Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners Path: news From: Robert Dorsett Subject: night landings X-Submission-Date: Thu, 3 Dec 92 5:59:51 CST References: Message-ID: Approved: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM Reply-To: rdd@rascal.ics.utexas.edu Sender: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM X-Submission-Message-Id: Date: 04 Dec 92 22:30:38 PST Yet another comment on Legend & Legacy, from last month. --------------- From: dfr@usna.navy.mil (PROF D. Rogers (EAS FAC)) Newsgroups: rec.aviation.misc Subject: night landings Keywords: night, landings Message-ID: <2341@usna.NAVY.MIL> Date: 1 Nov 92 02:10:45 GMT G'day, Here is another quote without permission from `Legend and Legacy' The Story of Boeing and Its People. Now that winter has come and most of us will be flying more at night it's something to consider. Between late 1965 and early 1966 there were 4 fatal 727 crashes. The common denominator in each crash was excessive rate of descent at night. Two aircraft were flown into the water, a third hit high terrain near the airport over an unlighted sloping terrain. "Boeing engineers built a make-believe city on a table top place in front of a cockpit simulator, and put 12 experienced company pilots through identical approaches to the miniature city's airport. All 12 were told they were making a routine approach on a clear night to `Nighterton Field,' well-lighted and just south of the city, locate on a three-degree slope. Bisecting Nighterton was a river. The city lights were bright, but there were no lights between the beginning of the approach path and the runway---a typical approach over water or unlighted sloping terrain. Noe of the pilots had altimeters for reference. They were told to concentrate on flying the best approach path possible, reporting their estimated altitude every two miles starting at a point 18 miles from the airport. Their only active instruments were an airspeed indicator and a vertical velocity gauge. Eleven of the 12 crashed while making the approach. The closest any of these 11 got to the runway before pranging into imaginary ground was five miles. ....." 'Nuff said. Dave Rogers