Love the water clearing capabilities!

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news...-birmingham-airport-misses-6376065

Weird I have just seen her land from my bedroom window.

I wondered why she was delayed great video

You have to love the media and their headlines!

Just to be clear, this is not a rejected landing since the main gears never touched down. It is a (very in close) go around. It's also another case of tremendously sensationalized journalism  

Quoting catiii (Reply 3): Just to be clear, this is not a rejected landing since the main gears never touched down. It is a (very in close) go around. It's also another case of tremendously sensationalized journalism

The gear do not have to touch down to be a rejected landing. A rejected landing is when the aircraft is in the low energy regime, landing configuration, power low or idle, airspeed decreasing, and the aircraft is appox 50 ft or less above the runway. If a go around or rejected landing is initiated at this time there is a chance the wheels may touch but it does not define a rejected landing.

The Dash 8 video after the 777 on that link was a far more interesting approach. The Dash 8 looked far less stable than the 777.

Quoting catiii (Reply 3): Just to be clear, this is not a rejected landing since the main gears never touched down.

It would have been very "interesting" to see how that aircraft could have completed a landing in that crab. Either you fly a crosswind landing using "wing-down and top rudder" to keep the aircraft straight or you have to kick out the crab at the end. There was no attempt at straightening the aircraft out in the video. Glad they went around

cool vid nonetheless, thnks for sharing!!

There was an even closer call for
Fly be diverting to NCL today - VERY frightening stuff, would not like to be on board.

Quoting Roseflyer (Reply 5): The gear do not have to touch down to be a rejected landing.

According to the Airbus, Boeing, and Flight Safety Foundation definitions, a rejected landing is "defined as go-around
maneuver initiated after touchdown of the main landing gear or after bouncing."

http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/medi...sSafetyLib_-FLT_OPS-LAND-SEQ09.pdf
http://flightsafety.org/files/alar_bn6-4-bounce.pdf
Edit: for some reason the Boeing link won't paste in.

Quoting BostonMike (Reply 6): It would have been very "interesting" to see how that aircraft could have completed a landing in that crab. Either you fly a crosswind landing using "wing-down and top rudder" to keep the aircraft straight or you have to kick out the crab at the end. There was no attempt at straightening the aircraft out in the video. Glad they went around

There doesn't need to necessarily be an attempt to kick out the crab before touchdown. There's a number of examples of not kicking out the crab on until the mains are on the ground:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljOxo0s33sI (1:30 and 2:15 mark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-hSjKP2TU  13 and 1:50 mark)

Airline pilots on this board can confirm, but I'm pretty sure that in a sweptwing wing-mounted engine aircraft, crabbing in a crosswind is the preferred technique so you don't have a nacelle strike on touchdown.

[Edited 2013-12-05 12:07:22]

Why are flights like that even scheduled? I mean, we knew the storm was coming so what's the point?

And if the wind is gusting over 40 knots perpendicular to the runway, why even bother trying to land?

http://www.checkwx.com/weather/EGBB

Quoting catiii (Reply 9): According to the Airbus, Boeing, and Flight Safety Foundation definitions, a rejected landing is "defined as go-around maneuver initiated after touchdown of the main landing gear or after bouncing."

Fair enough, other manufactures and airlines may define it differently. Where I work we operate by the definition I wrote from our SOPs.

Quoting catiii (Reply 9): Airline pilots on this board can confirm, but I'm pretty sure that in a sweptwing wing-mounted engine aircraft, crabbing in a crosswind is the preferred technique so you don't have a nacelle strike on touchdown.

Yes, crabbing may be a preferred method of flying an approach in a significant crosswind, but landing in a crab was never an option on my aircraft. That's 32 years of airline flying with ten of those as a line check airman. Not saying it didn't happen, but not in a 30 degree crab. And, yes, the video shows Boeing aircraft being tested for crosswind landings in Brazil. They are very tough birds, but as the comment below the video states, "They sneak off to Brazil to do these tests at a certain remote BAF airbase famous for its continual atrocious crosswinds...Should the gear sideloads be excessive and fold one up, there is nobody there to take nasty pix for the Airbus guys to wave around in the press." And, I might add, these are Boeing test pilots, not a normal pilot (if there is such an animal).

It's not just the sideloads on the gear, but getting the aircraft under control and pointed down the runway while still fighting the extreme crosswind. I greatly admire any pilot of any status who, at any point on an approach, says "let's get the hell out of here".

Quoting catiii (Reply 9): Airline pilots on this board can confirm, but I'm pretty sure that in a sweptwing wing-mounted engine aircraft, crabbing in a crosswind is the preferred technique so you don't have a nacelle strike on touchdown.

As for your first comment, you are absolutely correct concerning a rejected landing and what constitutes the low energy regime, however in this instance we do not know if the power was reduced to idle. It may have been, or the go-around was called prior.

As for landing in a crosswind of this strength, you would certainly kick out the "crab" using rudder to align the longitudinal axis with the centreline. Often the timing of such a manouever (and it is timing, often tricky) prevents all of the crab from being eliminated and you will touch with some side loading. There are many videos of aircraft being flight tested landing with all of the crab, some, and none. THe technique is to align the aircraft with the rudder and use aileron input to offset the roll moment caused by the rudder deflection. You aim for both wheels to touch or the upwind wheel slightly. You dont fly cross controlled like you might have in a small plane (one wing low). It's kind of one continuous movement. Flare, kick, roll to keep wings level. If you time it just right it works out. If you dont then you'll drift off the centreline. OR if you're late you'll land with more drift than you wanted. They can be tricky and I find it to be the most challenging part of my job (in a good way).

