Got my first trip coming up to Birmingham...
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2013 5:41 pm
Birmingham is one of the airports that can keep pilots tense all the way to the terminal. It is famous/infamous for its strong crosswinds, plus the fact that the runway undulates down its entire length.
Over the next week I will be making a few trips from Tucson to Birmingham in the left seat of a G550. The thing that makes the landings even more difficult is the length of this trip and the daylight to night back to daylight.
Here are a few clips of commercial airliners struggling in crosswinds at BHX just a few days ago. Forecast for now is much of the same.
777 goes around at the last minute:
Notice the flex of the right wing and the 20 degree crab angle to the runway.
Then there is this airbus A320. Dude prolly got a call from the chief pilot on this landing. I likely would have called for TOGA at least three times in this approach and possibly even a fourth time. Skip ahead to the :45 second mark.
Go back and watch that one again. At the 1:37 mark he is making a major correction and has it stable again at the 1:40 mark. Problem is he has now stopped descending and is over the piano keys and about to pass the touchdown point. TOGA power man and try it again.
At the 1:45 mark he finally gets the nose down but has used maybe a fifth of the runway at this point.
At the 1:47 mark he starts to drift left and by 1:48 he is completely left of the center line. TOGA power man and try it again.
Also at 1:48 he compresses the right main strut to its max while the right and nose are still off the ground.
At the 1:50 mark he is flying again. TOGA power man, you survived.
He finally gets it down shortly thereafter.
Here are a couple more, some better than others:
Got to say this series of trips has Seater a little more worked up than normal. Pucker factor likely will be pretty high if the winds are as predicted.
Any of you ever look straight down a runway while landing despite sitting near the wing?
Over the next week I will be making a few trips from Tucson to Birmingham in the left seat of a G550. The thing that makes the landings even more difficult is the length of this trip and the daylight to night back to daylight.
Here are a few clips of commercial airliners struggling in crosswinds at BHX just a few days ago. Forecast for now is much of the same.
777 goes around at the last minute:
Notice the flex of the right wing and the 20 degree crab angle to the runway.
Then there is this airbus A320. Dude prolly got a call from the chief pilot on this landing. I likely would have called for TOGA at least three times in this approach and possibly even a fourth time. Skip ahead to the :45 second mark.
Go back and watch that one again. At the 1:37 mark he is making a major correction and has it stable again at the 1:40 mark. Problem is he has now stopped descending and is over the piano keys and about to pass the touchdown point. TOGA power man and try it again.
At the 1:45 mark he finally gets the nose down but has used maybe a fifth of the runway at this point.
At the 1:47 mark he starts to drift left and by 1:48 he is completely left of the center line. TOGA power man and try it again.
Also at 1:48 he compresses the right main strut to its max while the right and nose are still off the ground.
At the 1:50 mark he is flying again. TOGA power man, you survived.
He finally gets it down shortly thereafter.
Here are a couple more, some better than others:
Got to say this series of trips has Seater a little more worked up than normal. Pucker factor likely will be pretty high if the winds are as predicted.
Any of you ever look straight down a runway while landing despite sitting near the wing?