[SpamCop-Social] Re: Planes, trains and stalling. (Ping GregR)

[Redstone]

Frog Prince wrote:

> | > Not sure about current airframes but
> | > sometime back there were birds that could not land with a full load
> | > of fuel.
> |
> | In some of the comics of my youth these planes had a thing called in
> French
> | "les vide-vite" (wfw. "the empty-fast"), a control that the pilot would
> use
> | before an emergency landing "with too much fuel", or before a "belly"
> | landing.
>
> In the old movies the pilot would always dump fuel before the emergency
> landing.  In part due to the mass and in part due to a concern for fire.  As
> a kid I could never understand how an airplane that crashed landed for lack
> of fuel ended up as a fiery wreck at the other end of the runway.

Lighter weight makes the landing easier to handle. (i.e... easier to skid with).