A380 'Hovering'

[Dubaian]

Video from Sky News.
https://news.sky.com/video/storm-dennis-etihad-plane-struggles-to-land-at-london-heathrow-airport-11935547

(If it also has an ad apologies)

[AndiKunzi]

Minimum Runway Occupancy Time.
(Or does it only look like taxiing on grass? German news Spiegel Online reported that the A380 came to stop on grass.)
Edit: obviously fake news by the Spiegel. The aircraft left the runway on a taxiway.

[B-757]

Video from Sky News.
https://news.sky.com/video/storm-dennis-etihad-plane-struggles-to-land-at-london-heathrow-airport-11935547

(If it also has an ad apologies)
​​​​​​..I am impressed.. Not because of the landing, but the landing gear not collapsing..

Fly safe,
B-757

[gearlever]

A little late with the rudder?

[Midland 331]

Painful to watch.

[Xulu]

Painful to watch.

It's ok. Social Media has branded them as heroes.

[Normal Pilot]

Sky reporting that they taxied on the grass???

[fantom]

That is close to criminal. As a Base Trainer, I would have chopped a trainee for that.

[Meester proach]

It’s a crosswind landing .

probably better without the commentary from Del Boy,who seems to sit and video all this stuff .

[Bravo Zulu]

That is close to criminal. As a Base Trainer, I would have chopped a trainee for that.

Well as a base trainer I'm sure you wouldn't be training in those conditions...
Also arnt you supposed to train a trainee not chop them... hence your title Training Capt?!

[olster]

That is close to criminal. As a Base Trainer, I would have chopped a trainee for that.

yup, incorrect technique.

[Normal Pilot]

What the landing or taxing on the grass?

[A320LGW]

That is close to criminal. As a Base Trainer, I would have chopped a trainee for that.

What about training them not to repeat it?

[JanetFlight]

Is this rumour and news or just another boring clip with a commercial aircraft doing a normal X-wind landing..???

[Magplug]

The problem with buying fleets of huge aeroplanes..... that you then fly around half empty..... is that they are a real PITA to land when it's windy!

It is soooo much easier when you have a full load.

[pax britanica]

For an ignorant but interested passenger what happens after landing like this which must put massive lateral strain on the gear. Does it get inspected as in a hard landing-too many Gs or are sideways forces not something to cause structural worry.

MInd you they wouldnt be shutting the prodcution line down if it really could hover would they

[gearlever]

Is this rumour and news or just another boring clip with a commercial aircraft doing a normal X-wind landing..???

I sincerely hope this is NOT a normal x-wind landing. Not in my book.

[JanetFlight]

Glad Media didnt see this one...

facebook.com/airsidesam/videos/vb.333939460851683/1503695903126530/?type=2&theater

https://www.facebook.com (https://www.facebook.com/airsidesam/videos/vb.333939460851683/1503695903126530/?type=2&theater) / airsidesam/videos/vb.333939460851683/1503695903126530/?type=2&theater

[fantom]

Well said BZ but that was excellent trg conditions. Having agreed that, the pilot needs to display the basics, not wreck the U/c.

[JanetFlight]

I sincerely hope this is NOT a normal x-wind landing. Not in my book.

Cool...you have a x-wind landing clip filming from the front and you say its gonna be different with you...?
Besides the fact i respect your post and your piloting techniques dont forget that Camera angles can do very nice tricks depending the perspective.

[Tobin]

Speaking as a passenger whose first reaction to that video was, "cool!", what is the problem everyone else seems to understand? Is it the strain on the landing gear? Is it the fact that they attempted a landing at all in these conditions? Is there something else about the technique that's wrong?

[student88]

Classically the technique is incorrect - however I have been reliably informed that the runway at LHR is considered narrow for an A380, and employing the correct technique in these challenging gusty conditions can increase the chance of striking the outermost engines on the ground. So it appears the 'safest' thing to do in conditions like these is to plant it on the deck and let physics take care of the rest.

[Fuzzy Duck]

From Flight Operations Briefing Notes ...”the objectives of the lateral control of the aircraft during the flare are to land in the centreline, and to minimise the liars on the main landing gear” Hmmm. 🤔
Well, he may have complied with the first part but as to the second...

[Fuzzy Duck]

Sorry, should have read “loads on the main landing gear”

[Deltasierra010]

Was it a wholly manual landing or part automatic with the pilot adjusting track
very deceptive cameras angle too

[VariablePitchP]

Was it a wholly manual landing or part automatic with the pilot adjusting track
very deceptive cameras angle too

It’ll be one or the other (99% chance it was manual), part automatics don’t really exist bar the autothrust.

