[s-cars] NAC Fw: Watch Narrow escape

[Tom Green]

Our resident Captain provides his usual astute comments on the  
situation, although hesitant to criticize a fellow pilot in
obvious distress.

What's that N number on todays airplane, Hap?  Best do a good  
walkaround.  :-)  Back in service today?  They have
hardly had time to look at it, much less repair the wing scrape.

This really cracks me up.  "Those few seconds were indescribable" --  
no kidding.  Those 155 mph winds must have been
something -- was this airplane going forward or backwards?  Maybe  
Lufthansa will do a vector analysis for us.  As I said,
he is lucky that maneuver didn't rip the tail off.  There is no way  
to predict the instantaneous winds in gale conditions, but
I suspect the writer got carried away with the 155 mph.

Tom

  <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/weirdwiredweb/ 
february2008/germany.htm>

> Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:10:26 EST
> From: CaptMagu at aol.com
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] Fw: Watch Narrow escape
> To: jerryscott at wispertel.net, s-car-list at audifans.com
> Message-ID: <be9.2a83e815.34fece72 at aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> 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