LH A320 Rough Landing @ Hamburg

[Chris Scott]

Gusts. Flaps 3? "Bumping" stick to hold sideslip.

Quotes from Lemurian:
(1) a careful observation of the origin of the difficulties they encountered, i.e the movement of the aircraft to the left at time-frame 30s, while the wings were level, with a drift angle that - until this moment - perfectly controlled the centerline tracking, should teach us some humility.
(2) According to Airbus recommendations, it is quite obvious that the crew elected to land with flaps in CONFIG 3. Fair enough. Problem is that in that configuration, the behaviour of the aircraft in control response is with a faster response, both in pitch (flare is *flatter, shorter *) and in roll (*faster, more incisive* )... The pilot had an airplane that's quite different than he is used to.
(3) "Two points however; first, as the Airbus uses roll rate for the ailerons the pilot cannot HOLD the sidestick in the crossed control position. The sidestick must be released once the bank angle is established. Think of “bumping” in the needed bank. It is more intuitive than it sounds!"
[Unquote]

(1) I agree. Have said as much in at least one of my posts [#420, Mar09/00:12]:
...the roll-rate seems to increase quite suddenly half way through de-crab, at about the time the A/C leaves the ground in bounce. prior to that, I can see negative and positive gusts at around 50ft. ***

(2) If they were using "Flaps" 3, your comment is spot-on relevant, and was something I grumbled about for many years on the A320.
Also, I have a perception that the control laws may be slightly different for Flap 3, because it is a setting also used for take-off.
The other differences include higher pitch-attitude, and lower thrust - particularly with GS-Mini doing its job. Why do we not also practise Flaps 3 landings occasionally in calm weather?
You will, no doubt, catch up on the previous posts in due course.
Here is a link to another thread - the "Iberia Aborted Landing in Bilbao". There is much interesting discussion on it about A320 crosswind technique. Also see my posts #56 & #73.
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...=iberia+bilbao

(3) I think the text you quote is also absolutely spot-on. I'm sure we do it without even realising it.


*** [Editorial] The loss of tracking at about 50 ft should have provoked an immediate go-around, in my opinion. You cannot fly upwind so close to the ground in a limiting crosswind. If you needed to correct a bit downwind, that might be a different matter.