That is a very big aircraft and not knowing the w/x it appeared stable and very well flown. The winds to me (arm chair quarterbacking) seemed like they must have been stable (not a pile of gust) as the vertical descent appeared uniform and there were few lateral corrections. The Dash-8 people talk of would have told a better picture as to the what was going on wind wise.

Either way they went around, gave it another shot and decided to proceed to their alternate. A decision rarely argued. So bravo for that. Discretion is the better part of valour in this case and thats what they are paid to do. If they didn't like it? Go elsewhere.

Airline Pilot question

When crabbing on an approach, when do you turn to the center line.

My question is based on experience with our pilots. They crab the King Air in all the way. Touch down one of the mains, then align with the center line. Always smooth as mother's milk.

My guess it has to do with the length of the wing, ground effect etc. granted it is only a 90.

You align the plane with the runway just before touchdown. Once aligned with a cross wind the plane will drift so timing is critical.

I can't believe the people on this forum acting as if they know what they talk about. Landing your Cessna 172 is not the same technique as landing a jet transport. You guys are hilarious.

Quoting 26point2 (Reply 15): You align the plane with the runway just before touchdown. Once aligned with a cross wind the plane will drift so timing is critical.

Here in lies the rub, "timing is critical". It can work like a dream or end up a nightmare. It takes a seemingly long time for that long tube to swing around and align with the runway. And as soon as you take out the crab, you start drifting towards the downwind side of the runway. This type of "real flying" is what concerns the FAA in the United States. It took a long time to convince pilots to use the technology and automation to fly the aircraft. Now that pilots are used to automation, we find their "stick and rudder" skills have turned a bit rusty.

A small airplane can literally snap from a crab to straight down the runway. It is a bit different in a 747 or 330.

Go-around, rejected landing, missed approach...............it's better to try again.

I see a lot of good / safe piloting here.

The pressure to make schedule etc is pretty high.

This is a pretty solid crosswind and the reports were that it was gusty (50-60mph).

My guess is most of these go arounds fit squarely in company policy on when to go around. Hard to argue with by the book flying, even if it's not very hotdog.

Most actually were nicely setup on the crab and relatively stabilized on the approach based on the one angle.

Take the delay, live another day.

Very nice piloting there, shame he/she didn't get it down!! Safety of passengers always comes first though. I always thought the distinction between a rejected landing and a go around was if the go around was begun after the "Minimum" call from the GPWS it was a rejected landing. Or is the minimum purely to do with visibility?

Quoting s5daw (Reply 10): Why are flights like that even scheduled? I mean, we knew the storm was coming so what's the point? And if the wind is gusting over 40 knots perpendicular to the runway, why even bother trying to land?

Imagine the outcry is airlines rescheduled flights due to weather 100's of miles away from the origin,

The flight operated as there was a decent chance that they would get in. The pilots were aware of the forecast and decided to attempt the approach. It happens regularly that in a bad weather situation the conditions change from minutet to minute. 1 aircraft could go around while the following 3 get in.

If it was unsafe to do so then the airport would have closed or the flight would not have attempted to land. The flight crew knew what they were doing and tried it, they didn't get in so they knew they had pushed their luck/skills to the limit.
Hence the "2 attempts only" rule that is followed.

Quoting Roseflyer (Reply 5): The Dash 8 video after the 777 on that link was a far more interesting approach. The Dash 8 looked far less stable than the 777.

Yeah. I'd like to have some professional input on that Dash 8 video (below the 777 video in the op's link). From a layman's view it looked like many of the vomitbags would be in use - but was it dangerous at any point?

Quoting Roseflyer (Reply 5): The Dash 8 video after the 777 on that link was a far more interesting approach. The Dash 8 looked far less stable than the 777.

OMG ... this one was scary! Would have vomitted all over the jeans for sure 

Shouldn't the airport be closed for small aircraft at those winds?

How are the bogies on wide body's landing gear able to endure the force imposed on them when they land in extreme crab? On our C-17's the gear has a shimmy damper that, which I imagine would help some, and the B-52 has the crosswind crab gear setting, but essentially landing sideways has some sort of engineering built into the landing gear I would assume.

Quoting s5daw (Reply 10):

It was more of a squall line that passed over BHX, lasted about half an hour to 45 minutes.

Quoting Eagleboy (Reply 19): Why are flights like that even scheduled? I mean, we knew the storm was coming so what's the point? In this video, the visibility looked quite adequate. My question would be.......am I flying within the crosswind limits of my aircraft? I can never recall flying an airliner that said that the "crab method" to touchdown was preferred. A combination of the two......crab on approach.....then switching to using the rudder to align to runway heading while carefully lowering the upwind wing and touching down on the upwind mlg (usually very softly, and certainly more softly than landing in a crab) [quote=BostonMike,reply=12]Yes, crabbing may be a preferred method of flying an approach in a significant crosswind, but landing in a crab was never an option on my aircraft.

With a Nod of the Cap to Captain BostonMike, I heartily agree.

Quoting ASA (Reply 21): Shouldn't the airport be closed for small aircraft at those winds?

If the winds are within the limitations of the aircraft, why close it?