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When you absolutely...

I must say, that was a pretty good landing, considering the circumstances. I always thought you had to touch down and squish the switch on the landing gear before you could deploy the reverse thrust.
 
Yeah I have heard the same thing, it is supposed to be an inbuilt safety feature to stop the reverser deploying in the air.

He does look like he's really hiking, so maybe he thought he needed it ASAP! They walked away, so it was a good landing.
 
Know very little about reversers but even if you could some how override the safety feature of deploying them in air you certainly would instantly turn into a very large hovering aircraft that would drop like a huge cement block . You better hope you are very close to the ground ! I salute the pilot for his quick decision of which they constantly train for .

All safe , that's what counts :encouragement:

Rich
 
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When I was younger (much), I was allowed to take several trips (flights) with my father, who was a UAL pilot. I remember very clearly on a few descents in the DC-8-63, which was one of his favorite planes, that he would put out the reverser buckets on 2 and 3, if he needed to come DOWN. He explained that he only used 2&3 for this, so that if one of the two didn't activate, or one was slower than the other, there wouldn't be a large yaw moment generated before the pilots could correct the situation. 2 and 3 were the two engines inboard on the wings in the DC-8, thus, they had a lower effect on yaw than 1 and 4.
I tell you, it was a very effective method!
Pat☺
 
ryapad said:
I must say, that was a pretty good landing, considering the circumstances. I always thought you had to touch down and squish the switch on the landing gear before you could deploy the reverse thrust.
Click to expand...

scotth6 said:
Yeah I have heard the same thing, it is supposed to be an inbuilt safety feature to stop the reverser deploying in the air.
Click to expand...

After doing some digging, it turns out that many aircraft are not only capable of, but certified to deploy thrust reverse in the air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_reversal
 
I know early jets didn't have a detent on the throttles to activate reverse thrust. This caused an Air New Zealand DC8 to crash on a training flight , mid '60s at Whenuapai, when the instructor closed the 2 throttles on the port? engines to simulate a double EFTO and inadvertently pushed them into reverse thrust - when inevitable consequences.........no simulators in those days.......DC8s (and I assume, everything else) had modifications made to the throttle assemblies to prevent this happening again)
 
IIRC, and it's been a long time, the throttles I recall from the DC-8's (in those days, after the flight, they let me into the captain's seat) had what they called reverser levers, one for each throttle. They had to retard the throttles to a detent, which I believe was idle, or Flight Idle, I don't remember, then flip the lever(s) up, then advance the throttles again to increase the thrust. I seem to recall the same set-up in the 737's, back then too. It may be a Boeing way of doing things, or maybe just a saftey feature, to prevent inadvertent activation. All the way back, past the detent, was shutdown. Cut off the fuel.
But, like I say, it's been a LONG time since that young kid (me!) sat in the captain's seat and held the yoke...
Pat☺
 
There are are two (at least) episodes of "Mayday" (AKA Air Crash Investigations) where the fault activation of reverse thrust in the air have brought down two airliners; "fault" being the operative word. On both occasions thrust was fairly high in both engines when just one reverser deployed, sending both aircraft catastrophically out of control.

Very interesting to hear it is (or was?) practised in normal flight. I must admit to trying the technique several times in FSX, usually with a favourable outcome. I have tried it basically at the same point as the pilot in the video, trying to time it so that by the time the engines spool up in reverse the main gear is just on the runway.
 
I may be a bit of an expert on the DC-8, having been a PFE and pilot on them for many years. 2 and 3 could indeed be reversed in the air. The DC-8 had no speedbrakes, hence the ability to bring 2 and 3 into reverse. It wasn't used much. Normally for emergency descents or when ATC screwed up. It wasn't that bad. shook the airplane a bit. You couldn't hear much in the cabin. But the pylons did move around a bit. Especially the 70 series with the CFM-56 motors. If one stayed deployed it wasn't a big deal either.
 
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