A touch windy at Manchester Airport yesterday

[mybrainhurts]

Spent an hour under the approach to Manchester Airport yesterday, sitting in the car as the wind howled away.

It was quite interesting. I'm guessing there were a few brown trousers up there..

No names, but one :coughRyanAircough: aircraft took three attempts to get it on the deck. Coming from Bergamo. Anybody here on board?

The A380 coming in sideways is quite a sight...

[0a]

Any pictures? Sounds fun!

[C3BER]

The brown stains were in the tower. Go no go, go no go, go ooooooohhhhh.

[BliarOut]

Is that where they suddenly appear over the roof of the house at the end of the runway?

[boobles]

Do you also go train spotting?

Got any pics of the planes?

[C3BER]

BliarOut said:

Is that where they suddenly appear over the roof of the house at the end of the runway?

I'm guessing it will be which is just up from the garden centre.

[mattviatura]

A few weeks ago, last time there were high winds, I was in the car park at John Lewis (very close to the airport for anyone who doesn't know) when an A320 aborted overhead. Makes a bit of a racket doesn't it?

[scarebus]

shame there isn't more footage, the only one I could find is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGffxoe0tc

Dash8 Q4 at EDI

[matrignano]

I flew into London City airport yesterday morning, in a Bombardier turboprop.
We circled around London for 30 mins as we trying descending a couple of times but couldn't get anywhere near the airport due to the very high cross-winds.

We finally made an attempt at landing (successfully, in the end), we were rolling and pitching all the way down, nobody murmuring a single word, and as we approached the landing strip we must have been at a 10+ degree angle from the ground! Pilot only managed to straighten the plan a few seconds before touching the ground.

I really thought we would roll into a thunderball and explode in a million bits....Never been scared of flying, but yesterday definitely gave me some cold sweats and a nauseating feeling!

[Prawo Jazdy]

matrignano said:

as we approached the landing strip we must have been at a 10+ degree angle from the ground! Pilot only managed to straighten the plan a few seconds before touching the ground.

That's probably intentional. Think of trying to cross a river in a canoe without wanting to travel downstream any distance. You'll point the canoe slightly upstream so that the net effect of your paddling is to travel horizontally. Now imagine there's a little berth in the other bank that's the exact width of the canoe. Just before you reached it you'd have to kick the thing straight again.

The plane needs to fly an approach lined up with the centreline of the runway, but because of the crosswind, you have to point the nose into wind and 'crab' slightly in order to stay on that centreline. However, when you get to the surface, you need the wheels to be pointing in the same direction as the runway, so they straighten it up. Either that, or you could fit shopping trolley wheels to your plane, a la B52, and land sideways.

[mybrainhurts]

C3BER said:

BliarOut said:

Is that where they suddenly appear over the roof of the house at the end of the runway?

I'm guessing it will be which is just up from the garden centre.

Yes...junction of Shadowmoss Road and Ringway Road. The latter cuts through the landing lights and you can stand directly below the flight path.

No pictures, I was meeting someone and killing time.

Some pictures from a while ago, showing how close you can get...










And here's a moff ---->

[Theflyer]

Indeed it was good fun out there !

[captainflynn23]

matrignano said:

We finally made an attempt at landing (successfully, in the end), we were rolling and pitching all the way down, nobody murmuring a single word, and as we approached the landing strip we must have been at a 10+ degree angle from the ground! Pilot only managed to straighten the plan a few seconds before touching the ground.

To compensate for a crosswind we point the nose into wind enough to counteract the drift (we can work wind drift angle out on our CRP1 or CRP5 depending on license) Infact, you dont realise it but even in the cruise the aeroplane operates in a 'crabbing' fashion. You would need near to no wind at all in order to fly a selected heading without needing to compensate for drift. The stronger the wind and closer it is to a complete crosswind the more our crab angle is. I think in general most airliners have a max crosswind limit of a constant 35kts but can handle gusts above.

During training back in 2005 I flew out of Perranporth with an instructor with winds gusting up to 50kts. Very very challenging.

Although what you must remember is that airline pilots deal with this sort of weather more than most because of course for most part of the year they take off from a UK airport with light to mod winds but that doesnt mean they are encountering the same light winds wherever they are heading off to. It could be blowing a gale at their destination. So fear not, pilots experience these conditions regularly enough for it not to be a 'surprise'

And every pilot has been taught from day one - if you're not happy with the approach, go around. Its the right and safe thing to do.

[mybrainhurts]

Theflyer said:

Indeed it was good fun out there !

What was wrong with the Ryanair driver who went round twice..? Woman driver..??

[Theflyer]

captainflynn23 said:

So fear not, pilots experience these conditions regularly enough for it not to be a 'surprise'

I would disagree, I think pilots do find it a surpirse, but fear not , the pilots aren't out of their depth when it does happen.

It's nothing pilots can't handle.

The A380 is extremely stable in these conditions, I just love it, such minor adjustments required.

[captainflynn23]

mybrainhurts said:

What was wrong with the Ryanair driver who went round twice..? Woman driver..??

They could of been caught by severe turbulence or just unhappy with the approach. Its good practice to go around. Trying to be macho gets you killed.

[mybrainhurts]

captainflynn23 said:

mybrainhurts said:

What was wrong with the Ryanair driver who went round twice..? Woman driver..??

They could of been caught by severe turbulence or just unhappy with the approach. Its good practice to go around. Trying to be macho gets you killed.

Twice..? I'll go with the woman driver theory..

[captainflynn23]

Theflyer said:

I would disagree, I think pilots do find it a surpirse, but fear not , the pilots aren't out of their depth when it does happen.

It's nothing pilots can't handle.

Not really a surprise to be honest. When you get strong winds its often coupled with turbulence. I've never been surprised when i've flown around in windy weather, you know what you get from it. Like you say, its nothing pilots cant handle.

[captainflynn23]

mybrainhurts said:

Twice..? I'll go with the woman driver theory..

haha Yes, twice is acceptable. I remember back in the 90's listening to a flight trying to get into Luton when winds were gusting 60kts. They said if they couldnt make it down on the third attempt they'd divert to Stansted. They made it down safely.
Coincidently that night heathrow was using runway 23 (rarely used apart from when we had southerly/southwesterly gales but has since been decommisioned as of 2005) and even they had a few go arounds, some of which went around over my house (I lived in Southall at the time)

[T84]

One of my friends flew to Toronto and said the turbulance from the UK end was so bad he actually almost left his seat (With the seatbelt on), another one flew back from Spain and said they had to assume the brace position on the way in.

I'm flying back in 3 weeks, and I absolutely HATE flying

Sorry, "back" is the UK from Canada...

Edited by T84 on Thursday 5th January 03:30