http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X_7X...eature=related
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WOW glad I'm flying any time soon!
All is not what is seems in the video. I was a pilot, I had my instrument rating, and multi-engine ratings, besides the basic pilots license.
The two most critical time in flying is at take-off, and at landing. But first a some explainations on how a pilot controls the flight of the plane.
The yoke wheel controls the pitch of the airplane (nose up, nose down), it also controls the rudder, angling the nose to the right or left The feet pedals control control the brakes when on the ground and in the air they control the wing tips in turns.
When taking off and landing, there iis ground wind disturbances that have to be compensated for. The take off and landings are with the airplane facing into the wind, but the wind directions is not usually the same as the runways, so there is cross winds to take into consideration.
There are also fluxes in the wind because of buidlings at the airport or burmes causing disruptions in the wind speed flow.
Lift is controled by the throttle, more throttle the plane rises, reduce the throttle the plane descends. There is also the torque of the engine that effects the plane, the engine and blades cause the plane to want to spin like a top in one directions, while they spin in the opposet direction.
When landing and there is a cross wind (99.9 percent of the time there is a cross wind. As pilot you have two choices of approach, either have the plane nose in alignment with the runway, and drift is from the side (allowing the cross wind to push your plane into alignment with the runway at landing. The other way is to keep your planes flight path in alignment with the center line of the runway, crabbing your plane to come in with the nose pointed off center toward the direction of the wind.
While you are controling all of that, you are adjusting your power settings and blade pitch controls to maintane the proper glide slope so your planes wheel and the touchdown point meetup.
All of those videos shots where normal landings by skilled pilots who where doing what they were trained to do, fly the plane......
The first two video segments showed strong cross winds at landing, In the first video the crosswind was causing the right wing to tip up, and the pilot compensated with the ailerons on the wing tips as he kept the pland flight path lined up with the centerline of the runway.
The second video, the pilot was landing with a cross wind, with ground wind disturbances from building on the airfield causing random gusts of wind. This effected his planes decent slope, and missing the touchdown spot, so he did the correct thing by applying power to the engine and doing a a go a round and aborting the landing sequence....
The last video segment was a typical cross wind landing where there were no ground disturbances, keep the plane crabbed into the wind, and only at touchdown, when the wheels were on the ground lightly applied brake pressure to the right wheel to turn the axis of the nose to alingment with the runway.
All of these where text book landing attempts, nothing scary about any of them...... ~Parnelli
Note Flaps on the airplain are use at take off and at landing to allow the airplane to have more lift over the wing surface, while at slower airspeeds.
Normal landing? Can't say I have ever had any plane I've been in pitch that far while I was in it. The one 3/4 way through the video the wing tip even touched the ground it pitched so hard. If that is what you call a normal landing I don't think I would ever step foot in another plane ever again lol.
Steve
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
If you have never taken pilot training, you would not ever understand, that you are always at risk to the weather and circumstance. Unlike driving a vehicle on the highway, where the nose of the car is always facing in alignment with the road, in flying the nose is always pointed toward where the wind is coming from to counter the sideway movement of the airplane while flying in the air. So the flight path on the ground is not the same direction as the nose of the airplane. Also the airspeed over the wings, that is register by the petto tube on the airplane, is not the same ground speed the airplane is traveling above. Also you have to determine the fuel consumption of your airplane by the power setting, gallons of fuel/hour of flight, then calculated the ground speed reduction because of head winds, or add because of tail winds. When I flew I had a clipboard that fit over my leg, that had a navigaional map of the ground and so I could maintain my planned flight path, as well as doing time checks to see the land distance cover versus the time of flight. There is a lot more to flying an airplane than driving a car..... plus you have to always be scanning the sky for other airplanes......plus do radio checks with ground stations when you enter or leave a given FAA Control Centers Jurisdiction.
You also have to always be prepared for engine failure (happened to me twice, fuel line blockage for one incident and the other the throttle cable broke), both times the engine conked out and I became a glider pilot., and you have to put on full flaps, and adjust the pitch of the nose, and find a landing spot while keeping the air speed over the wings up to maintain flight. I safely landed my Cessna 150 both times and was able to correct the problem and then take off, landing at the nearest airport to have a license mechanice recertify the plane. Luckly both farms where I landed had driveways long enough for takeoff once I corrected the problem. Flying is not the same as driving a car, you cannot just pull over to the side of the road, get out and open the hood to see what is wrong.....
Bottom Line: Flying is still a lot safer than driving a car on the road...... ~Parnelli
A good landing is when you can use the airplane again! Whadaya think?
This is an amazing video, although not the one I meant to post. That said at 64 years of age the whole concept of the difference in air pressure above and below the wings keeping a machine the size of the modern aircraft in the air is incredible to me. And then there's helicopters, 35,000 parts flying in close formation that beat the air in to submission.