A high pucker factor 747-8 landing
- Thread starter slo town
- Start date
I am glad to hear your input on this pilot. I have flown general aviation my whole adult working life and the biggest plane I have flown are the Cessna Citation series of business jets. It looks to me like he is way overworking the controls for dramatic effect..
I just looked them up. They build fencing to protect workers, define sidewalks, that kind of thing. It’s not built to reduce the wind at airports.
It is simply a wind resistant version of regular old fence.
If you go back and look at the video, the roughness, the wind, exists at several hundred feet high.
In order for this to make any difference, it would have to be several hundred feet high to block the wind around the airport. And then it’s too high to fly over and still land.
Worse, by blocking the wind that high, the wind will swirl over the edges, creating vertical eddies in the wind current, which we call windshear.
So instead of the turbulence created by constant wind, that has gusts, and interacts with terrain and buildings, you have the turbulence created by unpredictable wind in the form of swirling current that travels vertically over the wall.
Which is way worse.
We have been flying commercial airplanes for almost 100 years. If building a wall around the airport helped with winds, don’t you think somebody might’ve tried it by now?
The biggest problem with Narita is that it's 50 miles outside of town and the quickest way to and from Tokyo (express train) still takes about an hour.
Like Reagan vs. Dulles.
Haneda is completely landlocked. No room for expansion, and not nearly enough runway or ramp space for the traffic.
I’m still wondering where the Japanese could build an airport for Tokyo that is “less windy“
Here is another thought on the “Wind Fence” - it would make some situations much, much worse.
For example, an aircraft is flying with a 20 knot headwind.
In normal circumstances, it lands with that 20 knot headwind, though minor variances in headwind might happen at touchdown, it’s predictable, and controllable. The airplane is flying through the air at normal speed, but the ground speed is 20 knots slower. This is SOP, and we do it all the time.
But, with the “wind fence” - as the airplane crosses from headwind, to zero wind, it would lose 20 knots. A huge loss of lift, in fact, worse than the threshold definition of windshear, which is 15 knots. The crew may not be able to add enough thrust to compensate - and would crash - at the very least, the landing would be very hard.
So - the “wind fence” would actually become the “windshear inducing cause of crashes”. Not good at all. A fence that creates windshear in strong winds would cause crashes.
In the case of this video - which likely had winds near 40 knots, a loss of that wind via the “wind fence” would create an unsurvivable loss of airspeed, at low altitude, when the airplane was slow.
Then, every landing would look like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191
Very few survivors.
Put another way - consistent wind is no problem. Gusty winds are a bit of a challenge. Huge changes in wind cause crashes. Unstable approaches cause crashes.
No wind fences - because, unless you can build them with a height of over 500 feet, they would cause huge changes and unstable approaches.
For example, an aircraft is flying with a 20 knot headwind.
In normal circumstances, it lands with that 20 knot headwind, though minor variances in headwind might happen at touchdown, it’s predictable, and controllable. The airplane is flying through the air at normal speed, but the ground speed is 20 knots slower. This is SOP, and we do it all the time.
But, with the “wind fence” - as the airplane crosses from headwind, to zero wind, it would lose 20 knots. A huge loss of lift, in fact, worse than the threshold definition of windshear, which is 15 knots. The crew may not be able to add enough thrust to compensate - and would crash - at the very least, the landing would be very hard.
So - the “wind fence” would actually become the “windshear inducing cause of crashes”. Not good at all. A fence that creates windshear in strong winds would cause crashes.
In the case of this video - which likely had winds near 40 knots, a loss of that wind via the “wind fence” would create an unsurvivable loss of airspeed, at low altitude, when the airplane was slow.
Then, every landing would look like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191
Very few survivors.
Put another way - consistent wind is no problem. Gusty winds are a bit of a challenge. Huge changes in wind cause crashes. Unstable approaches cause crashes.
No wind fences - because, unless you can build them with a height of over 500 feet, they would cause huge changes and unstable approaches.
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From 2004 through 2015 I used fly as a passenger every 2 months from DTW to NRT and return. My flights for that route were all on Boeing 747-400 aircraft operated by Nothwest then Delta after the merger.
It was not uncommon to have some turbulence on final approach into NRT and occasionally we would be on the ends of an approaching or departing typhoon. Being a Part 91 GA pilot, I have always been interested in the weather capability and operation of the commercial air transport aircraft which I will never pilot myself. On all those flights, I never experienced anything but a well executed approach and landing by the flight crews. Not always smooth as some might like but I never felt my safety was at risk. Some days the crew earned their pay a little more.
I suspect the 747-400 is a very capable aircraft with respect to it ability to operate in moderate turbulence and variable gusting winds for landing and departures when operated by well trained and experienced flight crew.
I would trust the pilot shown in the video is the exception to the rule.
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