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Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!tackett
From: tackett@wivax.UUCP (Raymond Tackett)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: You can't back this thing up(?)
Message-ID: <19235@wivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Feb-84 10:32:05 EST
Article-I.D.: wivax.19235
Posted: Tue Feb 28 10:32:05 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Feb-84 02:13:16 EST
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 28

:

Sorry, ccvaxa!rmiller.  They DO back up, and not just rotary wing.

Two examples:

A small English domestic airline was reported to be landing backwards
on an island off the coast of Scotland where the wind velocity often
exceeded the stall speed of the aircraft.

I was at a small landing zone in Viet Nam (near Pleiku) in 1966.  It was
suitable for C-7 Caribous.  One afternoon, a C-130 Hercules landed there.
The runway was both short and narrow for the plane.  On rollout, the
nosewheel ran out on a dike separating two rice paddies.  The main gear
was about 4 feet from the end and the dike was too narrow and soft to
hold the whole plane.  The crew chief opened the tailgate part way.  The
pilot reversed propellers and taxied backwards guided by the crew chief
over the intercom.  They had to stop every 1/2 plane length and use
forward pitch to reduce the tailpipe temperatures, but they eventually
reached the beginning of the runway, unloaded and left.  Having lost
both cargo and fuel, they got out with almost a plane length to spare.


-- 
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 \ \  / /          From the brightly colored, ever opening 'chute
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   NOID                            Ray Tackett