The perfect approach

It was a beautiful day in land that Mickey built- 76 degrees with full sun
while the northern folks got their first freezing blast of winter. We headed
off-shore over the islands of the Caribbean. I was on the second radio
talking to old friends and catching up on news from all the islands that I
don't get to visit much anymore. Caught up with some old friends on the
air-to-air frequencies as well. The flight levels were smooth and the
visibilty was excellent.

Then it came time for top of descent. This time was going to be sweet. There
was no complicated arrival procedure and there was no traffic in front of
us. We were number one. The center controller cleared us to decend from
FL330 to 11,000' at pilot's discretion.

One of the keys to good fuel economy in a jet is to stay high as long as you
can and then descend at idle thrust. I looked at our weight, and tailwind.
As I slowly pulled the throttles back to idle, the nose slowly dropped to
maintain airspeed. I switched from Mach airspeed to indicated airspeed
around FL240. I monitored the DME's ratio to the altimeter. It was holding
constant. I leveled off at 11,000' and let the airspeed bleed off to 250
KIAS. We switched to the approach controller who cleared us down to 3000'
and direct to the outer marker. The power was still at idle, the speedbreaks
were still stowed, and the approach was looking good.

I called the field in sight from 20 miles out and was cleared for the
visual. I pulled the nose up slightly to bleed the speed down to 200 KIAS
for the airport traffic area. At 1500' the slats and flaps were extended.
Then the gear and the rest of the flaps. The old-timers taught me to carry
an extra 20 knots into the flare when doing an idle-thrust landing. That
prevents you from developing an excessive sink-rate which prevents the gear
from going through the wing.

I bled off the extra airspeed and more in the flare. The touchdown was
sweet. There was just a hint of a bunny-hop before the ground-spoilers
popped, but the runway is so bumpy that the passengers probably didn't
notice. Without moving the throttles from idle, I popped the reversers and
let it roll to the end of the runway. We rolled onto the taxiway without
using the brakes. It was a perfect idle-thrust approach from top-of-descent
to the gate.

I spent the rest of the day sitting with my crew at a bar on the beach
enjoying the little things in life. Over the bar was a television. The folks
on the television were surrounded by snow. I bet their day wasn't near as
perfect as mine.

D.