Last week we visited DC and spent some time over at Gravelly Point..a great place to watch planes arriving and departing from Washington National airport. Spent many a day there as a kid. Nice brisk crosswind was blowing (nearly 30 mph). Some planes were electing to land on 33 to knock down some of the crosswind component..but most accepted the straigh-in to 1. Some interesting landings. Just prior to me starting to video an aircraft blew two tires landing due to the crosswinds. Saw two go around when crews realized the conditions were beyond the crosswind capability of their aircraft..





BeachAV8R

Wow, at the 7 second mark I am sure some passengers had some white knuckles...

Yeah..I'm sure if you were sitting in the most aft seat it was a pretty exciting ride in both pitch and yaw..

They did pay for a ride. Looks like fun.

Might have needed smelling salts to wake me up after we landed since I probably would have passed out...


Wheels

Reminds me a bit of a landing I had going into St Louis once . . . storm was coming in and we were the last flight to land before they closed the field. We had so much yaw coming in I could see the runway from my cabin seat . . .

It's never good when you're sitting at a window seat an approach and you can see right down the runway.

Can't help that they're landing on a mirror surface!

It always amazes me when I see these and the runway has a distinct dip in it from all the landings. You don't get that stuff in simulations.

I hate landing in crosswinds. I like the crabbing, but don't care for that last couple of feet.

Technically aren't all landings good until the last couple of feet?

Crosswinds here get so bad they are often forced to close down because of what seem like acceptable weather conditions from the ground. A friend of mine who used to enjoy flying was traumatised for years after a particularly shaky landing coming back from London, when the BA Airbus she was on nearly ended up in the drink...

Cheers

Nico

I've never actually witnessed the last couple feet of my landings. My eyes are closed...

Wheels

I seriously have tears in my eyes on that comment.

Bullet

Or needed a change of underwear.

Hey Beach you would have enjoyed some of the things I used to do back in the good old days, to get the job done.
I remember that for the best part of a week I had to go into an airport on one of the runs in a Metro 2.
The problem was that there was 30 kts of crosswind and the Metro is only rated for 20 kts, so it was going to be a bit of a handful getting it onto the runway.
What I found worked was to crab it in (looking out the side window) then during the flare give it full rudder and drop the upwind wing as much as I dared - any more than what I had and I was worried it'd hit the ground - then as that still wasn't enough to get it straight on the centreline I'd cut the downwind engine's throttle back to idle and that was enough to yaw it around straight for landing. Once on the ground it was arms & legs going flat-out everywhere to keep it straight, and of course lots of asymmetric reverse thrust.
Would have looked interested from the outside.

lol,

I have a different approach, i just constantly yell the last 20 feet......


..... C'mon autopilot..... C'MON AUUUUTOPILOT.... Oh god please flare !!!!!


lol

Nice vid