LH A320 Rough Landing @ Hamburg

[Chris Scott]

A320 Crosswind Landing Technique - from the horse's mouth

Quote from Che Guevara:
Hopefully this will clear up some of the misconceptions etc.
http://www.airbus.com/en/corporate/ethics/safety_lib/
[Unquote]

It needs to be pointed out that this document is NOT specific to Airbus-FBW, but includes ALL Airbus types.

Quote from the Airbus document:
"During the flare, rudder should be applied as required to align the aircraft with the runway heading. Any tendency to roll downwind should be counteracted by an appropriate input on the sidestick (or control column, as applicable)"
[Unquote]

Notice anything significant?
Airbus makes no distinction between their FBW types and their predecessors (A300/310).

Continuing the same quote from the Airbus document:
"With higher crosswind (above 15 kt to 20 kt component), a safe landing requires:
– A crabbed-approach, and
– A partial decrab prior to touchdown, using a combination of bank angle and crab angle (achieved by applying cross-controls).
"On most Airbus models, this requires touching down with:
– Maximum 5 degrees crab angle, and
– Maximum 5 degrees of bank angle."
[Unquote]

Later quote from the Airbus document:
"In a high crosswind, cross controls may have to be maintained after touchdown to prevent the into-wind wing from lifting and to counteract the weathercock effect... (etc.)..."
[Unquote. It goes on to discuss the effects of reverse-thrust and brakes.]

So, you Airbus-sceptic 737 drivers (bigots excepted), does all the above sound strangely familiar ?

The A320 is just another aeroplane. In a limiting crosswind, you can have just as much fun de-crabbing and chucking her bang on the centreline – with crossed controls and a little bit of into-wind bank – as you can on the 737. But - like any aeroplane - if you get it wrong, or the wind gusts way outside limits – mother nature will always win.

NOW: can the morons stop slagging this crew off? They can see the video just as well as we can. How many of us have, in the past, been subjected to this kind of ill-informed public scrutiny when we made one of our less tidy landings?

Let he or she who is perfect cast the first stone...