[Bengerman]

First, fully manual landing, possibly using autothrust but equally possibly not.
Technique down to flare was good, then it turned to worms.
Start the flare and then kick off the crab, Try to touchdown pointing down the runway (Thats when its at its longest!!!).
Steer with rudder until nosewheel steering becomes effective.
The runway at LHR is not narrow for an A380, it is 60m wide! Where do you hear this drivel?

[ORAC]

For those who prefer not to use the Sky News link.

https://youtu.be/MeVEbYHmTcM

[Airbanda]

Was it a wholly manual landing or part automatic with the pilot adjusting track
very deceptive cameras angle too

Distance massively foreshortened by the telephoto effect.

[misd-agin]

Technique is not good if you're kicking the rudder, and then letting it go back to neutral, prior to cross controlling for the flare.

[beardy]

That is close to criminal. As a Base Trainer, I would have chopped a trainee for that.
I'm with you on that.

[Ancient-Mariner]

Is there an argument for future aircraft of A-380 size, having an under carriage which can be offset in a similar way to a B-52 for a crosswind landing?
Clive

[one dot right]

Cool...you have a x-wind landing clip filming from the front and you say its gonna be different with you...?
Besides the fact i respect your post and your piloting techniques dont forget that Camera angles can do very nice tricks depending the perspective.


janetflight, look at the Fu(£ing rudder inputs (just in case you don't know, you are supposed to remove the drift, not add to it)

totally agree with fantom and beardy.

[7478ti]

Well as a base trainer I'm sure you wouldn't be training in those conditions...
Also aren't you supposed to train a trainee... hence your title Training Capt?!
Does anyone know the reported and actual winds and gusts at the time?

[ZH871]

Disappointed in some of the comments on here.

It may have been a poor landing, but there's no need to imply that the PF should "face the chop" as a result.
In this career of professional like-minded people, I'm sure he will review this, learn from it, recognise this situation in the future, and respond to it better.

TVM,
ZH871

[ManaAdaSystem]

If you do a crosswind landing and you kick the rudder the wrong way... not pretty!

[fatbus]

The PF needs to be retrained .CM1 demoted . Absolutely incorrect technique used and very poor decision to continue to land . ZFT requires landing properly at max x cross wind

[7478ti]

After having done this many times in the Whale, up to 48 kts direct cross, including even with #1 or #4 shutdown, .... e.g., at KEF, ....both manually and with A/L, ...it would be my advice that one needs to know both the actual wind and gust environment, as well as the instantaneous drift rate and accelerations, and fuel state, and alternates state, and other factors too, ....so as to be able to make a reliable judgement about either pilot technique, use of rudder and lateral control, or flare technique. So... Perhaps an assessment might be best left to the crew's chief pilot to review all those kinds of parameters, as well as the DFDR data, before making any judgement, other than being thankful that in the end it apparently turned out to be a successful landing, with the aircraft appearing to be undamaged? Have we stopped giving the flight crews who were in the seat, at least the benefit of the doubt?

[RoyHudd]

Hey fantom, you weren't infallible. You scared me a couple of times, but I was in no position to chop you :)

[blue up]

Width of Heathrow runways is 50m, isn't it?

[7478ti]

9L/27R 12,799 x 164' (3901m x 50m)
9R/27L 12,008 x 164' (3660m x 50m)

by my old EGLL charts...

[OvertHawk]

Am I missing something here the Sky video is an obvious fake.A380 apparently skating over the grass at LHR is miraculous and would have made the mainstream media

I think what you're seeing is an illusion caused by the grass being slightly higher than the runway exit that the aircraft is actually on.

[RogueOne]

Width of Heathrow runways is 50m, isn't it?

Correct. 50m

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/529x256/27_37a5d9283f81e4ea1842d8d892e3856747d4cdb5.png

[fantom]

Hey fantom, you weren't infallible. You scared me a couple of times, but I was in no position to chop you :)
Well, you would have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble if you had !

[TyroPicard]

AFAIK the A380 is designed to land with drift on, the AP does not perform an ALIGN maneouvre until after touchdown so why should the pilot?
Never flown it but I have watched a x-wing landing at DXB on the pax video screen - in a lighter wind...

[PerPurumTonantes]

janetflight, look at the Fu(£ing rudder inputs (just in case you don't know, you are supposed to remove the drift, not add to it)

Big gust hits just before wheels on. Kicks rudder to compensate. Then wind suddenly drops and he runs out of lift. No time to de-crab or GA.

I don't buy "kicked rudder the wrong way" You just wouldn't. It's in muscle memory. You wouldn't turn a car steering wheel the wrong way, towards the thing you're trying to avoid.

