First real autumn weather has hit the Baltics. It is pouring rain all the way to the ground. Yesterday landed in a really gusty wind conditions, which is an integral part of the autumn flying. Wasn't the best landing I've done but the landing gear is still intact and the airplane touched down at the right spot.
This is the thing: what actually makes a good landing? The passengers seem to judge the pilot by the smoothness of the landing. But the smooth landing is not always the safe landing. For instance, in my case, if I had tried to fine tune the landing by skimming a foot or two above the runway, I would have wasted a lot of runway and perhaps would have missed our turn off intersection (to make the taxi time as short as possible => to get the passengers to the gate as soon as possible). Moreover, I would have given the wind and the gusts more time to blow our aircraft off the runway centreline.
Therefore, it is much safer and operationally wiser to just make the airplane land (even quite hard) within the given touchdown zone and accept the fact that passengers might think that I am simply a bad pilot. That's what I think is part of being a professional pilot. Silky smooth touchdowns that take place half way down the runway should not occur at least in professional aviation.
Of course, on a good day, even I can make a smooth landing and still land at the right spot. But sometimes you have to choose either safe or smooth and then there should be no doubt as to which way to go. In fact, at least the Boeing manual actually tells us not to make a very smooth touchdown. This is because some of the airplanes systems might get confused about whether the aircraft is in the air or on the ground. So, if a Boeing makes a firm landing, it is only because the pilot did things by the book!
