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Smitty Two

In article ,
wrote:

On Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:26:58 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
"Twayne" wrote:

On Jan 16, 8:21 am, Smitty Two
wrote:

Uh huh. Obviously you aren't a pilot.

Wow, and obviously, neither are you!

Actually, I am, Twayne. Nothing wrong with being ignorant about planes,
as you obviously are, but isn't it just a tad bit embarrassing to boast
about your ignorance at such length? Here's your homework assignment:
Read "Stick and Rudder."

I just talked to my recently retired AirCanada pilot friend.
He's flown A320s out of New York.
That plane never got above something like 3250 feet. That's just over
twice the hieght of the tallest buildings nearby.

He said the glide ratio on a 320-200 can be stretched out to something
better than 30:1 at the right speed when fully loaded - but this
plane would have been flying JUST fast enough to not stall on the turn
to line it up with the river, and then had barely enough altitude to
clear the GW Bridge. There was NO WAY it could have reached the small
airport nearby, which was too short to land on without thrust
reversers.
He's got a lot of respect for the pilot and flight crew who made the
split-second decisions, and communicated them effectively, as well as
handling the extremely tricky landing procedure.

Interesting. Thanks for the info. Yes, I have a lot of respect for the
pilot, as well. And I still say that any captain with the majors and
tens of thousands of hours in his logbook might well have done the same
thing, and done it well. He did a hell of fine job, but it wasn't the
one-in-a-million miracle that some people insist on believing.

Let's see, 30:1 at 3250 AGL works out to a theoretical maximum glide of
over 18 miles.

Airspeed is adjusted with the elevators, so no surprise that the pilot
did the 180 with minimal airspeed in order to preserve altitude. A 180
turn uses up quite a bit of it.