Postby jwocky » Fri Dec 02, 2016 6:26 am
Well, well, well, ...
The Jumbolino in FG, my baby, I admit to it, has actually a little lower fuel consumption, no thirty minutes on batteries and she can't go as hogwild on the descend as a real one can. The real ones are in some aspects so amazing, it even stretches my JSB abilities to make that work in FG.
I flew in Jumbolinos often France, Germany and well, from France to Germany and back, back in the days. You all know, I am pretty iffy with rl flying and not really confortable up in the air, so I register things with a certain degree of paranoia. So, some Jumbolino stories:
The first one was a flight from Nurnberg to Paris. Weather was nice in Nurnberg, over Paris, we had a chain of thunderstorms (and half of the passenger had short timed connection flights). So, she was a little bit swinging in the wind, not stronger maybe than a car coming out of a wind shadow of a truck, that was already the maximum. And inside, it felt as if she had almost no pitch, neither up or down. And yes, we could see lightning and rain and half of the time not much at all, I swear, those clouds the plane was going through were black, not dark gray. But while it looked really bad when I looked out of the window, inside, it felt relative normal.
Then, suddenly, the clouds broke, there was still rain, but through the rain, I could see the city and I swear, this city came nearer. Nearer as in vertically nearer while it almost looked as if we wouldn't move forward at all. And then, when the pilot was happy with the altitude obviously, there was this little g-pull, a soft turn, speed up forward and almost no further descend. Almost like an elevator deciding suddenly to speed up forward. The flight-attendants took it as if this was something, that happened every day to them. Much later, when I scavenged pilot forums to build the FG Jumbolino, I learned, it was actually a standard maneuver. Jumbolinos have kind of two approach and landing procedures. In the first, they behave like everybody else. A little flaps, approach speeds 160-170knots, last moment down to 140, touch down with little flare, reversers and get your ass off the runway. That is used when they have to deal with big airports and all those big birds come in Vincent style with higher approach speeds. Kind of being nice and don't stop all the traffic.
The other one, the one I experienced that day and I think the one, 2933 tried, is the steep approach. Normally they do that at Teterboro or London City or some other places with very steep approaches dictated by the traffic and terrain around and somewhere in extreme mountain regions for example in India. But sometimes, it gives them an edge if the weather sucks but not till the ground. Then they go slow but descend steep till under the clouds and while the bigger birds have to circle, they pull a slow crawl in to the runway. It weas like 15 and 20 years ago quite common for example at Nurnberg (Nurnberg has its weather momemts too) to see a Jzumbolino really drop through a hole in the clouds and then go back into some almost horizontal motion and just come nice and slow to the runway. It always looked funny because they do that with not much pitch, just with full flaps and low speed.
Of course, I didn't know when I landed in Paris, I would later that night have the "pleasure" to land in a fully blown Atlantic storm at Lorient.
Another Jumbolino flight was actually Nurnberg-Paris-then further down to Lyon. For the passengers the same plane was the connection flight, so we could get out to the waiting area and have a drink. Lyon had some problem with one of the longer runways. Alas, I was back then not so FG trained, so I missed to figure it entirely out. Basically, they had to change the active runway because the main one was blocked by a plane that had come down with some emergency, but the weather as kind of not friendly to that idea. So, we got some announcements that all planes were either circling or rerouted, but that we would be circling to see whether we could get a landing slot at Lyon. Something like that, he spoke French and English with hefty French accent, so I missed probably half the story. However, like five minutes later or so, he made another announcement, the filght-attendants made sure we were all buckled up and then the plane went down, nice and smooth, not especially steep or slow or anything especially at all. And then, it touched down, quite soft ... and then, the engines got suddenly loud and usually they are never loud on Jumbolinos, but there, they did and you could feel how the plane reduced speed, really like in a car standing in the irons.
Had anyone ever the pleasure with the old 17L in Lyon, like in the 90s? Now, the runway is expanded, it is an 8000ft runway. Back then, it was like 5000ft? The fully loaded Jumbolino stopped there, obviously with way to spare. When we taxiied away, we could see this other plane, the emergency see standing on the main runway.
And a third one, three days before Christmas, I think, it was 1999. Snow, delays, a pain to fly. Eurowings had then 737 and A320s. Bigger twin engine jets, brandnew as they looked. Ours was standing right there on the jetway. And the delay over all airlines grew and there was word, they were even closing the airport for some hours (Toulouse). And suddenly, they started to push away those shiny new big toys without boarding us. Twenty minutes later, they had us in a Jumbolino, there was also a second one on the jetway next to us. Deicing, off to the runway, no sight through the cabin windows, there was all the time snow. Eventless take-off, the only event was, they had actually some kind of mulled Christmas wine on board, eventless landing in Nurnberg. Total chaos trying to get home with a cab ...
See, the Jumbolino was obviously even when it was new, not the edge of technology, it was a whisperjet, a workhorse. As Israel says, so ugly only a mother can love it, inside in an unspeakable tasteless style all too often (only a 1974 MD-81 can match this blue leather fake, trust me), with a heating that sometimes went a little out of control and, apparently in compensation for the almost inaudible engines and hydraulics, with weird noises coming from the plumbing of the toilets sometimes. But honestly, in bad weather, on bad or short runways, or even on a very normal and unusual quiet peaceful flight, she and the old 737s were my favorites. The 737 though was much louder, much rougher often and when the runway was not nice and smooth, she told everybody, she didn't like it (the old 737s had this dong-shhh sound when they rumbled over some crappy tarmac). The Jumbolino made it all look and feel easy. So, this is a good plane and the Avro spawns are also good. However, nowadays, thanks to flying in FG with you guys, I realize, she is also, if you use her extreme, a plane that calls for a good pilot. And as perfect, as the ATC was, the pilot ... not so much.I don't even think, the engines flamed out. Remember the one photo, the dirt was basically pressed between the turbine blades. That happens if they cut in soft dirt while still spinning. I think, the pilot thought, everything was off and tried to glide (which then lead to what Vincent described because that was exactly the configuration. Flaps full out, butterfly butt open. If I am right and the engines or at least two of them were still running, all it needed was butterfly in, full throttle and if is costs the last few drops of fuel and he would have made it over that ridge. From there, flaps in and glide the last 8 something miles and one mile before touch down, butterfly out again, not the flaps. With that butt, she doesn't need flaps for drag and can reduce without compromising wing lift too much.
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