Not a pilot, so Im wondering about the practical reasons for large aircraft to hold the nose wheel off the runway on landing. Is there an aerobraking component to this? And are the main gear wheels braking while the nose wheel is still off? And, sorry, just one more: is there any variability in how long the nose wheel is held off -- is the pilot looking for a certain airspeed? Thanks.

Just lower the nose wheel on to the pavement smoothly—done. Apply brakes strongly enough and the nose will come down, but some braking is or can be applied while lowering the nose. Aero braking is pretty inefficient unless you’re flying a fighter.

If you hold the nosewheel off you risk slowing to a speed where the tail stalls. That will lead to the nose gear coming down rather too rapidly.

As GalaxyFlyer says, "fly" the nosewheel down smoothly. The spoilers have plenty of drag already.

The mains start braking depending on the autobrake setting. On Airbus with autobrake low, there's a bit of a delay. With autobrake medium braking starts earlier, so you have to anticipate the increased pitch down moment after mains touchdown.

Aerodynamic breaking (holding the nose off) was strickly forbidden at my former airline(s) - retired now.
I know a chief pilot (former fighter pilot) was nearly fired about this.

Agree

Smoothly lower the nose to the ground but don’t hold it off


Autobrakes do engage before the nosewheel touches down but not above a certain pitch attitude on the 757 / 67, can’t remember exactly what that is

Starlionblue wrote:

If you hold the nosewheel off you risk slowing to a speed where the tail stalls. That will lead to the nose gear coming down rather too rapidly.

I'm not sure the tailplane/elevators will actually get anywhere near their stalling AOA - the aircraft-on-the-ground geometry in most cases wouldn't allow that. Isn't it just a case of running out of elevator authority as the aircraft slows might cause a nose slam?

DH106 wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

If you hold the nosewheel off you risk slowing to a speed where the tail stalls. That will lead to the nose gear coming down rather too rapidly.

I'm not sure the tailplane/elevators will actually get anywhere near their stalling AOA - the aircraft-on-the-ground geometry in most cases wouldn't allow that. Isn't it just a case of running out of elevator authority as the aircraft slows might cause a nose slam?

I think those are sort of the same phenomenon described in two different ways, no? As you hold off, you have to increase backstick/yoke to increase elevator deflection. Once you've reached full deflection and speed continues to decrease, the tailplane stalls.

But I could be wrong.

747classic wrote:

Aerodynamic breaking (holding the nose off) was strickly forbidden at my former airline(s) - retired now.
I know a chief pilot (former fighter pilot) was nearly fired about this.

Yes, same here. Strictly forbidden and super ineffective. Lets be honest, in commercial jets, people do it to show off.

IFlyVeryLittle wrote:

Not a pilot, so Im wondering about the practical reasons for large aircraft to hold the nose wheel off the runway on landing. Is there an aerobraking component to this? And are the main gear wheels braking while the nose wheel is still off? And, sorry, just one more: is there any variability in how long the nose wheel is held off -- is the pilot looking for a certain airspeed? Thanks.

A little know fact is applying reverse thrust can result in a pitch up, particularly with a tailwind.

Most pilots will not deliberately hold the nose wheel off for longer than necessary, how long is necessary, one needs to be in the cockpit.

Brakes generally start working at a predefined number of seconds after touchdown regardless of nose wheel position. If more aggressive auto brake is selected by the pilots it will result in a faster derotation.

I remember some guys in the 727 holding the nose off while going to idle reverse. It was strictly a no no to hold the nose off anytime for all the reasons mentioned above. Hard on the nose gear,

When I worked in Bahrain around 1980 we used to handle a LTU Tristar that stopped for fuel.
It operated from the Maldives to Germany on a Tristar 1., and stopped at BAH for fuel only. Normal on chocks time was around 20 minutes using two bowsers, one each side. There were never any defects or discussion with the crew. They were on a tight schedule due duty times, and any longer stop would result in them getting off for rest, leaving the passengers in the terminal.
They landed and then went the whole length of the runway with the nose in the air, and arrived on the gate with cold brakes (no brake fans on a Tristar).
According to the captain I talked to it was recommended by their Chief Pilot.

An alternative aero braking method:

My stepdad was a DL 757/767 captain - those of course are the same type rating and could be flown interchangeably. He related to me that on one of them, you had to actively 'fly' the nosewheel down, while on the other you had to maintain some back pressure on the yoke or the nosewheel would slam down. Don't remember which was which, but he said it caught him out a few times when going back and forth between them.

