Exciting 777 landing at Schiphol:

I'm not sure that I would have wanted to be a passenger on this one. Kudos to the pilot for bringing it in safely.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02ddnGzxNZs[/ame]

 

I've been on a couple of rough approaches like this and tip my hat to the pilots that bring these busses in safely every day!

 

Hats off to the Controls Group guys who design for this sort of thing. Powerful spoilers and powerful ailerons. A strong main gear helps too.

 

That wasn't so bad. In 99/2000 time frame I went to Cienfuegos Cuba with my brother. The pilot struggled to find the airport, no nav aids in Cienfuegos. He circled and circled and then suddenly dove for the runway. I landed on one side and this lasted for what seemed like a minute. We sat in the very front and the flight attendants jumps seats right in front of us. I said that was the scariest landing ever. 3 flight attendants nodded agreeing. It was so bad they didn't do an arrival announcement. Officials boarded the plane asking if anyone was hurt. That video was the closest I've seen to our landing.

 

This video may have been speeded up some judging by how fast the vehicular traffic is moving at the bottom of the screen and frequency of the shaking bushes.

Also, the approach speed is quite a bit higher than pretty much all of the heavy crosswind videos I've seen.

Remember, this is a 777-300ER. It is longer than a 747 and pretty damn heavy. To get knocked around like that the winds would have to be extremely high.
Usually in heavy gusts the wings would be flexing (shaking) up and down considerably at the tips. I'm just not seeing enough of that for the supposed buffeting this airplane is taking.

Now, If this was a 737 I would have no problem with what I'm seeing here.

 

Winds were reported to be gusting to 75kts.

Pilot did a good job timing things. The actual touchdown appeared pretty smooth, at least compared to the flare.

 

Wow. This guy had his hands full, and that also explains the high approach speed.

 

That definitely would have hit an engine in the 747. That's a lot of bank down low! As it rolled to the right, you could see full aileron against the roll with no effect at first. That definitely would have had my full attention. I'd like to think I would have gone around, but it's really hard to say.

Food for thought.... Flying long range airplanes, I typically do 8 or so landings per month. I am actually at the controls for probably 3 of them. That's not many landings. I typically see maybe 1 day per year with landing winds over 20 kts. And there's a good chance that's down the runway. I can go years without doing a crosswind landing of any significance. So when those days come, it's a real handful. We don't practice crosswind landings in the sim. The next time I have a good crosswind (could be years!), I'll video it from the cockpit so you guys can see how it looks. A lot of control wheel movement to keep it level.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Interesting. I was at Schiphol on Saturday during this weather for about hour and a half, and I didn't notice any 747, or quad engined airplanes at all.

I didn't look at every plane coming and going, but I normally notice 747s (when I was a little boy I thought they where the coolest things ever. I still think they look cooler than the A380).

 

All the pilots assigned to ONT are silently saying to themselves, 'Welcome to our world..'





.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I was sitting at a window seat near the back of a 767 once when making a crosswind landing at PHL in gusty winds. Because of the angle of the aircraft relative to the runway, I could actually see the runway until just about the time we crossed the threshold. And the inboard aileron was flapping up and down like mad as the pilot attempted (relatively successfully) to keep the aircraft level.

 

The truth is..."Yeehaw!"

Let's Scare the Passengers

 

I hate flying.

 

I knew a United Airlines pilot who flew 727's for a while as PIC. He told me that the roll rate of that airplane was faster than a P-51. When he gave a landing to a copilot he always placed his hands palms up on his knees under the wheel in case the copilot over controlled when they were close to the runway surface. With no engines hanging off the wing and two ailerons and four spoilers on each side, it had plenty of quick power from a 3500psi hydraulic system.

 

Ditto with Lou an an engine in the ground. In the CL44 more than 7 degrees of bank would put an outboard prop into the ground. This made for very interesting crosswind landings.
Lou-how much can you bank the 747 before you put the engine in the ground?

 

I know that you asked Lou but I would like to help since I have some drawings handy. After accounting for strut compression I come up with an angle of 4.5 Degrees and that would allow for the inboard engine getting a strike also. A line from the wing gear out to the outboard engine touches the inboard too. It'll be interesting to hear from Lou. I made an error, the angle is 6.0 degrees. That's really weird. The first misteak I ever made

 

Yeah, that's it Bob. 6 degrees bank at a 600,000 lb landing weight with 6 degrees pitch up. 6 degrees isn't a lot.

I believe the 747 is longer the 777-300. Maybe it's just the 747-8 that's longer. I really like the looks of the 777-300. Pretty plane.

 

The -8 is indeed longer.

 

That was the last airplane that I worked on and it is a nice looking bird. I saw some pictures of the new 777-9X and that is even prettier and LOONG. I believe that it will be the longest airliner that Boeing will build.

 

Just under 252 feet in length.

 

That is quite the landing with such a big bird.