Glad I wasn't on this plane. I would have been a bit shaken up I think. Was this you by any chance Dan ?
Some lovely flying there. Any landing that you walk away from is a good one. Winds look quite strong, certainly a cross wing possible variable speed. Camera angle doesn’t really show the approach very well.
I can feel the sweat beading as I remember arriving into Katmandu in 1987. Changed planes at Karachi and boarded an old 707 that would not have been certified outside of the Indian subcontinent. The pilot was a Biggles character complete with waxed moustache and obviously ex Pakistani air force. Anyway, dense cloud over mountains all round Katmandu and nav systems up front akin to dead reckoning did not inspire confidence. Dropped rapidly in thick cloud then stood on one wingtip still dropping fast. Cloud parts and I am staring at terraced agriculture maybe 800' below (much as non operational air despatch/parachute height) then flip horizontal and smokey brake, full reverse time. Colleagues on the ground just said. "S**t! How was it? We thought you were crashing." Reply was a mumbled "Where can I clean up?"
Landing @ Canberra airport can be very similar, there are two hills , one either side of the aerodrome, so Pilots fly between them to assess the cross winds and then turn around and get their approach run set ! This can mean wings vertical for some turn a rounds !! It' like doing 180° Knee Down at @ 1000 feet it's exhilarating for Bikers ! But some of the more reluctant flier's might find it extremely unsettling !!! Too say the least ! I've done Canberra twice, and both flights and landings were 180° vertical turns in !!
Count me in for a bit of that capt. only really had one very windy landing at Manchester and I was able to see the runway out of the window the plane was so far sideways. I reckon the bloke behind me thought he was holding the flight controls cos he was twisting my seat trying the get the plane lined up to land. Leeds/Bradford is especially windy, plenty of vids on you tube of that place.
Haha! Routine in the Falklands, especially when the go around and abort is Montevideo. Makes for ‘determind’ landings!
Sorry Andy, saw this thread 2 years too late... Did not ping me and got lost in the thread-mill Anyway: I was with TUIfly, not Air Berlin, but we also had lots of flights to Funchal... Always a challenge since this is a cloud breaking procedure, followed by a visual approach with prescribed flight track according to prominent landmarks (like „ice factory“). Whenever the wind is coming down from the mountains it gets quite tricky. Was one of our few ‚captain‘s landing only‘ airports. There is no real overrun neither. This field is more like an immobile aircraft-carrier
@Winglad is this quite common at Madeira? That must be vicious hitting it side on with all the momentum still going forward. Have you had any similar?
Yes Eric, I did. Even though, the final in this video would be deemed an „unstable approach“ which calls for a „go around“ (missed approach“). If you are in a right turn to final and overshoot as drastically, as he did, having to correct with another 45 degree turn on short final, you are way out of the targeted envelope. The psychological term for this is „commitment to land“. It is always safer to commence a go around and do it a second time, even though the passengers might not like it. It‘s just the safer cause of action. And as a civilian pilot, you are not part of an air raid... But this happens all the time. Hence the video. (Nevertheless my respect to the pilot flying. He fixed it up beautifully and finished with a safe touch down in the landing zone!) See: there is always this little difference between regulations and reality. And this is what a captain‘s job is for. If it goes wrong, his ass is grass. If not, all is smooth as silk. For this, you need folks who are committed to take responsibility. A rare virtue these days...
I once remember a major plane accident Crash in Portugal in dec 1991/2 I think it was. We were the next plane into the airport after the crash. What a sight that was. Debris everywhere and from the sky the broken up Plane just looked like a load of silver dustbins lying around until we hit the runway we realised it was a crash scene. That was unnerving.
I crashed a microlight about 35 years ago, I was very lucky to survive, just lacerations and some suspected cracked ribs. There was a monthly CAA magazine that published all aviation accidents in Britain, next to my little entry was another that stated microlight accident, hit cow on landing, fatal, as in the pilot.
I think i've told this tale on here before. Before I retired, one guy in the office was a member of a local Mountain Rescue Team. He got called out one day after reports that a microlight had crashed on Saddleworth Moor. It took more than 24 hours to find the pilot as he had sunk into the soft peat on impact.
