Page 1 of 1

Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:15 pm
by CharlieOneSix
All pilots aspire to ending their careers with the same number of landings as take offs.......but what about you - did you achieve that? By the same number of landings I define those as ones where the aircraft can be used again without a massive rebuild!

Using my definition, due to a technical malfunction I have one more take off than landings, having left a very bent (Cat 5 in military terms) Bell 47J2 helicopter on a Welsh borders hillside in 1971. Over to you if your totals don't match.....

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:22 pm
by Boac
Guilty, yer honour. One of Auntie Betty's Harriers dumped unceremoniously on a German hillside. Came home by helicolopter.

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:17 pm
by llondel
All the ones where I've had my hands on the controls landed safely, although one where I was in the back, I jumped out half-way through the flight, so I've had one more take-off than landing.

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 8:31 pm
by G~Man
Mine match, however changed my shorts a few times........

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 8:41 pm
by Boac
The true test, 'G', is did you land wearing the same shorts in which you took off?

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2023 10:47 am
by Ex-Ascot
A couple of marginal landings. One nose wheel collapse and another through the landing lights. I was not the Captain. It was the boss of The Queen's Flight.

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2023 4:50 am
by Rwy in Sight
Ex-A I hope you were not blamed for the incident like the FO in Africe who kept mentioning Captain we are coming long, they did an overrun. The captain did turn to the FO asking why you didn't warn me.

I have an equal number of scheduled take off and landings.

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:12 am
by reddo
So far.

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2023 9:39 am
by Ex-Ascot
No RiS I was actually commended in the report which was kept in house. Not sure if it got to Buck House. The Captain of The Queen's Flight was head of aviation for them so doubt it went further than him. The boss was not reprimanded unlike Graham Laurie with the now King who they thew the book at. That was because it was Royal Air Force not The Queen's Flight.

Reddo you do not have many options. Any impact with Terra Firma is a sort of landing. Not sure about the sea. Although they considered that Sully 'landed' on the Hudson. Excellent film if anyone has not seen it.

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 6:12 pm
by boing
I always had the same amount of landings and take-offs but I did have less wheels down on the landings than the take-offs. I suppose that doesn't count.

.

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2023 3:28 pm
by Archer
I do not.... for what are purely bookkeeping reasons.

During the first two lessons on my intergrated course, 21 years ago by now, the instructor let me do the take off and demonstrated the landings. Being the nitpicking type... I did not log those landings. I realised later on that I could easily have put a '1' in the relevant column and nobody would have complained, but by then I didn't want to go back and change all the pages in my logbook. So ever since I've lived with the fact that the numbers do not match. ;)))

Re: Have you the same number of landings as take offs?

Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2023 3:47 pm
by Fox3WheresMyBanana
54 more take offs than landings. Or 3 less.

57 skydives. Not sure if this counts since I didn't fly the take offs.

minus 3 times I was winched aboard a helicopter, then landed it. The SAR Wessex pilot was a QFI. I spent a fine summer afternoon being a duty victim on the cliffs around north Devon, but the pilot also had to do his instructor renewal the next day.
So I would be winched up, then acted as the 'student' pilot to do the next landing, whence I would then wander off and find some suitable place for the crew to come find and rescue me again.

So the numbers do not match, either way.