For those of you fascinated about airplanes...Great Video
 

This shows the Boeing factory determining the demonstrated crosswind landing limits on the 777 and the 747SP. The engineers make educated guesses, but then the test crews have to go actually prove the numbers. They sneak off to Brazil to do these tests at a certain remote BAFairbase famous for its continual atrocious crosswinds...Should the gear side loads be excessive and fold one up there is nobody there to take nasty pix for the Airbus guys to wave around in the press.

This is some good piloting in getting these planes down.

Next time your plane comes down sideways, you won't have to worry as much. Especially those SouthWest planes going to Vegas all day long.

http://www.motochat.com/videos/Crosswind_.wmv

cool video.. amazing they can land like that.

hey btw is the motocross team going to be here in Daytona for Bike Week?

The third one freaked me out... there's a huge jet slipping sideways, heading almost directly towards the people taking photos... they don't seem to care.

Watch the rudder go hard sideways in the fourth vid!

I've seen jets slip sideways as they approach but never so close to the runway. Those pilots must be damn good to line everything up, and manage to rotate the aircraft enough after the rear wheels touch that the front wheel ends up in the right spot. Truly amazing.

I find commercial passenger jets so graceful... seeing them land like that almost brings tears to my eyes, they are so beautiful... am I a freak or what? :1orglaugh

freak did you get my ICQ message eariler?

Holy shit, great video indeed Dave :thumbsup Im sending this one to my father in law, he was in the RAF years ago and when I used to live in London We would go to air shows, he is plane crazy lol.

I was on a flight to Bombay from London during there monsoon season and everyone on board thought We were finished , the 747 landed skating side ways, crazy I still love planes and flying.

good stuff indeed!

Here's an old 747 sideways landing from Kai-Tek (Hong Kong)

Whoa thats pretty crazy. Of course I am flying in 10 hours to Tahoe for my fathers Birthday.

it's the crab technique.. inch closer and closer to the runway then use full rudder once one wheel is on the ground... most landings have this to some degree however these are extreme cases obviously ;)

That path was necessary to clear surrounding buildings, right? I've seen photos of aircraft landing there that make it look like the pilot has majorly fucked up (like the wings leaning heavily, only one side of the wheels touching the ground), but I guess it was routine for that airport. :)

Yeah I've heard that is a routine landing for that airport. I don't think I'd want that for my first trip after getting out of pilot school. :upsidedow

They have since moved the airport. I landed there once at the old one and I could see inside people's apartments as we came down in between buildings almost like landing through a jungle canopy in a helicopter, seemed like we missed buildings by 100ft.

I made sure to have "Khe Sanh" by Cold Chisel playing "Only seven flying hours, and I'll be landing in Hong Kong" during the landing to help me relax. :winkwink:

Great music too. That reminded me I need to buy that Enigma song for my iPod. "Return to Innocence". That chant gives me goosebumps for some reason.

There's a feature that's been part of large military aircraft for many years that turn the main landing gear in the direction of flight to allow for crosswind landings. Lockheed invented it as I recall.

Boeing obviously is using it now. It all ties into the CADC, INS, and GPS. (I was an avionics tech in another life while in the USAF)

what's the title of that song?

yea I was looking at the landing gears on those planes in the vids. It looked to me that the gears were turned in the direction of the runway even though the plane was getting hit with the cross wind.

I think you'll find it's "Return to Innocence" :1orglaugh :winkwink:

http://theonenetwork.com/music_video...cence_300.html

Thanks,

No, the race team just travels to where the Supercross and outdoor nationals are at. I don't think they end up in Daytona.

Do you live there?

Not a freak at all, I love it just as much. My friends a pilot so he always sends me this stuff.

I think its fricken awesome.

Yea I'm about 10 mins from the speedway.. I thought they had a motocross race at the speedway during bikeweek, which is why I was asking.

WOW, that is crazy, must have been some crazy crosswinds.
Thanks for the link.

You could be right, is this bike week?
March 10 - Daytona Beach FL

That is when they are there.