A350 at Stornoway

[MacSheikh]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-37998490

Interestingly not in Iceland for a change!
Also noting the crab angle. The Airbus I fly states; the flight crew can land the aircraft with a partial de-crab up to 5 degrees!

[Groundloop]

Now that's what I call a touch-and-go - the nosewheel didn't even touch down!

[cats_five]

It's hard to judge the exact crab angle from a photo taken a long way away with a very long lens.

[DaveReidUK]

If you're looking straight down the runway it's pretty simple to estimate the drift angle regardless of the length of your lens, and only slightly more difficult if your view is offset.

[FixClrEnt]

Touch & go, that was almost no more than a bounce!

[fantom]

Dreadful. The shock to the gear...

I won't even start...

[Canute]

fantom

Have you considered the possibility that the Airbus pilots might know what they are doing?

[ian16th]

Is this a stupid question?
Its crew flew to the island to train in the strong cross winds that are frequently experienced there, BBC Scotland understands.If the strong cross winds are frequent, shouldn't they have laid out the runway differently?

Or maybe an additional runway, the old RAF WWII triangle had its reasons.

[G-ARZG]

Keflavik is unavailable for such test flights at present, I believe, while its runways are reworked...

[fantom]

fantom

Have you considered the possibility that the Airbus pilots might know what they are doing?

Canute,

Have you considered the possibility that I have trained more pilots on their very first flights in the REAL aircraft (320 and 330) than you have had hot dinners?

[piesupper]

If the strong cross winds are frequent, shouldn't they have laid out the runway differently?

Or maybe an additional runway, the old RAF WWII triangle had its reasons.
Sorta like this?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Stornoway/@58.2137733,-6.3404756,14z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x488df62b2db34463:0x6e882fc0d2562e71!8m2!3d 58.209435!4d-6.3848692!6m1!1e1

[Mr Magnetic]

Have you considered the possibility that I have trained more pilots on their very first flights in the REAL aircraft (320 and 330) than you have had hot dinners?

Seems unlikely...

[jaytee54]

We used 07/25 occasionally in the Budgie days, but I'm not sure that the third side of the triangle remained in use even then.

[M.Mouse]

Dreadful. The shock to the gear...

To quote from both the Boeing 787 and B777 Flight Crew Training Manual:

The airplane(sic) can land using crab only (zero sideslip) up to the landing crosswind guideline speeds.

It goes on to mention that it is not recommended in strong crosswinds on a dry runway but purely for the reason that the aircraft lateral deviation on touchdown in this condition is large.

While it is clear that the stresses on the undercarriage when landing like this are large clearly the design caters for such stresses. It may not look elegant, it may be less comfortable but it is certainly acceptable if the manufacturer says you can do it.

I presume if the aircraft which is the subject of this thread was being operated by Airbus themselves then their airframes are also capable of landing safely with crab.

[Meester proach]

Fantom,
They'll be better at it than you as they are Airbus test pilots and thus closer to godlike than you will ever achieve

[Good Business Sense]

Go on Fantom .... why don't you start.... enlighten us

.... from somebody who has high five figures in A330, 340, 747 TRI/E

[DaveReidUK]

I'd happily fly with him - if he thinks landing gears are that fragile, his touchdowns must be super-smooth. :O

[Coochycool]

Might I humbly proffer that it was likely a deliberate act to test the gear in that exact circumstance?

Good old non-destructive testing in action.

Great looking jet.

[BCAR Section L]

Didn't even move the scale in terms of gear performance.
Best regards from a Gloucester based landing gear engineer

[fantom]

OK I give up.

[RAT 5]

Now that's what I call a touch-and-go - the nosewheel didn't even touch down!

That's the bit, as a Boeing driver, that I found interesting. Thrust at idle, I assume, nose off the ground, and the GA power. Tail did not smack the tarmac. Was that the pilot or Hal?

[M.Mouse]

OK I give up.

I was looking forward to hearing exactly what you meant by 'Dreadful'.

[FlightDetent]

RAT5: pilot, given the design logic ... but maybe then A350 has some sort of tailstrike protections? Entirely programmable.

[tdracer]

Fantom, your posts demonstrate a shocking lack of awareness of what flight testing is all about. Like M. Mouse, I was curious just exactly what you meant by "Dreadful".
How do you think Airbus (and Boeing) come up with things like crosswind/tailwind limitations, or recommendations on how to deal with them? You think it's all done in a simulator?
I suspect the A350 in question is heavily instrumented to determine just what loads are being applied during the crosswind testing, and the resultant data is being thoroughly analyzed to determine what goes in the AFM.

[FlightDetent]

Didn't even move the scale in terms of gear performance.
Best regards from a Gloucester based landing gear engineer If you would ... What are the critical design loads / manouvres the L/G is supposed to withstand? In the context of this thread, in lateral in particular.

[BCAR Section L]

Not that it will help you or is even possible to reproduce the hundreds of pages of landing gear design/performance/test criterion here.

However this should calm your fears that the gear may have suffered significant damage/stress: "the design must include taking into account the most severe combination of loads that are likely to arise during a lateral drift landing".

Gears do take a little more than 5 minutes to design and designers are well aware of what a landing gear will encounter during its life time.

[Chris Scott]

I'm inclined to sympathise with fantom's comments. Unfortunately, the video only starts after the a/c has crossed the runway threshold, so the critical last mile or so of the approach is not shown.

However, the a/c looks as if it may have drifted left (downwind) of the extended runway centreline during the approach. That's a common mistake (we've all done it). My guess is that it was still recovering the error as it passed over the threshold.

For a crabbed approach (i.e., one without sideslipping) in a long-bodied a/c, the cockpit has to be positioned significantly upwind of the centreline if the main gear is to be over the centreline. During de-crab, the main gear won't move sideways much, being near the C of G. The nose will regain the centreline.

The right main-wheel bogie/truck seems to touchdown close to the centreline. Because the a/c is tracking towards the centreline, however, the error is corrected during the de-crab.

IMO, the main-gear drift at touchdown is probably more than the pilot had in mind. But, as the runway is damp-to-wet, some of it may have been planned.

[Groundloop]

If Fantom thinks that was bad, what about Boeing test pilots:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z2LtHrn9Jw

It's all part of the certification process.