceful I almost felt like a round of applause was due.

Given that was home base I'm sure the pilot has done it many times to get it right.

@jb747 may disagree about relating smoothness to the quality of a landing.

Without any knowledge of the landing you mention in London, it's worth noting that a smooth landing isn't necessarily what the pilots are looking for. Right speed, right spot, with no residual drift, and an acceptable rate of descent, is just fine.

Chasing 'smooth' on a wet runway, or in a crosswind, or just trying to finesse it for too long, leaves you at risk of aquaplaning, drifting towards the edge (or a pod scrape or both), or a tailscrape...none of which are all that desirable.

And, as previously mentioned, we don't really care about smooth landings. On speed and in the right spot are much more important. Much of the time, those really smooth landings, are also very long.

ISTR a comment that was more critical than those as well.
 
Still have no idea about the issue of this thread. @Mogul can you give us flight #, date so might look for other info?
 
Very smooth landings...the ones that feel like glass, are, as often as not, the result of overly long flares (i.e. floats), and aren't graded very well by us. Firm landings are most likely the result of an underdeveloped flare. I am much more interested in the aircraft being 'on the spot' than I am in how smooth the landing is.... Extended floats put runway behind you, give much more opportunity for any crosswind to move you off the centreline, and also put the tail ever closer to the ground.

The 747 and the 380 are both inclined to floating if given half a chance, so my aim is always to just kill the sink rate, and then immediately let it land. The 767 just about can't be landed really smoothly. It sits down quite solidly, but it's a function of the way the gear compresses and the spoilers rise that give that effect, not the landing itself.

As a bit of a generalisation, I find the FOs are generally the ones that give the really smooth landings. The Captains are much more concerned about everything else....
 
This is a bit of a Seinfeld thread....a thread about nothing.
 
This is a bit of a Seinfeld thread....a thread about nothing.
True not really sure what the whole thing was about. Have seen vids on YouTube of a US Airways A330 pilot pulling off a pretty impressive flare and touchdown on 05R though it did honestly look like the video was slowed down a bit. Still a huge flare though and the slow deployment of the spoilers on the 330 helps a bit I think too. So you fly the 74 JB? I agree with you on the 76 bit mentioned above, they really were a pilot's plane but you can't get a super smooth touchdown in them. Really miss those planes, it was always my dream to fly them for QF when I finished school. Now it looks like I'll have to accept the A380 :)
 
Best landing I had was in HKG on CX many years ago.
It was so smooth that I didn't feel any thud as we hit the tarmac. So light and graceful I almost felt like a round of applause was due.

Given that was home base I'm sure the pilot has done it many times to get it right.
I've had the exact same experience at HKG! Were you flying in to Kai Tak?
 
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