Originally Posted by
kalia960
In addition to landings, pilots in India bank steeply and change height fast.
I was told that this is because they are all former military pilots whose flight training consisted primarily of landing and taking off from aircraft carriers under hypothetical hostile fire.
Well, be advised that the only aircraft carrier India had was the Vikrant (decommissioned), and now the Viraat. Most of the aircraft used were Harriers, which are VTOL - don't know if they actually landed normally as a winged aircraft (as on an aircraft carrier), but I guess they might have...
However, in comparision, one can check out SAS (SK) pilots, who also are ex-DK/SE/NO air force, but who can properly land their planes...but they do not have any aircraft carriers that I know of...
Originally Posted by
oliver2002
All I'm saying that as absolute laymen (and women) we have no knowledge as SLF on whether the landing was performed correctly or not by the subjective feeling of aircraft being 'slammed' into the runway. Airbus aircraft offer the flight crew a high level of automation to land the aircraft safely and effectively. SOP makes sure IC/9W pilots use the automation as much as possible to land the aircraft. 'Slamming' the aircraft into the runway may be required in certain conditions. If they make too hard a landing however the aircraft has to go into maintenance immediately afterward to inspect the landing gear. It is difficult to believe an airline has an SOP that calls for hard landings or tolerates repeated unnecessary hard landings that cause expensive damage to the aircraft in the long run. Modern equipment also tracks the the strains on an aircraft so operations and maintenance people will know what the flight crew did to the aircraft even if they don't report it.
I will elucidate on this later - too tired to detail my response properly!
Originally Posted by
enthusiastic flier
I've always wondered this, and my wild guess was that it feels "hard" due to the type of concrete the runways are built with in India... but some other responses in this thread make more sense. Especially at BOM maybe a smooth landing would result in more taxi time as domestic and int'l flights seem to use the same runways (for e.g. a smooth landing for an int'l flight would bring it to the domestic part of the airport, resulting in a longer taxi to its int'l arrival gate?), or vice-versa. Makes sense but who knows. Glad you asked the question as I always thought it was just me.
Very correct. This is the feedback I received from one of the expat pilots who were on the same flight as I was, deadheading, and one of their sunglasses ended up flying through the cabin from the rear biz seats, to my front bulkhead seat....well, the trade-off is landing gear (and possibly excessive airframe stress) being beaten up!
Originally Posted by
enthusiastic flier
On a similar note: (especially at BOM) I've felt that the runways are kinda bumpy.. more bumpy than I've experienced at airports outside of India. I've felt this for both take-off and landing (admittedly more while taking off, weirdly enough.) Is this my mind working overtime again?
Yes, exactly - compare your statement above and add the inadequate runways (not flat), and you have even more stress on the aircraft...