All sorts of big stuff landed on the grass at Halton when it was still a technical training school. Including, I think, three Vulcans.
A few pictures here:
http://www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=23215&start=0
Peter wrote:
For example I spoke to an A320 pilot who said one could definitely land one at Shoreham EGKA
Performance wise he could but I doubt he could do so legally, at least not in a commercial capacity as then the minimum runway lenght required needs to be multiplied by 1.6. Also it would be a problem for take off again, but again, it will work from a pure performance point of view. I guess with enough gusto you could even get an empty A330 in and out of there. Certainly also an A319. I don’t know about the Boeings, but a -500 or so I’d be surprised if not. 757 as well, it has a massive performance.
The other problem would probably be if they can maneuver afterwards. It doesn’t make much sense landing on a runway like that only to find themselfs at a dead end or a taxiway which would house the nose gear but not much else.
A320’s have regularly operated in and out of places like Mykonos (which was 1400m at the time) and even Skiathos I believe, which is 1200m. I only once experienced the Mykonos approach in our SE210 at the time, we managed to stop before the taxiway so in less than 700 m.
(That one was scrapped in Kinshasa after having flown a good 15 years there after the Airbus induced grounding of the SE210’s. Pity, she was the prototype of the 10B3 and a beauty).
There are plenty of examples as some posts here show.
I do recall a very memorable sim session on a 747-400 full fight sim where we landed and took off from the lamented Meighs field at very low weight. That was way before the Rand videos were shot. I recall a DC9-15 in Lugano and Troyes, both not very long either, 737-200 into small GA fields in the US and also Samedan (which is longer but at 5600 ft AMSL) and so on.
Yes it will work and yes, most twins have quite a great two engine performance. Under private ops, quite a few such stuff is feasible.
The cockpit windows on that plane look like a weird amalgamation of the Comet and Airbus A320…
Not bad Alioth.. the Caravelle originally had the Comet Cockpit, this newer version (this is a 10B3) had bigger windows. Maybe they had actually tried evacuating someone out of the original ones… so they made them a bit bigger.
Original Caravelle III Cockpit, F-BHRA.
Good inside pics can be seen here:
http://www.flycaravelle.com/
This is a Caravelle III nose section which has been turned into a fully working fixed base simulator. They have a nice documentary on their site.
And of course the Caravelle is an ancestor of the A320 too. A lot of system philosophy can still be seen in the Airbusses and also Concorde had similar designators for e.g. the hydraulic systems.
Of course, the closer cousin of the A320 is the Dassault Mercure.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Good inside pics can be seen here:
http://www.flycaravelle.com/
This is a Caravelle III nose section which has been turned into a fully working fixed base simulator.
I had great fun ‘flying’ it, not far from Munich airport for anybody who might be interested.
Silvaire wrote:
I had great fun ‘flying’ it, not far from Munich airport for anybody who might be interested.
I guess it is this one here: http://www.flycaravelle.com/
When I did my multicrew training I had the choice to do it either on that very Caravelle simulator (which belonged to a large German FTO then) or a B737 sim. I wanted to do it on the Caravelle but they could not find a training partner who shared my sense for nostalgia and had to do it on the Boeing.
The Caravelle was the first aircraft ever to be approved for CAT III autoland. Way ahead of it’s day. Many of the systems developed for the Caravelle were later used in the Concorde.
And regarding the thread: For transport category aircraft the minimum runway length required is usually limited by the takeoff, not by the landing. Landing somewhere is one thing, getting out again a totally different one… In a memorable incident in 1967 the Spanish charter airline Spantax landed a Convair CV-990 “Coronado” in Hamburg Finkenwerder (EDHI) by mistake. The proper destination would have been Fuhlsbüttel (EDDH). They were able to stop the aircraft within the last few meters of runway, but in order to get it out again they had to defuel the plane and remove all the seats and every bit of removable equipment.
Did happen in the US when an airliner (767?) ran out of fuel and landed dead stick into a gliders field. P2 was a glider pilot and new the area and the field.
what_next wrote:
on that very Caravelle simulator (which belonged to a large German FTO then)
Not sure, the website and the owner say that he himself rescued the front from the backyard of Jean Salis´museum and redid it.
There was another Caravelle Sim which used to be owned by LTU I think, which was a 10R.
The autoland feature was also on the 10 first, I think the 10B3 but only ever authorized for use by Aeropostale. Yes it was a milestone indeed, but had the rather worrying feature of being single channel only. We had it installed in “ours” but it was labled inop and was never used, our 10B3 (CN169) was always CAT I only.
I dearly loved this airplane and am really disappointed that there is no way that at least the Swedish one can fly again. It still is in full flyable condition.
Did happen in the US when an airliner (767?) ran out of fuel and landed dead stick into a gliders field. P2 was a glider pilot and new the area and the field.
When a good story gets told too many times the facts evaporate into thin air 
It is “Canada”, “military airfield” and “captain” or (P1 as some would call it) – but it was a Boeing 767: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
