I spent some time flying this baby and here are some tips for takeoff/landing.
Takeoff:
- Fire up the engines.
- Hold the brakes.
- Full throttle.
- Once the engines spool up, release the brakes and fire the RATO bottles.
- Rotate at the last taxiway before the refuel pad.
- Suck the gear up as soon as you clear the runway.
- You should be able to maintain 175 IAS initially. Once the bottles burn out, gradually let the stick go forward (keeping positive climb rate) until you reach about 240 IAS, which is approximately the best climb speed for this aircraft. It will take a while to reach this speed, so be patient!
Landing:
- Diving into the pattern from your return flight, be sure to idle the engines when diving. If you go above 425 IAS, bad things start to happen. This is a very low drag, heavy plane, and it will pick up speed in a hurry in a dive.
- Give yourself lots of room to slow down. For me this means a very long downwind leg (going away from the runway with the runway on your left). Fly this leg somewhere between 2000 and 5000 feet.
- Maintain level flight, with the engines at idle.
- Once the aircraft reaches 200 IAS, you can lower flaps one notch.
- The plane will slow rapidly, and at 175 IAS you can extend the gear and extend the flaps fully.
- Maintain about 150 IAS, still level, once the gear and flaps are down.
- You now will make your turn to final. I prefer to make a long continuous 180 degree turn instead of two 90 degree turns. Start this turn when your distance from the runway threshold in miles is approximately your altitude in thousands of feet. If you are at 5000 feet, make your turn at 5 miles from the runway. You will need to apply some power in the turn to keep your airspeed up.
- If you are too far from the runway (more than 1 mile per 1000 feet), then maintain 150 mph in level flight until you get to the proper distance.
- Assuming you are at the proper altitude and distance, make sure you are lined up with the runway, and decrease speed to 120 IAS. Set throttle to about 3000 rpm. This will give you a very nice glide slope. Remember, if you are too high or too low, make corrections with the throttle, and don't move the stick too much.
- Bring her in right over the numbers, chop the throttle, and keep the nose up. If you do it right the stall horn will just barely sound and she will sit right down on the rear wheels. Get on the brakes hard, park her, and go have a beer, you are a jet bomber pilot stud!!!
[This message has been edited by funked (edited 03-08-2001).]