In the rare situations with nose gear problems such as the Trump shuttle 727 in BOS in the 80's and the JetBlue flight that landed at LAX with the wheel at 90 degrees, is the pilot actually holding the nose up to decrease as much speed as possible or is that incorrect info from the media? Kind of like when they say the 737 is 'dumping fuel'...

Hold the nose wheel off the runway to reduce speed at impact, BUT don’t hold it aloft so long that the nose falls. You need to fly it to the runway. It’s called flying skill and feel.

n92r03 wrote:

In the rare situations with nose gear problems such as the Drumpf shuttle 727 in BOS in the 80's and the JetBlue flight that landed at LAX with the wheel at 90 degrees, is the pilot actually holding the nose up to decrease as much speed as possible or is that incorrect info from the media? Kind of like when they say the 737 is 'dumping fuel'...

In the case of JetBlue, holding the nosewheel off was warranted. Sure, it probably slammed down pretty hard in the end, but that was better than scraping the nose gear for longer than necessary.

n92r03 wrote:

In the rare situations with nose gear problems such as the Trump shuttle 727 in BOS in the 80's and the JetBlue flight that landed at LAX with the wheel at 90 degrees, is the pilot actually holding the nose up to decrease as much speed as possible or is that incorrect info from the media? Kind of like when they say the 737 is 'dumping fuel'...

This is one of those rare situations,

https://youtu.be/ZWOr6kzCpi0

Tristarsteve wrote:

They landed and then went the whole length of the runway with the nose in the air, and arrived on the gate with cold brakes (no brake fans on a Tristar).
According to the captain I talked to it was recommended by their Chief Pilot.

I cannot, of course, speak to the policies of ever L-1011 operator, but I can speak to the policies of the airline where I flew it, and it was identical to the policies on every other aircraft in the fleet: aerodynamic braking was forbidden and the nose was to be lowered smoothly after MLG touchdown. I never saw any bad habits during landing from the Tristar, but holding the NLG off on some aircraft will result in horrific NLG contact with the runway as others have alluded to (I'm looking at you B-757).

I found that landing with F25 on the 757 made a significant and positive difference with that issue, the nose did not want to slam down like with F30 and it was much easier to gently lower it to the ground with far better control



And in strong, gusty winds the aircraft was far easier to keep on a stable flight path, much less susceptible to being ‘blown around’ than with F30



A check airman suggested I try F25 one gusty night landing in SFO during a line check, I couldn’t believe how much nicer it was in every respect, that more stable flight path and better controllability made it my choice for all landings from then on (it was an approved setting) unless landing on a very short, wet or contaminated runway, VREF was only a few knots higher



The 757’s big wing was generally an asset but as a result you just didn’t need all available flap in most circumstances


With F25 it flew more like the 767 whose handling is about as good as it gets

Tristarsteve wrote:

When I worked in Bahrain around 1980 we used to handle a LTU Tristar that stopped for fuel.
It operated from the Maldives to Germany on a Tristar 1., and stopped at BAH for fuel only. Normal on chocks time was around 20 minutes using two bowsers, one each side. There were never any defects or discussion with the crew. They were on a tight schedule due duty times, and any longer stop would result in them getting off for rest, leaving the passengers in the terminal.
They landed and then went the whole length of the runway with the nose in the air, and arrived on the gate with cold brakes (no brake fans on a Tristar).
According to the captain I talked to it was recommended by their Chief Pilot.

This was exactly the reason for some crews to keep the nose wheel high and using the entire landing runway, keeping the brakes cool and avoiding any brake cooling delay (+costs)
At that period in time most aircraft had steel brakes, especially the early widebodies (747classics, L1011 and DC10's )and these aircraft were operated with many short intermediate stops, before reaching the final destination. Special brake temperature graphs were in use with the required brake cooling time. Departing with yellow brake temperatures was allowed , but than your TOW for the next stretch could be limited by the actual brake temps before departure.

After one of our 747 aircraft nearly went of the runway, with the nose wheel high, after an outboard JT9D engine stall in reverse (fan + turbine reverser), aerodynamic braking was strickly forbidden by the chief pilot.

Holding the nose wheel off certainly won't adhere your landing distance data.

CosmicCruiser wrote:

Holding the nose wheel off certainly won't adhere your landing distance data.

Adhere it to what?!

Not sure about the big jets going paved runway to paved runway, but keeping the nose up is a very common technique when taxiing, taking off and landing on unpaved surfaces to keep the props/engines away from the gravel.

Higher nose results in more ground clearance for the engines and also once the nose gear is off the ground it won't be throwing gravel at the underside of the airplane.

Lots of gravel runways and taxiways around here so when I did my private pilots license it was drilled into us to keep the props out of the gravel when flying nose wheel airplanes by holding the stick full back when driving around on the ground, it does seem to help the props last longer.

