B747 at the Skypark?
Nope, not yet anyway. But these pictures of a retired
747 being delivered to a museum in South Africa show it isn't that far-fetched!
In reading the following, bear in mind that the Skypark's runway measures 50
feet wide by 3400 feet long.
Friday morning 5 March 2004, the retired South African Airways
Boeing 747-244, ZS-SAN, "Lebombo" touched down at Rand Airport, Germiston, just
outside Johannesburg.
Landing on Rwy 11, which is 49.3 feet wide, the jumbo was
stopped at the intersection of Rand's cross runway, which is around 2800 feet
from the Rwy 11 threshold.
Here's the story in the words of the pilot, Capt. Dennis Spence:
The aircraft
empty weight was 164 000kg and we had 20 000kg fuel on board. The aircraft was
TOTALLY airworthy and every component was serviceable, it even has toilet paper
in all the toilets!!!!!
We had a snag before start with the PMS (Performance Management Computer) so one
was ordered from stores and it was fitted before we departed.
Take-off weight was 183 000 kg and the V1/VR speed was 125 kts. Max thrust was
1.6 EPR but we de-rated to 1.55.
We applied nearly max thrust on the brakes and it had acceleration that made the
M3 drivers look like they were standing still.
We rotated just after intersection Lima, some 3000 ft from the beginning of 03
Left, and climbed away with a body angle of nearly 30°.
(Refers to departing
Johannesburg International)
We were given vectors for Rand from the west, but because of some cloud we only
became visual too late to commence the approach, so we were re-vectored and
approached from the south.
We joined right-hand downwind for 11 and got the gear and flap 30, landing flap
out early. As there is no approach aids on 11, we plotted an ideal path using
the DME at RAV. The threshold height of 11 is 5500 ft AMSL at 0,7 DME RAV, so by
the simple rule of 300 ft per nautical mile, we had our path plotted.
3,7 DME : 6400 ft
2.7 DME: 6100 ft
1.7 DME: 5800 ft
We did not want to touch early, because of the "lip" on the approach to 11, so
we had a chalk line at 50m (150 ft) drawn across the runway to ensure that this
would not happen, because of the visual illusion of such a narrow runway ( 15m
wide compared to 60m wide at JNB).
The distance from the nose of the aircraft to the rear of the gear is 114 ft, so
we would not want to touch down before the nose was at this line.
Also, the demonstrated landing distance from the flight performance manuals, and
computed by the performance engineers at SAA is 3000 ft.
This is using ONLY brakes and NO thrust reverse, but we must remember that this
is for a new aircraft with new brakes, not one with 107 000 flying hours on it
!!!!
To ensure that we minimized the possibility of an over-run of 11, we then put
another chalk line at 3600 ft from the end of R/W 29, so if we were not on the
ground by this mark, we would go-around and have another attempt. In the
Simulator we tried various scenario's using JNB 30L , NO aids, except for the
300 ft/NM [plot, a 5 kt crosswind and a 5 kt tail wind, NO reverse thrust, and
every time we managed to stop before intersection Lima.
Well it worked at Rand, and we did NOT scratch the paint !!!
I managed to keep it on the centre line and touch down at the point we wanted -
Bug speed at the weight of 178 000kg was 118 kts, but on short final with the
wind at 070/08 I elected to fly it at 115 kts.
When Dennis Mc Dermot, our Flight Engineer called 20 ft on the radio altimeter,
I closed the thrust levers and planted it firmly onto the runway, aircraft
carrier style.
Well most of our energy dissipated rapidly, and by using medium auto-brakes,
until I lowered the nose wheel, we managed to stop just before the intersection
of 11/35. 
Stew just "cracked" the reversers, in case we need them, but because the engines
will be removed and used again, we did not want to ingest any debris, as ALL the
engines were overhanging the runway. The brake temperatures did not move higher
than the mid green range.
Regards,
Dennis
And some stats on the aircraft:
This Boeing 747-200 (B747)
joined the airline on 6 November 1971 at the cost of ZAR17 milion (Euro 1.9
million) and has carried 6 million passengers (world fleet of B747 to date has
carried more than 3.5 billlion), done an amazing 107,000 flying hours, twelve
and a half years airbone, 481.5 million nautical miles or 886 million Km using
160.5 million litres of jet A1, used 3384 tyres at a cost of ZAR30.4 million
(Euro 3.38 million) nearly double the original purchase price.