[Doors to Automatic]

With regards to the runway width, it is reported as 50m but both LHR runways also have a shoulder for their entire original length (c 9000ft) which adds another 25m each side.

[HPSOV L]

For large Boeing aircraft at least, landing with crab only is an acceptable technique on a wet runway. It is the recommended technique on a very slippery runway.
The landing gear is easily capable of it.
There are plenty of videos on YouTube of 380s doing crosswind landings that look similar to this.
Bear in mind the telephoto lens effect exaggerates motion. And most of the rudder inputs you see are not the pilot but gust suppression / yaw damping automation.

[t1grm]

I saw this on Sky and was well impressed so thought I'd head over to pprune where I'm sure everyone will be slagging it off and saying what a hash of it the pilot had made. Wasn't disappointed.

[Callsign Kilo]

Another classic pprune thread :rolleyes: ...and I challenge anyone to ‘kick the rudder straight’ the next time they fly an airliner.....hopefully someone catches that on YouTube!

[Locked door]

We don’t “kick” commercial aircraft straight, we squeeze off the drift, and on appropriate types we can lower the in to wind wing too.

”Kicking” sounds so Daily Mail (or sky news).

[fdr]

Interesting set of viewpoints here.

If the group want to beat up the PIC and PF for this sort of video footage, they need to include the organisation that places the lump in this position. That is all of the flight operations organisation that sits above the driver, and the corporation that places the commercial pressure on the crew and the operations management.

Plane dealt with the issues pretty well all up, strong plane.

I can sympathise with the crew, I plonked a 744 into a certain airport once with a xw of 35K which was all well and good until the throttles were closed, and we got a gust of 64K of xw component. Total wind speed was over 80K on the gust. The drift angle increased so much that in the time it took to plonk on the ground I considered into wind rudder, or not, and in fact did put some in. I also considered a G/A, and decided that it would be just worse than the impending touchdown, and would not avoid ground contact. Rest of crew laughed their butts off on the taxi in. I got the QAR readout later and looked at it for a long time, but couldn't see a better solution on the day. The approach was within limits all the way until it wasn't and that was too low to avoid a touchdown from throttles closed. (I was the FO at the time)

The peak torsion loads are lessened in normal circumstances by having a yaw rate established towards the direction of travel. That usually removes the unpleasant lateral lurch that occurs when a touchdown with drift on occurs, with no yaw acceleration commenced.

[Loose rivets]

I don't think the 380 gives a lot of room for top rudder. :ooh:

It's the first time in my life I've sat and watched other people fly civil aircraft and really not wanted to be doing it. I imagine sneaking around on my preflight and gluing rollerskates under 2 and 3.

[fatbus]

AFAIK the A380 is designed to land with drift on, the AP does not perform an ALIGN maneouvre until after touchdown so why should the pilot?
Never flown it but I have watched a x-wing landing at DXB on the pax video screen - in a lighter wind...


Wrong ! Where did you get info regarding 380 landing . Without going into detail ," decrab " is the only approved x wind landing technique.

[MerrillParker]

From the Airbus Brochure "Safety First" #15 February 2013 © Airbus S.A.S.:

===========
FINAL APPROACH

In crosswind conditions, the flight crew should fly a "crabbed" final approach wings level, with the aircraft (cockpit) positioned on the extended runway centerline until the flare.

FLARE
The objectives of the lateral and directional control of the aircraft during the flare are:
• To land on the centerline
• To minimize the loads on the main landing gear.

The recommended de-crab technique is to use the following:
• The rudder to align the aircraft with the runway heading during the flare
• The roll control, if needed, to maintain the aircraft on the runway centerline.
The flight crew should counteract any tendency to drift downwind by an appropriate lateral(roll) input on the sidestick.

In the case of strong crosswind during the de-crab phase, the PF should be prepared to add small bank angle into the wind to maintain the aircraft on the runway centerline. The flight crew can land the aircraft with a partial de-crab (i.e. a residual crab angle up to about 5 deg) to prevent an excessive bank. This technique prevents wing tip or engine nacelle strike caused by an excessive bank angle. Therefore it is wise to know what the maximum bank angle is during the flare phase for the type you are flying so as to ensure no such strikes. As a consequence, this can result in touching down with some bank angle into the wind, therefore, with the upwind landing gear first.
===========

I will leave it to the professional pilots, engineers, and/or physicists to confirm/refute the PF met these Airbus parameters based only on this video evidence.

My opinion is that the crew did the best they could, with what they had, at the time they had it.

[Beamr]

. You wouldn't turn a car steering wheel the wrong way, towards the thing you're trying to avoid.
Ever heard of scandinavian flick?

