A380 at Heathrow!!

[Brett_Henderson]

It wasn't a Boeing/Airbus thing.. it was just a bad landing..  It was kinda skeeery to see the nose-wheel firmly planted with air between the right main gear and the runway..

[beefhole]

One way or the other, I'll bet the pilot is gonna catch hell.  Regardless of the wind, these show pilots are supposed to be putting em down perfect every time-god forbid they make a "mortal" landing every now and then!

[expat]

Apart from watching the sequence in which the gear touched the ground, maybe a few people missed some other mitigating factors. How much of a crosswind was there?
A380, a rather big beastie. Not so effected by wind influence on landing (words of Air Bus), however did you notice that the rudder was at what looked like full right deflection once or twice and working in between as if its life depended on it.
Everyone is an armchair critic these days.

Matt

[Craig.]

[quote]One way or the other, I'll bet the pilot is gonna catch hell.

[Brett_Henderson]

Everyone is an armchair critic these days.

I suppose I'm guilty of that... But if the world's newest, biggest airliner makes one of its highly publicized landings on its nose-wheel..Someone not on the flight-deck is bound to notice.

[expat]

I suppose I'm guilty of that... But if the world's newest, biggest airliner makes one of it's highly publicized landings on its nose-wheel..Someone not on the flight-deck is bound to notice.

Point taken.

Matt

[Hagar]

Slightly off-topic but this reminds me that I read somewhere that it was impossible to land the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser on the main gear. It always landed nosewheel first* & it was commented that it must have a very strong noseleg. Captain OP Jones, the legendary chief pilot of BOAC at the time, resigned over it before being dismissed. He refused to continue flying it because he felt the aircraft was unsafe for this & other reasons.

I can't find the article & this is the only suitable photo I can find right now.


*PS. The inability to flare on landing was apparently caused by wing spoilers the CAA (Civil Aeronautics Administration) had insisted on. The problem was resolved when these were eventually removed. http://www.ovi.ch/b377/articles/lady/

[Hagar]

I found the Stratocruiser article I mentioned. It makes interesting reading. http://www.ovi.ch/b377/articles/speedbird/

From an article by Tony Spooner DSO DFC published in

[expat]

[quote]I found the Stratocruiser article I mentioned. It makes interesting reading. http://www.ovi.ch/b377/articles/speedbird/

From an article by Tony Spooner DSO DFC published in