The video below shows a Portuguese Air Force C-130 Hercules landing at Funchal in Madeira. The action begins at about 1 minute 20 seconds into the video. I'd suggest you skip forward to that point, then watch carefully as the aircraft approaches the runway. Look at how sharply it dips as it hits a zone of wind shear right at the foot of the runway.
I imagine the pilot might have needed a change of underwear after that! Wind shear is one of the most dangerous situations during landing, precisely because there's very little room to recover from that sort of sudden drop. Nice recovery . . . but still scary!
Peter
4 comments:
Good save by the crew, but I can imagine anyone on it turning either green or white!
Jim
We used to have a video at work of a UPS plane landing at Hong Kong with severe wind sheer. The pilot barely recovered. Another favorite was a 727 landing at Long Beach sideways because of a severe cross wind. I always respect pilots for being able to deal with those kind of conditions and pull it off perfectly time after time.
This was not that unusual either at Madeira or Lajes because of the winds coming up over the cliff. It does create about a 30kt drop in airspeed at about 100 feet... NOT fun... The USAF did park one on the side of the hill at Lajes back in the 80s due to the same thing. Everyone survived and they actually repaired the Herc and flew it out in the 90s.
Change of underwear? I think not. I'd bet he couldn't have shit so much as a greased BB until the next day.
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