Originally Posted by
NZbutterfly
I'm going to guess it was at 6 mins I think. It felt like it and there was some "wind" type noise afterwards. We get a good tail wind coming from Oz so it would make sense it might have been dropped earlier than usual to slow us down coming straight into line with the runway. Usually we get to circle most of Auckland, a good 270 degrees at least before lining the runway up when coming from the other direction.
I am in awe of the actual planes themselves. They're very elegant to watch.
You wouldn't have landed with a tail wind. Aircraft always land into the wind. It is the airspeed that counts (the speed of the [moving] air relative to the wing) rather than actual speed over the ground. Thus, an aircraft with an approach speed of 140kt with a 20kt steady headwind actually covers 120kt over the ground, because the relative speed of the air over the wings remains 140kt.