[s-cars] Fw: Watch Narrow escape

CaptMagu at aol.com CaptMagu at aol.com
Tue Mar 4 08:10:26 PST 2008


Jerry, Joe, Calvin and Tom

I am typically reluctant to chime in about fellow pilots but I just have to 
say a few words. First of all, if the pilot scraped a wing during the attempt 
to land then he is at fault period. No matter what the tower was reporting the 
winds to be, only the Captain on board the aircraft is held responsible for 
his or his copilot's actions. 

Second, the reaction of the aircraft to the pilots inputs were very 
predictable. There are a myriad of reactions that a swept wing turbine goes through 
when landing in a crosswind. I won't bore everyone to   death but the maneuvers 
that were botched were the de-crab and the flare for landing. In the de-crab 
the pilot transitions from an angled approach to a wing low attitude while 
alligned with the runway. This puts the aircraft in a wings level slip with, in 
this case, left rudder and right aileron inputs to keep the aircraft going down 
the centerline of the runway. This also creates a big increase in drag with all 
these control surfaces deployed. This extra drag can cause a pilot to 
actually add power for landing. If he doesn't he starts to drop and that further 
exacerbates the next challenge while flaring for the landing.

During the flare, there is a positive change in attitude to transition from a 
descnding glide slope angle to a level attitude for landing. If there is a 
crosswind present, then the upwind wing, the right wing in this case, has a 
higher angle of attack because of the apparent wind going over that swept back 
upwind wing that creates extra lift. That's what happens as that right wing lifts 
up and he drags the left wing tip. The same diferential of lift can happen as 
the crosswind component changes while the angle or intensity of the crosswind 
changes. 

This is a simple case of the pilot getting behind on his aircraft control. He 
should have strated his goaround earlier or he should have diverted.

Hap, wit moh dakine landings than he can remember not from Evahboost, Maguire



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