Capt.Doug wrote:
"Gerald Sylvester" wrote in message S-turns out at 10 miles, yea no
problem. S-turns that close scared the hell out of me.


Why does the size of the plane make any difference?
S-turns are s-turns are s-turns.
No need to over-react.

It isn't necessarily the size of the plane but 1, I didn't
expect to see it especially since the plane was IFR (commercial
jet) and ATC is responsible for spacing (why were they so close
to begin with?), 2, the plane was on very
short final where the 200 foot (?) wingspan was a good percentage
of the entire altitude (AGL), 3, passengers must have freaked a little
when they are looking out the side of the plane *straight down*
(perspective at least since their only reference is houses 800
feet away), 4, the speed of the airplane not allowing a stabilized
approach. Surprised yes. Freaked, no.

BTW, I've put my time in on (not piloting) commericial aircraft.
400+ legs in the past 5 years and I never experienced anything like
that. In fact, the number of total go-arounds was 1 (aircraft in
front of us didn't exit the runway quick enough). So anything
other than a normal landing seems to be quite odd for commercial
traffic.

Gerald