Last edited Mon Dec 3, 2012, 10:49 PM - Edit history (1)

The entire visual approach sequence is predicated on precise speed control. One jerk flying +10 knots (or -10 knots) will throw a monkeywrench into the whole exquisitely choreographed ballet. Been there, done that (many times) .. and loved every hair-raising minute of it!

I've never heard this for DFW, but with 4 landing runways I suspect there's not nearly as much need.

I've landed at a few big airports in my plane, but my speed restriction is usually comprised of something along the lines of "peddle faster".

where you could feel the "breath" of another plane on your nose or tail? What they so euphemistically call a "near-miss"?

At such busy hubs as LHR, it must happen more than the authorities care to make public.

I give major props to these pilots--it has to take nerves of steel to fly with such razor-thin safety margins.

Suspicious activity!

One can get sort of the same idea by watching any online airport tracker, but seeing the real thing is more fascinating.
Apparently filming planes in London does not carry the same penalty as it would here....

I still would not have wanted to be on that third plane starting at the 2:40 mark.
I was getting queasy just watching it.