There is some bashing against the pilot of that plane going on in the boulevard press in Germany. They keep pointing out that the pilot was a young women. She was second in command and no comments were made why the actual pilot did not fly the plane in that situation. However. habve a look at the two here : http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/vermischtes/2008/03/04/pilotin/hat-in-hamburg-flugzeug-bei-orkan-landung,geo=3926766.html Hartmut
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 21:15:29 -0600Subject: RE: [ercoupe-tech] Re: Importance of training in crosswind situations Robert,I'll agree with Bill here.You wrote:> When you watch the Lufthansa landing depicted on the news > and You Tube, the hairy part starts when the upwind wing > comes up just after the pilot tries to kick the crab out prior > to touchdown. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O8CjKBsCEo The last I heard, airliners like the one shown don't "kick out" the crabbefore touchdown. They touchdown in the crab, fully Ercoupe style. This pilot was not in control of the plane. At about one wingspan high, hewas drifting left so he lowered the right wing (too far) to correct. By thetime he reached the centerline, he had a right-ward vector that would havetaken him off the runway - so he raised the right wing (too far) tocompensate and the wind pushed him WAY too far left. Then, he dropped theright wing WAY too far to compensate and something sprays back from eitherthe right wingtip touch or right engine blast just above the ground.Finally, the pilot does the go around and, we presume, gets it right on thenext try.> The Ercoupe displays that same characteristic even when landing in a > crab because you must steer downwind after touchdown to keep the > aircraft from weathervaning further into the wind on landing rollout. This would be true if you land too fast. As Fred Weick emphasized,touchdown should be at the minimum possible speed.In gusty conditions, I did add airspeed to my normal final approach speed.But, I found that even in blustery, gusty conditions, once I got down to ayard or two high, the ground effect dampened any roll. I could slow theplane in low ground effect with confidence, raising the nose until I toucheddown at a fairly low speed.With the plane's gear properly maintained and the window sill level on theground, there's so little lift that wing lift isn't a problem. Combiningthat with Bob Sanders's procedure of stomping on the brake right aftertouchdown to dump more speed, there's no problem with wing lift. The wingis at low angle of attack and is also well below flying speed.Taxiing at low speeds doesn't make for wing lift either.Not only was Bob Sanders the distributor of the Ercoupes when ERCO quitdoing so, but he was an aeronautical engineer on the design team and testpilot for the development of the Ercoupe. He knows that of which he speaks.Here are the words of Fred Weick and Bob Sanders:http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/coupe_landings.htm linked from my page: http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/coupe_flying.htm My strongest crosswind operations were in the close ballpark of 30 mphdirect crosswind or a bit higher with no problem. Been there (repeatedly),done that (repeatedly), got the T-shirt (several).Ed Burkheadhttp://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/index.htm East Peoria, Illinoised -at- edbur???khead.??com (remove the ? marks and change -at-to @) _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging. You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join
