Originally published at: Watch as a commercial pilot makes an amazing landing | Boing Boing
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It’s TO/GA time!
I assume that the filming angle and lens used makes things look more extreme than they actually were, but that’s still pretty scary. I wonder where it was filmed from: helicopter? Nearby mountain? Following aircraft?
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OK - so who was taking that video from behind and above the plane?
ETA Darn - ninja’d on that Q by @angusm
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Oo-er, missus!
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Don’t know about this, see small planes do it all the time at the local airports, SOP.
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I “white knuckled” that landing from my laptop.
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That type of position – where the nose of the plane is pointed into the crosswind and not down the runway – is called “crabbing.” It keeps the plane on a trajectory that is aligned with the runway as the plane descends. Then at the last minute, you crank the nose straight to align with the runway with the foot pedals that control the tail rudder.
It’s one of the funnest things about learning to fly. And by funnest, I mean scary AF.
Also, the rudder on a small plane is the limit on how much cross wind you can have when landing the plane. It only pushes the nose of the plane so far in one direction or the other. Usually you find that out before you take your first cross-country solo during flight training. If you can’t align the nose, you can’t land the plane. Don’t ask me how I know that.
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Despite the scary background music, this is a pretty standard crab landing in a strong crosswind. Mentour pilot has a very good explainer about crosswind landings and while they are bit more challenging for pilots and scary for passengers, they are not particularly that dangerous. Pilots train extensively for these exact situations.
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I always love watching some really good competence porn.
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The other thing about this particular airport is that when you’re out of runway, you’re very much out of luck, because the runway is a massive bridge with no room for error at either end:
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Been a while since I’ve flown, but I have my PPL and crabbing into the wind is really fun – especially when it’s a left crosswind so you can let your front seat passenger have a better view of the landing!
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It may look hard, but flying a plane is actually a very easy job. Ryanair’s boss said so, so it must be true.
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You can always land the plane. Just sometimes you can’t re-use it.
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This is like that quote about all mushrooms being edible but some of them only once, isn’t it?
Or …
MAL: Just get us on the ground!
WASH: That part will happen pretty definitely.
– “Serenity”
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