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Holy Wing Tip Strike Batman!

gatordev said:
I'm awaiting an E-6 guy to come in and give his piece. From a bud of mine (who showed the clearance when we flew into OKC one time), there's very, very little room for a WDTR approach, so they only do it in the flare (as he described it to me).

@Loadtoad,

I know you were joking, in part, but WDTR is a technique (like you said). You should be doing it in Primary, certainly, but in the T-34, flying the crab until the flare works just fine, too (on a non-syllabus flight, of course).
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One of the instructors I had back in VT-6 told a story about landing one night and the new guy stutter stepped on the rudder pedals, with 18" of clearance from the engine to the runway it made for a long night for all of them. I guess it doesnt take much to scrape paint.
 
According to the Yahoo article I read on that video, the gust that caught the aircraft just as it started its flare was clocked at 155mph. Not sure if that's a typo or what...
 
Rubiks06 said:
One of the instructors I had back in VT-6 told a story about landing one night and the new guy stutter stepped on the rudder pedals, with 18" of clearance from the engine to the runway it made for a long night for all of them. I guess it doesnt take much to scrape paint.
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I have a feeling my buddy and your IP are the same person, as I've heard a similar story.
 
gatordev said:
I'm awaiting an E-6 guy to come in and give his piece. From a bud of mine (who showed the clearance when we flew into OKC one time), there's very, very little room for a WDTR approach, so they only do it in the flare (as he described it to me).
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A4s, thanks. You saved me the posting brain cells...

Gator, you're right the CFM56 gives you very little clearance. On the E-6 it's different than on the 135 since the wings are completely differenet animals and the dihedral is different as well. On the 135 you had 11 inches at best if the struts were serviced well.

My first strong x-wind flight in the 135 I nearly made the IP and the AC crap their pants. I was doing WDTR and in the USAF heavy community... it's just NOT done. That and pissing away about 1,500 of perfectly good runway behind you seems to be the standard. I still prefer to aim, if not for brick one, for at least no more than 500' feet from the approach end. More is a waste of good runway. But old SAC'isms die hard. Or might just be a heavy thing...
 
I know the guy on the yoke was making a play for it.....but I thought he probably should have waved off way earlier than he did. My $0.02
 
That 2nd video is pretty cool!

Here is a awesome video of Boeing doing some crosswind landing tests on the 777 and 747. Crazy watching those big things fly...

 
In my (Monday morning quarterback) opinion, the guy made a bid too late for centerline, a critical point at which he should have swallowed his pride and gone around. It fell apart from there, he got to the centerline, but his crab angle was too great due to his previous steer towards the upwind side so he decided to kick it out and point it down the runway. As the upwind wing accelerates due to kicking it out, it generates more lift than the downwind wing and therefore that side rises. If you don't put enough wing down in (right wing down in this case), you will strike something, either engine or wingtip depending on engine location and the altitude of the strike.
De-crab sounds really easy in theory, but it actually can be quite difficult. There is just a lot of stuff changing as winds increase and die out, wings are rising and falling, you are trying to flare the plane and change two other dimensions at the same time. I much prefer WDTR, you just don't change as much since you can ride it down to the ground. Unfortunately, with about 20" or so of clearance depending on gross weight, the E-6 just didn't do WDTR since it could only do max 5* AOB on touchdown (assuming you landed on the centerline, if you landed off center and the inboard engine was over the crown, you could strike with less AOB)
I have had my share of landings and some scary moments with some of my 2/3P's where I have immediately gotten out of the seat after shutdown and checked the bottoms of the pods. The 707 just wasn't designed for CFM engines.
 
xj220 said:
What's the max crosswind for something like that? It looks like he was right at the limit since he was fighting the plane the whole way down.
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The A-320 max crosswind component limit is only 29kts. (Steady state, but gusts are allowed to 35kts)

Although both the wing-down-top-rudder and kick-out-the-crab techniques are authorized, the kick-out-the-crab technique is mostly the recommended method in this particular aircraft (for a variety of esoteric reasons, mostly beyond my comprehension).

I do know the A-320 is a particularly squirrelly aircraft in a gusty strong crosswind condition – far worse than any Boeing I have flown. And I have witnessed too many of these x-wind adventures from several "unique perspectives" that came far too close to this vid, but never so bad and with such a result. :eek::eek:

The gusts I'm told there were 49 kts, which looks about right from the film. Limits? Anyone?

Unfortunately, bad judgement usually trumps even the greatest skill in life threatening situations. But bad judgement with mediocre skills too often results in disaster. Regardless of the judgement/skill/environment in the equation, these people were very lucky....But they didn't need to be. Is there a lesson in there?

( A4s comments are also germane. ;) )
 
Ace_Austin said:
Reminds me of quite a few landings in the Tomahawks at KPNS. With 17/35 closed we had mad crosswinds to fight on landing most of the time. Good save.
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Piper Tomahawk - prof positive that it is possible to have not enough airplane for the job, even if the job is to teach basic flying. That thing gets tossed around by a slight breeze, and when it hits turbulence, it doesn't fly. It swims. :icon_tong
 
Which Piper Tomahawk have you been flying? Admittedly, it's been a while, but the Tomahawks I've flown handled gusty conditions much better than their Cessna counterparts...

I think the best I've flown though would have to be a Diamond DA20 Eclipse...
 
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