Much as I really love my 727, it keeps catching me out especially at difficult approaches like Toncontin etc...

With a close to full load, but very light on fuel, should the 727 be able to hold speed at level flight, with full flaps and wheels down?

I find that unless I hold a constant descent, even at full throttle, the speed just keeps bleeding off.

What am I doing wrong?  It seems the drag is massive!

Thanks

Hi dougal.

The 727 is a plane that you need to watch carefully. Especially on approach! That said, I don't have any real problems with power on approach. I think the idea is to hold an airspeed of about 140-160 KIAS (LOU will set us right on that ). I try to maintain 140KIAS in landing configuration of Flaps 30^o during approach. There is a placard on the forward panel above the landing gear lever that states FLAP SETTING 40^o MAY BE USED IN AN EMERGENCY, so I rarely use 40^o flaps on approach and landing.

Hope this helps.

Mark

Hi dougal,

Mark is correct - you need to keep a sharp eye on the 727.  

Small wing, big sweep and underpowered, that's why the 727 was nicknamed "The Pig."

At max landing weight do not get behind the power curve. When the pilots started checking out in the 727 from a straight wing piston there were some problems with high sink rates and low power settings.

First, the jet engine if allowed to spin down to idle, will take some time to spin up compared to the piston engine. This was really true in the early jet engines. It had been improved a bit in the newer, bigger fan engines.  Once the pilots learned to keep the jet engine spun up these crashes started to go away.

Second, the sweep of the 727 wing and all the monkey motion (aeronautical term  ) of the slats and flaps caused pretty high drag compared to the straight, cleaner wing plane. Being a bit slow on approach in the 727 with high sink rate is a real trap since a last minute flare will just produce a different angle of attack at impact. Of course flying too fast on approach will lead to going off the far end of the runway. So being on the proper speed for the weight and keeping the jet engine spun up leads to more success on landing. Most airlines used a 1,000 AFE (above field elevation) foot check to insure the plane was configured for landing. (Gear down and locked, flaps set for landing.) Another check at 500 feet was used to see if the plane was in the slot for landing. The non flying pilot would call: 500 feet, on speed, sink 800 - or what ever the numbers actually were. If you were not on speed and/or sink was more than 1,000 fpm, a go around was mandatory! This was a big help in not being embarrassed by a hard landing, or worse!

I don't remember the exact "bug" speed for the weight (there was a placard which listed these speeds in the plane), but as an example, at a landing weight of 125,000# and flaps 30 I use 130 kts on final. A reminder, for every extra knot of speed it takes 50 more feet of landing distance. Also, standard procedure was to start the flare before power reduction during landing. This was especially important in cross wind landings - flare first, then kick out the crab, then maybe reduce power!  

Flaps 40 was never used at TWA and was in fact blocked out on the flap handle. In an emergency, you could set flaps 40 using the alternate flap procedure. Flaps 40 was pretty high drag, and very noisy.

The biggest thing I can pass on to any student pilot is to NOT rush the approach. A stable approach usually leads to a good landing. A go around is better than trying to salvage a bad approach - plus you get extra flight time!

Lou

Thank's Lou

As always, your explanations are much more clear than I can do.

If I let the 727 (much more so on the 727-200) get as slow as 130 knots, I seem to be at a huge risk of "losing it". That is why I aim for 140 knots.

It could be worth going to Avsim file library and searching for 727perf.zip (by Matt Zagoren) as the information in it is very helpful.

Mark

I was only pointing out some documents that could provide more helpful information. Although I have tried Michael2's mods for the -100 and the -200, I don't use them. I'm sticking to the Captain Sim settings (except for the increase of engine thrust I added to the -200). I'm happy enough with them like that.

Mark

Mark, you pointing towards those docs stay a great tip for not only the 727.
I was just trying to say that the values given in those docs can only be matched when you use that "little" mod from Michael2.

I'm actually really glad to see that CS has such an open policy for posting user made modifications. So everybody can decide whether to use them or not.
I've found the 727 to be fun in the standard setup coming out of the box, but this flight tuning brought even more of it and also rendered those mentioned docs to be more helpful, meaning accurate when used for the CS 727.

This plane stays one of my favourites when e. g. flying to South America and even worldwide, when going for some "Heavylift" operations. A real classic and a lot of fun with that mod and the Civa INS in the cockpit.
When the 707 Cargo arrives, she might get replaced at some locations though.

Well the Boeing 727 is renowned for being one of teh best short-field jetliners in the medium-range class. The wings, especially when full flaps are deployed, have leadign edge slats that really kill speed, as designed, mnow, full flpas aren't deployed until final, or short final usually, you approach at slats 15, then crosswind goes to 20, then 25, and finally flaps 30, you shouldn't be doing too much flying with full flaps, this like you said kills your speed. PLus, once you slow down this much, with this much weight and drag, it can take a while for the plane to regain thrust, and momentum.

Here's a fun fact: On the first flight of the Boeing 727 (also was the -100 the center engine surged on takeoff, then recovered. The first flight was shortened because the leading edge slats were stuck in the deployed position.

Tight schedule there, audiohavoc, staying at 220 kts till only 10nm out.
I'm mostly catching the LOC at 180/flaps 5 and get down to 160kts/flaps 15 when going for the GS capture and following.
When it starts to point down, flaps 25 and the gear are deployed and when within 5nm to the airport, I'm looking for the final config (flaps 30) and speed.

The freely available docs describe this procedure when approaching with a coupled ILS and the "high" speed of 160 kts until 5nm out gives you enough motion to stay within the ATC's planning at busy airports as they mostly get upset when slowing down too soon.
As said, I think that 220 until 10nm out is very, very fast and the LOC capture (which should have happened well before this point) won't be that much fun for the old AP installation on the 727.

But I'm no Pro here, so correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just roughly following those mentioned docs and would fly higher speeds only with special planes (Concorde) or with the very heavy ones (747 loaded or so, not the 727 though).