Posted on 06/13/2006 11:42:07 PM PDT by Eagle9
The engineers design the landing gear system, goes up for a design review, gets manufactured, the maintenance people install it, ops check it, then jack and retract the system; but then Boeing test crews have to actually prove the design. Before the landing gear sideload limits gets etched in stone in the -1 flight manual.
So they sneak off to Brazil to do these tests at a certain remote BAF base famous for its continual atrocious crosswinds...
This is some good piloting by the test pilots in getting these planes down. For some people it looks totally unnatural for an aircraft that size doing that, and for others it’s a thing of beauty.
If you haven't seen these it's pretty cool to watch planes of this size crabbing in on a landing.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2581413167561676027&q=crosswind
My flight instructor always said, at 500 feet and again at 100 feet, if everything is not PERFECT, throttles go full forward and go around!
My flight instructor always said, at 500 feet and again at 100 feet, if everything is not PERFECT, throttles go full forward and go around!
Anybody know what that is hanging off the top of the tail in #1. Looks like a drogue chute or something
The power and grace of these huge aircraft negotiating the extreme challenges of nature is truly a wonder to behold.
And the song "Return to Innocence" by Inigma is the perfect soundtrack.
The Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong was closed in 1998, I think. Because of the density of tall buildings built from the harbor right up to the base of steep, high mountains behind them, the landing approach to Kai Tak was infamous. The description given for the 17 second video, linked below, of a Korean Airlines 747 landing there says it best.
Hong Kong’s Kai Tak International Airport (now closed) was legendary for its approach procedure, which was offset 90 degrees from the runway heading. Pilots of even the largest jumbo jets had to make a tight turn at low altitude just seconds before touching down. Here, a Korean Airlines 747 makes what, believe it or not, is a typical approach into this airport.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8595143022111722945&q=kai+tak
I saw that video before but thought it was some freak crosswind. The idea this was a normal landing procedure due to the airport location is just nuts.
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