As aircraft pitch and or nose gear touch down can and are used for various signals to provide such things as complete spoiler deployment and maximum auto brake means holding the nose off can and likely does reduce stopping performance.

CanadianNorth wrote:

Not sure about the big jets going paved runway to paved runway, but keeping the nose up is a very common technique when taxiing, taking off and landing on unpaved surfaces to keep the props/engines away from the gravel.

Higher nose results in more ground clearance for the engines and also once the nose gear is off the ground it won't be throwing gravel at the underside of the airplane.

Lots of gravel runways and taxiways around here so when I did my private pilots license it was drilled into us to keep the props out of the gravel when flying nose wheel airplanes by holding the stick full back when driving around on the ground, it does seem to help the props last longer.

If nothing else, light props have gobs of tail clearance compared to most airliners.

During the famous last landing of DDR-SEG this technique has also been applied to improve the braking action.
But of cause this was a one off under very special conditions. But I find it still worth watching
https://youtu.be/3w_Qj2jwxi4?t=73

DH106 wrote:

CosmicCruiser wrote:

Holding the nose wheel off certainly won't adhere your landing distance data.

Adhere it to what?!

Maybe I'm speaking of just my career but the landing distance data the you calculate is based on lowering the nose and applying the brakes not holding the nose off.

trijetsonly wrote:

During the famous last landing of DDR-SEG this technique has also been applied to improve the braking action.
But of cause this was a one off under very special conditions. But I find it still worth watching
https://youtu.be/3w_Qj2jwxi4?t=73

I can't see how that is accurate. It was a gooned up landing from the start and whether he intended to hold the nose off or not is hard to tell. As I posted above no landing data chart nor the PAT in any jet I ever flew had holding the nose off as an option for landing. There are several reasons not to as well. Holding off too long can cause the nose gear to hit hard, in some jets trying to use reverse while holding the nose off will cause the nose to raise and result in a possible tail strike.

That landing is indicative of nothing save the wrong way to land a jet transport. The disaster began when the pilot pushed over at about 60’-80’ approaching the threshold and just went downhill from there. Next?

CosmicCruiser wrote:

gooned up landing from the start

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

the wrong way to land a jet transport.

Um, guys? I doubt there is any "right way" to land an IL-62 in a 900m field with giant trees right at the edge.

I mean the fact that he got it down in one piece is pretty impressive, I wouldn't call it a disaster at all. Foolhardy perhaps, but hey it worked.

I wasn’t paying attention to the context, assuming more reasonable runway, not a field. And, yes, aero braking wasn’t a factor.

DH106 wrote:

CosmicCruiser wrote:

Holding the nose wheel off certainly won't adhere your landing distance data.

Adhere it to what?!

Bad wording I meant it wouldn't adhere to the landing distance calculations. I think I worded it better further down.

As luck would have it, just saw this today on Twitter. A UA A319 holding the nosewheel while landing at ORD: https://twitter.com/ohareaviation/statu ... 04546?s=20

Back in my JetStar flying days, I used to play around with using aerodynamic braking on some flights. I did this on ferry flights without passengers and on long runways just to see how effective aerodynamic braking was.

The JetStar had plenty of elevator control at slow speeds so the nose would come down gently as the airspeed bled off. By holding the nose up you could feel the slowing effects of the aerodynamic braking, yes it used up more runway by not using the brakes at high speed and only extending the reversers to kill the forward thrust of the engines, but by not spooling up the engines also lessened the heat cycle of high reverse thrust.

I knew of a JetStar operator based at HPN who used aerodynamic braking whenever possible, and rolling to the end of the runway or turning off the runway when their airspeed was next to nothing instead of turning off the runway as soon as possible. While I used to get about 250 landing an a set of steel brakes, they would get about 1000 landings on their brakes and reduced costs at the hot section inspection because of the reduced amount of thrust reverser applications.

I am sure they didn’t make many friends with the tower controllers or aircraft landing behind them by not exiting the runways as soon as possible but they were the only ones I knew of who used aerodynamic braking.

JetStar

CosmicCruiser wrote:

I remember some guys in the 727 holding the nose off while going to idle reverse. It was strictly a no no to hold the nose off anytime for all the reasons mentioned above. Hard on the nose gear,

We had a guy do it on the 727 in 2009ish and it was a bit tail heavy and too much reverse thrust. Fell onto it's butt and the repair was quite expensive, nearly $250k.

RetiredWeasel wrote:

An alternative aero braking method:

I always wondered what poor soul on the ground had to pick up and repack the chutes.

Would love to be sitting next to the nervous first time flier when the captain announces a brief delay while they pack the parachute.