heavy landing
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heavy landing
heard the pilot asking ground engineers to check his craft since he had made a heavy landing. does the aircraft have a measuring device on the oleos to measure degree of heaviness ? after a heavy landing , how does one check for structural damage without openning the whole thing up ?. .. .prasanna
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I am not a jet pilot personally, just yet, but I believe acft have a G-Meter which registers load being exerted on the gear. After a certain value a check is required to attain structual integrity. . .Of course this may all be b####s so if a real jet pilot could answer it would appreciated by prasanna as well as myself.
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Following a 'heavy landing' report, the Flight Data Recorder will be downloaded and read, and this will provide some information relating to the heaviness of the landing. Most big aircraft will record 'g' on the FDR, though the sensors are not designed specifically for measuring the heaviness of a landing, so the data must be correctly interpreted. It's a good guide, though.. .. .The 'heavy landing check' will be detailed in the aircraft maintenance manual (a document pilots do not usually use or see) and will involve a visual inspection of the aircraft structure. 'Damage' will usually be identified by cosmetic damage such as folding and creasing in the skin, or other disruptions, which will lead to a further investigation to evaluate structural damage.. .. .BTW, interesting that you 'overheard' the pilot saying this. It's a no-no to let passengers know of such concerns, as compensation claims for lower back injuries will follow.
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Prasanna,. .. .The A330 will print out a g-load report on the cockpit printer if we manage to exceed set parameters on landing. This leads to a heavy landing check. Big brother is watching us!. .. .We can also check the g-loads on any landing by calling up a load report <15> on the CIDS. Handy for checking how smooth my landings are *NOT*! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> . .. .The actual heavy landing check involves a great deal, I guess any engineers out there would be able to help more than me.. .. .Cheers.. . . . <small>[ 04 March 2002, 10:51: Message edited by: Busta Level ]</small>
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The Airbus A320 Family of aircraft have an 'on board maintenance system'(OMS),part of which is the CFDS 'centralised fault display system'.. .At the end of each flight, Reports are printed automatically after landing.The report first lists the ECAM warnings,then FAULT messages.. .One of these messages is known as a <Load 15> report,if you get one of these then you've just had a 'Hard' landing!!. .From the information provided by this message the Engineers know what to checkout for further serviceability.
Who needs high tech??? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="confused.gif" /> . .. .Back in the Good Old Days the DC8 50 series had little vertical strips of Al on the bottom of the oleos. Bent strip = hard landing check. We groundies called them "lie detectors". <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />
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NorthernSky.. Flying into Jersey a while back in a 757 the Captain warned us all that as it was a very short runway the landing would be "deep" and we shouldn't worry. "Deep" wasn't the word which immediately sprang to mind - I expected to find we were in Australia!! Seriously, it was good of him to warn us as my wife has a very dodgy back and she was able to brace herself accordingly.
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I'm no expert in any way but I was taught a few tricks to use on the preflight. One of these is to look along the fuselage and other bits and see how the light reflects. In this way you may be able to see small deformations.. .. .I worked at a flying school many years ago and remember a rather disturbing incident. A Seneca was brought out of the hangar after maintenance and my colleague was asked to collect it. When he climbed on to the wing and opened the door he noticed that the door touched the engine cowling in an unusual way. He showed this to the mechanic who immediately took the aeroplane back into the hangar.. .When the mechanic measured the rigging of the aeroplane he found that the right engine hung a bit down. Too little to see but still there. Also, the right main landing gear had been bent forwards so it could not retract into the well.. .It turned out that someone had made a hard landing without saying anything.. .My collueague was assigned the not so enviable task of ferrying the aeroplane to a workshop that could mend the aeroplane and he said afterwards that it taxied like a shopping cart.
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I am pretty sure the degree of how hard the landings are on a 737-2 is revealed by how many oxygen masks and ceiling pannels have moved from their stowed positions. No fancy electroic sensors, just good old fashioned Newtons law of 'action & reaction'.. .Just for your info I have three masks to my name.
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I recently did an investigation into a heavy landing of an MD-83, catastrophic but thankfully no fatalities. With regards to whether there are instruments to detect the heaviness of the landing there were none here as with most older aircraft, but the info from fdr provides velocities, control surface deflections, rates of descent etc. though the sampling rates can be as low as 4 hertz. This info can be put into a Gods hand type computer program which drives a model of the aircraft according to the inputs and calculates impacts/g loadings etc. With regards to inspection without opening up the whole thing there is a method called the barkhaussian noise effect, which is a probe that passes a current through the surface of the metal and any below surface cracks (due to fatigue and /or heavy landings) will show up as a high resistance so you don't even need to remove paint. If you're talking about inspection on the walk around (without such equipment) I'd go with TheMagus, but be careful on your interpretation as sometimes it can just be a dent.. . <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />
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Cool_Hand is quite right, if you see something that looks like a structural deformation, ask an expert. It may quite well be completely harmless.. .. .I once happened to see the sun reflected in the fuselage skin of a B757 in such a way that I could clearly see that the aft part hung a bit down. As I knew that particular 757 had once had the nose gear knocked up through the floor I pointed it out to a mechanic. His reply was that the sag is quite normal and he said that the fuselage would straighten out when it was pressurised.
