PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - High winds at Schipol. What a landing!
View Single Post
Old 11th Aug 2015, 17:16
  #71 (permalink)  
silvertate
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Brussels
Posts: 131
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
TWR reported wind shortly before landing at RWY27: 300 deg, 33 knots, gusting 48

So they had a crosswind component of 16 knots gusting 22 knots on rwy 27. As usual the Daily Mail making news out of nothing.

That is not the full story.

At AMS with strong westerly winds, low level turbulence is always to be expected. It is written on the 27 Jepp plate.

The problem at AMS is the sand dunes on the beach, which are just high enough to set the low level wind bouncing. Ask any glider pilot - a small rounded hill can often produce more rotor than a craggy hill or mountain. So yes, this approach probably did experience severe low level turbulence.

Was their an element of PIO? Probably. Many pilots do not react quickly enough, and don't realise that a big aircraft will fly in and out of one region of turbulence and into its diametric opposite partner in an instant. And if you are late correcting, you end up correcting at completely the wrong moment, when the turbulence was correcting the roll itself anyway. And the result is unnecessary wing waggling.

Unfortunately, Sims are not good at replicating this, so it is difficult to train for. And unless you are a UK pilot (lots of runways not aligned with the prevailing wind), you might not have much experience of it.

Tate
silvertate is offline