[serf]

Mrs Serf was a passenger in this flight, she is a frequent flyer on this airline and others. Said it was a ‘firm’ landing....but not the worst she’d experienced.

[PoppaJo]

The only issue I see is they flared just a tad too early, which on the 380 makes the drift worse as there is no going back should you push ahead. I have no idea when they went idle power so hard to say of that’s another issue.

Rudder inputs are FBW on final not the pilot playing with their feet!

This will actually be a good video of the sensation of an early flare.

We we all have our good and bad days. I did something similar the other day. Whoopsy.

[Chris2303]

I guess that would have been somewhat uncomfortable down the back of the airplane

[masalama]

After having done this many times in the Whale, up to 48 kts direct cross, including even with #1 or #4 shutdown, .... e.g., at KEF, ....both manually and with A/L, ...it would be my advice that one needs to know both the actual wind and gust environment, as well as the instantaneous drift rate and accelerations, and fuel state, and alternates state, and other factors too, ....so as to be able to make a reliable judgement about either pilot technique, use of rudder and lateral control, or flare technique. So... Perhaps an assessment might be best left to the crew's chief pilot to review all those kinds of parameters, as well as the DFDR data, before making any judgement, other than being thankful that in the end it apparently turned out to be a successful landing, with the aircraft appearing to be undamaged? Have we stopped giving the flight crews who were in the seat, at least the benefit of the doubt?

Fully agree with what's been written by 7478ti. The posts calling for termination of the pilots or slagging off their technique :ugh: . We call ourselves professionals too , ironic .

[Lookleft]

I don't buy "kicked rudder the wrong way" You just wouldn't. It's in muscle memory. You wouldn't turn a car steering wheel the wrong way, towards the thing you're trying to avoid.

Don't be so sure. I have seen it done. A lot of pilots are still unsure how to use the rudder properly during a crosswind landing and think its just a fly by numbers exercise. The problem is if they pre-program their rudder input and use the wrong foot relative to the wind then it gets very ugly very quickly.

[cats_five]

Cool...you have a x-wind landing clip filming from the front and you say its gonna be different with you...?
Besides the fact i respect your post and your piloting techniques dont forget that Camera angles can do very nice tricks depending the perspective.

Yes. This was clearly taken with a very long lans, the foreshortening can be very misleading

[DaveReidUK]

We don’t “kick” commercial aircraft straight, we squeeze off the drift, and on appropriate types we can lower the in to wind wing too.

”Kicking” sounds so Daily Mail (or sky news).

Good luck trying to ban a term that's been around since Pontius was a pilot. :O

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/460x353/kod2_b834c2c51ae85abadc055a895f46450ced60aa6c.jpg

[Lake1952]

The tail camera on that flight gives a completely different perspective on this viral landing video. Sorry for new thread but previous thread was locked. Maybe all the critical viewpoints voiced on this board will revise their views.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHsMIdfD5Gg

[MechEngr]

The tail camera on that flight gives a completely different perspective on this viral landing video. Sorry for new thread but previous thread was locked.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHsMIdfD5Gg

The best part is the customer survey screen popping up just after the expletive in reaction to an unexpectedly (at least for that passenger) hard landing.

It could only have been better if Clippy had popped up with "It looks like you were rattled. Can I help draft a complaint?"

I do like the tail-top view.

[fdr]

The tail camera on that flight gives a completely different perspective on this viral landing video. Sorry for new thread but previous thread was locked. Maybe all the critical viewpoints voiced on this board will revise their views.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHsMIdfD5Gg


Lake, thanks greatly for sharing that video. Assuming that is the same flight, those in Etihad management should review their comments given that video, which will be consistent with the QAR data.

[Hotel_Mode]

Its not the same landing.

The video before was of A6-APJ (EY19) and this one is on board A6-API (EY25)

Its also pretty obvious that this one is de-crabbed before touchdown and the other one isnt.

[A320LGW]

Such a shame everyone was vying for blood.

The rush some of us experience when it comes to flogging our colleagues and seeking to elevate our own self worth through their misfortune is very sad. We are not supportive of each other as it should be, we rush to attack before ever thinking to defend. I hope the crew weren't reading the previous thread on this topic.

[Airbubba]

Lake, thanks greatly for sharing that video. Assuming that is the same flight, those in [redacted] management should review their comments given that video, which will be consistent with the QAR data.

The Boeing Training Manager wasn't too impressed with how they do it on the 'bus:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/690x578/a380_lhr_landing_701d2f4be85df2aae4ed2cbd6a3929f6ffd5b153.jp g

[Lake1952]

Just shows how the distortions from a telephoto lens which is way off the centerline of the runway completely changes the perception... parallax effect.