Monday, July 27, 2015

I'm still not sure how he made that work


This is definitely one of the hairier cross-wind landings I've seen lately.  It's a KLM Boeing 777 at Schipol Airport in Holland.





I'd say that was just a mite twitchy . . .

Of course, one of the things that makes such landings possible, rather than disasters in the making, is modern undercarriage technology.  Here's a video of a Boeing 767 making a very hard landing at Birmingham in the UK.  Note how the undercarriage absorbs the impact - it's repeated in slow motion near the end of the video to illustrate the point.





That's some pretty good engineering.

Peter

7 comments:

  1. Add "pilot" to the growing list of jobs I could never do.

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  2. I 'think' the 777 was getting back on centerline... Probably a gust from his right pushed him a bit. And Oleos and tires have come a LONG way!!!

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  3. I'd still rather see it from the terminal than from a seat in coach.

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  4. That KLM pilot was either very good, very lucky, or both.
    It would appear that the plane recovered from a severe tilt and leveled off precisely as the wheels touched down.
    Bad hand at the controls or a final surprise gust and that could have gone very wrong indeed.

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  5. We used to sit at the end of the long runway at KAMA and watch the B-52s land in high crosswinds. It's a bit like watching a Helio-Courier taxi past in a cross wind: I see it, but I still don't quite believe it. (The landing gear pivots and the nose stays straight.)

    LittleRed1

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  6. LittleRed1:

    I'm guessing that the added weight and complexity of the 4 main gear system used on the B-52 is why they aren't seen on airliners. I wonder if there are performance restrictions with their system, that are not obvious?

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