737 landing in a storm

[jimmybr]

Have been reading up on here for a while, I have no flight experience whatsoever apart from as a passenger and having a go during a trial lesson (zero experience).

Seen plenty of videos of planes landing but this one took me by surprise.

It was obviously a successful landing but purely out of curiosity and in your personal opinions as pilots was this landing safe or should they have gone to another airport?

I know it's difficult for you to judge the exact conditions without being the pilot flying and the question is by no means meant to insult the pilots of this planes skill but as a passenger/spectator this looks somewhat dodgy.

Storm!! JAL Boeing 737-800 Go Around & Crosswind Landing at Narita - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEbcEMlPiBk)

[trident3A]

Ouch! I was expecting him to go around after that bounce - great video. No idea how safe it was!

[BOAC73]

I bet even walterthesoftlad won't object to that vid jimmy!

[RobShan]

It's the kind of landing that you could pull out the old chestnut question for the pilot - did you land the plane or were we shot down?

[Mike Tee]

Very interesting video which highlights something which has always puzzled me. What is it that deploys the presumably "pre-armed" spoilers. The first couple of runway contacts has no effect then the third thumpdown pops the spoilers. I would be interested to know.

[EW73]

I believe the compression of one side MLG strut deploys the ground spoilers and the compression of the other deploys the flight spoilers. I'm guessing the initial couple of 'touches' were not enough strut compression. Right at this moment, I can't recall which side is which! In the case that he hadn't armed the speedbrakes prior to landing, (not a normal situation) they would all deploy when reverse was selected, as in a refused takeoff.

I believe the guy did a fairly reasonable job of that landing, under those conditions.

[con-pilot]

I was expecting a much worse landing, considering the conditions, I don't see anything wrong with the landing. In conditions like that, once you are in the ground effect, it becomes much more manageable.

As for the 737 that went around, it had winglets, although my experience in aircraft with winglets is limited to small jets, Lear 28 and Westwind II, I noticed that the winglets do effect the handling of the aircraft is strong cross winds, until one becomes use to the winglets and their effects.

[Intruder]

Given the wind gusts and attitude excursions, I assume he had significant excess airspeed. The bounce was high, but not violent, and the recovery and second touchdown were reasonable. I suspect he still had Vref or above on the 2nd touchdown...

[Yeelep]

Auto speedbrakes on the 737-800 requires Radio Altimeter of 10 feet or less and Main Landing Gear on ground or MLG wheel spin up and speed brake armed and both thrust levers at idle. This will drive the flight spoilers up and arm the ground spoilers which will deploy when the Right MLG compresses, moving a push/pull cable to mechanically open a interconnect valve that ports hydraulic pressure to the ground spoilers.
In addition the JAL 737 in the video looks like it is a Short Field Performance aircraft. On those planes the push/pull cable also triggers solenoid operated valves on all the flight spoilers that further drives them up. SFP fight spoilers will extend 23° to 27° further than non SFP planes.