Posted on 02/16/2020 9:42:30 AM PST by rdl6989
The skill of two pilots was captured on video as they landed the world's largest passenger plane sideways while battling heavy crosswinds at Heathrow Airport.
The Etihad Airbus A380, which is flown by two pilots, can be seen hovering metres above the tarmac as it attempted to touchdown on Saturday during Storm Dennis.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
Amen: I second metmom, need a link without having to agree to have my computer tracked.
Piece o’ cake!
A good landing is any landing you can walk away from; a great landing is one where the plane can be used again. :^) That was a hell of a job they did! All the passenger seats may need to be cleaned and scotchguarded though.
A 380 is like size of a building. Not every airport can accept it, although I guess for a lot of them that’s a gate restriction, not for runways. Anyway my point is, their selection is not unlimited.
Thing I learned while piloting small planes, gliders and helicopters is you never fly beyond your skill level, but you have to take some chances to improve your skill level.
I’d been flying gliders and rotary wing aircraft for about ten years when I finally got my single engine plane VFR rating.
Started out in the AM w/ good weather forecast, light-variable winds, 6-10mph, but took a little longer on the test for some sight-seeing and precision flying, on the way back the winds had kicked up to 12-20 w/ gusts upward of 22mph.
No choice but to land. I’d crabbed landings before, but preferred cross-control side-slip landings from my years of flying gliders, and managed to get the C152 landed and my ticket signed off no problem.
But that, THAT is a work of skill, precision, art and knowing your limitations par excellence.
Very possible early readings/reports/advisories, fuel limitations, range, flight hours, availability of other runways all conspired to have those guys land at the margins of the performance envelope of the plane and their skillset, maybe not.
Fly like you train.
Awesome, thanks for sharing.
Pilots who by some miracle manage to save the plane at the last minute are to be avoided at all costs,,,,,those who had mechanical failures possibly given slack.
I knew quite a few pilots with fantastic skills that saved their butts more than once....but very few of them survived the last event.
#1 in a good pilot is the ability to avoid excitement.
There are very few exceptions....the Hudson River landing, the cabin integrity failures, in flight fires, etc., are generally beyond the crew's ability to predict.
But I would bet that 90% of the miraculous saves would never have occurred except for a gung-ho pilot involved.
As for this story, every air carrier has a cross wind component limit. I have no idea what the limit is for this particular aircraft but I doubt that it is 50 knots.
It was time for the alternate airport.
LOL, but if it had been me, I would have been doing more than sweating.
Give me a NAVY pilot (NOT named McCain) every time!
I did a landing like that once in a Cessna 152 2 seater.
Exhilarating... can’t imagine doing it in that beast of a jet though!
Just install Ghostery or something similar (there are many anti-tracker tools) and, if you're really paranoid, set your browser to delete all trackers frequently.
YouTube doesn't require you to accept any terms and conditions. They do the tracking anyway, whether you like it or not.
I use Brave, but I erase cookies and history daily. I will take a look at Ghostery though, thank you.
They call that crabbing. Happens a lot in Alaska.
Blew out every effing tire, I am no pilot, so maybe I am not seeing it, but I think they could have adjusted to that crosswind better than they appeared too.. have seen many plans come in angles and pilots able to “line it up” just before touchdown.
Is the 380 just too large a sail that they couldn’t have gotten a better line y
Up?
They literally blew our every tire on that plane and very nearly lost it.
Between engine power adjustment and tail fin adjustments I would think they should have had that thing more aligned at touchdown
I am sure there was much nashing of teeth, screaming and soiling yourself on that plane during the landing. I would have been LOL
When I was a kid we landed at OHare like that in a heavy thunderstorm. Pilot flipped it around just before we landed. Never forget it.
I heard my mom screaming all the way from the back of the plane :)
And near-zero airspeed, just hovering...
That alternate must meet certain conditions.
When that aircraft departed its origin, the crew had to have filed an alternate destination meeting required weather conditions, runway length, weight limits, etc.
I suspect there was enough fuel on board to pick a different country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.