Windy landing!

[Julien]

Slight crosswind in these!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-21...inds-Spain.html

Julien

[Chris Jephcott]

Sped up twice though to make it look more dramatic!!!

[Julien]

Sped up twice though to make it look more dramatic!!!

Never noticed that, takes the professional eye, still windy though?

Julien

[Philbky]

Usual over dramatisation by the Daily Wail. Aircraft have crosswind limits so approaches are made within those tolerances. In such circumstances the tower calls the wind regularly on approach so the crew can abort the landing if the tolerances are exceeded, as was the case in one of the landings.

The problem comes with crosswind gusts and windshear. Landing at Heathrow on Thursday morning there was a 40 degree crosswind, 20-25 mph with 35 to 40 mph gusts. Very bumpy on the way down and a slight wing down landing. When viewed from the ground the aircraft would be seen to be crabbing but nothing exceptional.

More interesting was the fact that we had to wait 65 minutes sitting on a 777 on the gate prior to take off. The crew apologised for the rocking of the aircraft which was abeam the wind, the captain pointing out that the aircraft at the time weighed 250 tonnes!

[Alan P]

It's at the pilots' discretion to discontinue the landing at any time, whether or not crosswind limits are exceeded. Crosswind "limits" are actually demonstrated crosswind performance - I suppose if you wanted to land beyond these you technically could, if a more dangerous situation warranted it.

It's my understanding that on the B777 at LHR we are discouraged from using wing down landing technique if the crosswind exceeds 15kt. Tut tut to your chaps (if they were my lot!)

agree with Chris - very much speeded up video, pointless sensationalising. All in a day's work otherwise!

Al

[Piltdown Man]

To put some numbers in - The Maximum Recommended Crosswind (now renamed Limitations due EASA/IOSA conventions) limits for the Embraer 190 are as follows:

Dry Runway ............................................................. 38 kt

Wet Runway ............................................................ 31 kt

Runway with Compacted Snow................................... 20 kt

Runway with Standing Water/Slush/Wet Snow/Dry

Snow....................................................................... 18 kt

Runway with Ice (no melting) .................................... 12 kt

These numbers are fairly typical for small modern aircraft.

As Philbky said, you are rarely committed to land. Also, sometimes it is so rough that it you actually have to earn your money. But the biggest problem is getting modern aircraft to "Shut up" as they are a bit tetchy about windshear. In their little binary worlds if they determine windshear, you go around and have another go even if you are happy to continue.

PM

[Chris Jephcott]

The beauty of flying the Dash is that it doesn't scream "Windshear" at you when you're on final approach. It's very much at the discretion of the pilots as to whether or not it's safe or not to continue - it means that on some really quite horrible days, we're often just about the only ones to successfully land, with everything else going around.

My biggest problem is going to be trying to get out of the habit of wing down landings - an essential part of flying the Dash!

But yes, total sensationalism from the Daily Mail (who would have possibly thought that the Daily Mail would ever be accused of that?!).